Hub Techno : Apple Redefines Remote Control — Now, It’s Your Cellphone

Promotional Image from Apple.com.

There’s a lot to say about the new Apple TV that Steve Jobs presented today. But I’m not going to talk about the tiny little box. Instead, I’m going to talk about that remote.

Actually, there are two remotes. The first is the little, minimalist, metal slab that will ship with the Apple TV.

The first iteration of Apple TV had the same little white infrared remote the company used to ship with laptops. It was great for clicking through a slideshow presentation. It wasn’t very good to keep around your living room, unless you stuck it in a bowl with your keys. It wasn’t a real remote, and most people hated keeping track of another remote anyway, especially one that got lost at the drop of a hat.

The new remote, released earlier this year and shipping with the new Apple TV, isn’t a lot different from that old white remote. It’s a nicer device. Like everything else Apple makes now, it’s longer, and it’s aluminum. It’s still got just six buttons: up, down, right, left, play/pause and menu.

But that minimalism seems almost smarter now. Apple now seems to be figuring out the exact number of hardware buttons it needs on each device. It took away too much on the iPod Shuffle, so now some buttons are coming back. It wanted to get rid of the buttons on the Nano, so it changed it to touchscreen.

For the Apple TV, it’s keeping the action on the screen, with the software interface. Make that easy to navigate, give people the exact options they need depending on context, and you don’t need dozens of buttons on the remote/media player/phone.

Maybe you don’t even need a remote, though. That’s because Apple TV’s second remote control is the Apple-made mobile device that Apple TV customers probably already own.

Seriously — what are the chances of someone buying Apple TV who doesn’t have an iPod, iPad or iPhone?

The App Store has offered a Remote app for iOS devices for a while now, but the new Apple TV might be the best use-case to show what an app-based touchscreen remote can do. Instead of digging through the couch for your DVD remote, you can pull out your phone from your pocket and press play. Instead of scrolling endlessly through a Netflix queue, you can search for a movie title using your iPad.

Apple TV has Netflix search built in. That’s a big, keyboard-dependent upgrade for those of us who stream Netflix through our game consoles. TiVo’s got a hardware QWERTY keyboard now. Apple’s right there with a software counterpart, with the iOS onscreen keyboard.

Then there’s AirPlay. This is the “ooh, aah” feature of the new Apple TV for folks who already love their multitouch iThings.

How it works:

1. Start watching a movie or TV show on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.
2. Tap the AirPlay icon and choose Apple TV.
3. Whatever you’re watching will instantly begin streaming to your widescreen TV.

So you can essentially perform much of your TV- and video-selecting activity on the touchscreen of your remote. You don’t even have to be in the same room as your television set: Just get the movie ready, walk up or down the stairs, then throw it on the screen of your choice. In theory, you could even carry the tiny Apple TV + HDMI + power cable around the house with you, too.

Some of these mobile remote features won’t be ready until iOS 4.2 ships in November. On its web site, Apple is advertising the Remote app for iOS right now and says AirPlay is “coming soon,” but Wired.com wasn’t able to use either in our hands-on.

Still, these features merely hint at what’s possible when your remote is essentially a portable touchscreen computer. What if you could shake your iPod to shuffle songs playing on your Apple TV?

What if you could get a commentary track to play out of your iPhone’s speaker while the main soundtrack played through your TV’s sound system — as if the director were sitting next to you on the couch? What if your iPad could take screenshots of a movie playing on your TV, which you could mark up and share with your friends on Twitter or Ping?

In his essay “Gin, Television and Social Surplus” — originally titled “Looking for the Mouse” — NYU professor Clay Shirky tells an anecdote I really like. His friend’s 4-year-old daughter was watching a DVD when she hopped up and began poking around behind the screen. “I’m looking for the mouse,” she said.

Shirky’s lesson: Even 4-year-olds know that a screen without a mouse — a screen that only displays content to you while you sit passively waiting for it — is essentially broken.

In 2008, that was profound. Now it almost seems silly. A TV screen, with a mouse? Attached with a cord? Your screen shouldn’t have a mouse. Your mouse — or remote — should have its own screen. Four-year-olds were so dumb back then.