Siri Remote: New Design, Same Problems
Ever since the introduction of their touch functionality in the AppleTV remote, user experience has been forced to take a backseat to make way for “innovation”.
If you own a Siri Remote (October 2015 onwards) then you most likely have experienced the frustrations that I will be mentioning.
Innovation
The Siri Remote was to be a superior successor but perhaps too much haste or a lack of guidance (criticism) from the late Steve Jobs… allowed for what can only be described as an abomination of combining old technologies to make new “innovative” solutions to problems that seemingly don’t really exist!
Orientation
The first generation of the Siri remote must have been designed with no oversight or too much alcohol in the system… the orientation of the remote was difficult to determine in the dark and often the placement of the physical buttons combined with the wrong orientation would see you exit out of viewing content instead of pausing or resuming…
Navigation
When navigating menus, icons and inputs… the touchpad would often overshoot the intended object or character and if you’re attempting to operate this advanced piece of technology with any speed then you would find yourself in the wrong app, menu or typing the wrong thing often enough to cause mental anguish and animosity towards the device and those responsible for its conception!
Reputation
It seems the issues with the Siri Remote was not isolated or unique and that there were enough people struggling and hating on the design that it spurred on 3rd party alternatives to help bring back normality for those who wish to continue using an AppleTV without going insane!
I purchased this Button Remote for Apple TV as a replacement and it served me very well with absolutely no Siri button or touch interface… not to mention it also had a more traditional remote control look and feel and the orientation was very easy to determine when in the dark watching a movie.
There is a mention of the usability of the remote on the wiki page, they even indicated that a company using the AppleTV as a set-top box went out of their way to design and manufacture their own remote for potentially resolving usability issues…
Evolution
With the reputation obvious and alternatives rampant… Apple seemed to be listening to feedback and the general consensus that their first generation of the Siri Remote was not a fan favourite… time to evolve into something better!
It seems the design team were again not present or drunk… the second generation design for the Siri Remote attempted to address the issues and concerns of the first generation but why was this new version a disappointment?
They made the remote longer, they kept the buttons more prominently on one end, they even added directional buttons (well a ring with a mechanical feel that is possibly directional) so why was this not an evolutionary success?
The touch functionality still existed, this changed nothing when trying to navigate and overshooting targets or prevent the navigate while clicking issue…
The placement of the Siri button on the first generation was only annoying due to the orientation concerns and was occasionally pressed by accident… now the new and brilliantly placed location of the Siri button has made it the new hijack of my viewing button when I least expect or want it!
I am not sure who decided that their need to mute was important enough to have a dedicated mechanical button over keeping the Siri remote in a location least likely to be accidentally pressed while picking up the remote… Whoever they are, they’re not clever and certainly not a designer… or was drunk!
Harsh criticisms aside… I do respect the design team and feel that the majority of these issues with the first and second generation of the Siri Remote was not directly one person’s fault to own on their own and instead something that Apple needs to own and be ashamed of when considering the famous line “Designed by Apple in California” as this is starting to lose weight and become a meme for all things poorly designed…
Perfection
What was wrong with the second generation apple remote? (or even the first)
The design was simple and effective, sure the navigation issues are still a factor of software too but if any improvement was to be made here it should have been in the connectivity and software and not the design!
Modification
I am planning on opening up my second generation Siri Remote with intention of resolving the touch and Siri button placement concerns.
I suspect I won’t be able to resolve the touch issue as I suspect they might be using a combination of placement detection and mechanical button to know the direction of press… if this is the case then no luck! but I will try.
The Siri button placement will simply be an attempt to remove the button entirely or disable it from being able to send a signal to anything!
I will be posting a follow up on these modification attempts with photos, be sure to follow me for when this is published!
