Apple TV not remotely friendly

© Salt Mobile SA.

While Apple likes to tout its experience designs and user interfaces, it is not above your odd fail. Take Apple TV’s remote, which is a disaster of usability and intuitiveness. Sure, it’s understatedly elegant (and probably designed by Jonathan Ive), but you can’t tell its head from its tail in a darkened TV room. Cue Salt, a Swiss TV and Internet service based on Apple TV 4K. Rather than alienate its client base with the original Apple remote, the company decided to develop its own, which is both compatible with Apple TV, without any pairing or configuration, and very ordinary, i.e. easy to use even for dummies. Stranger still, the remote was developed in collaboration with Apple. If you live in Switzerland, you can purchase the remote for CHF19.95 (CAD26.5) in any Salt store, even if you don’t have the service.

⇨ Circuit Breaker, Chaim Gartenberg, “The Apple TV remote is so bad that a Swiss TV company developed a normal replacement.”

⇨ MacRumors, Tim Hardwick, “Swiss Fiber TV service ‘Salt’ launches alternative Apple TV 4K Remote Control For Frustrated Customers.”