As far as what? The 4th generation still has the same remote as it has been
using.
Take Care
John D. Panarese
Director
Mac for the Blind
Tel, (631) 724-4479
Email, john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Website, http://www.macfortheblind.com
APPLE CERTIFIED SUPPORT PROFESSIONAL and Trainer
AUTHORIZED APPLE STORE BUSINESS AFFILIATE
MAC and iOS VOICEOVER TRAINING AND SUPPORT
On Jan 9, 2018, at 12:35 PM, Martin McCormick <martin.m@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Has anything changed in the functionality of the small
touch-screen remote used with the AppleTV? I worked very hard on
a project at our house to setup a DVR application to let us
record TV shows to watch later. I got the recording part working
almost 2 years ago and then hit the wall.
After installing vlc on AppleTV, it was possible to play
the recorded shows just fine. Siri can be used to skip forward
and backward in a program to help in skipping ads and all was
sweetness and light except for one big issue.
Just touching the remote to pick it up can many-times
initiate the "drop down" mode of operation which I absolutely
hate. You suddenly realize it when you tell siri to move forward
2 minutes or whatever and she responds "I'm sorry. I don't know
how to do that."
This proves that we are light years away from artificial
intelligence and, as far as I know, there is no way to let the
system know not to interpret the pickup as go "drop-down."
Apple equipped the remote with accelerometers and tilt
sensors for all kinds of neat applications, none of which are
even operational at present. It would seem to me that there
should be ways to turn on or off certain responses to prevent
what amounts to a surprise change in operating mode.
For example, if it goes "drop-down" and you were to shake
it quickly, it could interpret that as undo and go back to
regular play mode.
What happens in impromptu dropdown is that all the
functions change and you almost always loose your place and have
to go back to the beginning of the program and hope not to screw up
and do whatever swipe causes this horrible mode to start.
My wife does not use assistive technology but like most
human beings, she doesn't like it when stuff just spontaneously
decides to foul up like this.
Right now, the dvr project languishes unused because it
is no fun at all to use.
Has anything changed that anybody knows about to allow
one to lockout certain functions temporarily? That could totally
bring things back to life.
I do have xcode on a Mac but if you write an application
for AppleTV and "side load" it in to the device, the OS deletes
it in 7 days so one would have to keep poking it back in to use
it that way.
You can also jail brake devices to let them truly shine
but that has it's own issues when it comes to upgrades and
maintenance.
The best solution would be a "forget last" command such
as that sudden shake which would be at the operating system level
so it wouldn't matter what application was running. It would be
sort of like "Previous Channel" in which the TV always remembers
what channel it was last on so you can return to it if you want.
It's a new year and time to revisit old problems to see
if anything has improved.
Thanks for any ideas.
Martin McCormick
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