I finally ordered a new television. All major reviews point to the Panasonic ST60 being the best, mid-range set at the moment. Supposedly the image quality is astonishing, and the only obvious downsides for me are the lack of HDMI ports, it only has three, and no socket for component cables, so I need a converter for my old, dying Xbox 360. Regardless, I’m sure I’ll be quite satisfied with the tv, although that won’t make me not rant a bit about how utterly shitty these sets are designed from a user experience perspective (and how sad it is that they now come with on-screen ads!).
Unlike the smartphone and PC market, there is no real focus on user-friendly and well-designed software or hardware among television sets. So since there are no competition (yet) what you get is a big-ass remote filled with buttons you’re never going to use and a horrendous, laggy so-called “SmartTV” experience that you’ll try your best to avoid.
I mean, just look at this:
I count 18 buttons that I’ll never use, but apart from the remote being filled with weird abbreviations, confusing icons, and redundant text, here’s one example of how utterly out-of-date and in need of a redesign the standard tv remote layout is: There is only one button for the AV inputs. I doubt I’m the only one who regularly uses gaming consoles, my Apple TV or similar devices, so why do I have to flip through all of the connected devices one by one to get to the one I need? You seriously could not fit in six buttons for direct access to my external devices? It baffles my mind that no one has done this yet.
And this, my non-existing blog reader, is the main reason I would love for the Apple TV to become a more integral part of the tv-watching experience, maybe even to the point where it becomes the main hub between your tv signal and what you see on the screen.