“On April 16, 2015, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals a possible future Apple TV remote that includes a touchpad/gesture pad that could operate in both gesture and character modes,” Jack Purcher reports for Patently Apple.
“The Apple TV remote really needs to be updated and if Apple is bringing new TV channel bundles to Apple TV this fall, then this new remote concept is one of the options that Apple may use if they don’t use Siri or other methodologies to control Apple TV this fall,” Purcher reports. “According to Apple, a touch sensor of an electronic device that may be used to navigate one or more presented lists may be operable in at least a gesture mode and a character mode.”
Purcher reports, “In the gesture mode, one or more touches detected by the touch sensor may be interpreted as gesture input (such as one or more taps, swipes, slides, touches, pinches, and/or any other combination of one or more touches interpretable as a gesture) for navigating the list.”
More info, including Apple’s patent application illustrations, in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Hmm. Current Sony 4K TVs are currently shipping with a more rudimentary touchpad remote. You can see it in action in this video:
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Bill” for the heads up.]
Apple already makes touch pad remotes!
Think about when Apple lets the programers make AppleTV apps and gaming remotes. iOS devices and customizable remotes could open up the next step in AppleTV apps!
And then deliver apps and content via all of those BILLION DOLLAR SERVER FARMS.
😉
Right. The AppleTV interface is not horrible. It would work well with a mouse. It’s using the remote that makes things ugly. A trackpad like the one in the new MacBook, but around the size of the remote would be cool.
To Ned’s point, the remote in the iPhone or iPad already offers rudimentary gesture support. This makes perfect sense, but should also be provided in a standalone remote that has battery lasting for more than a day or two.
Exactly. I suspect Apple would also build in full access to Siri by way of a noise cancelation microphone in the remote. We’ve been chattering around here at MDN about adding voice control to TV for at least a couple years.
I would also not be surprised to see Apple incorporate some of their 3D gesture recognition into the TV. Apple really has an overload of patented tech to pour into the TV at this point. Hopefully, they’re at the tipping point and we’ll start to see some of this in 2015.