iPhone as an all-in-one remote control

Dick Rucker (apparently) - 04:15pm Jan 15, 2007 PST
via email

Someone posted this comment in a message thread talking about Steve Job's keynote address:

> That's actually the Apple TV target. Rip your DVDs to disk, synch the
> file wirelessly to the Apple TV, and then have Apple TV play the content
> on your TV.

My replies follow:
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Now that is interesting! I'd love to get rid of those tall, skinny towers of DVD and CD cases standing by our entertainment center in the family room, as well as a closet-full of drawers filled with rotting VCR tapes.

I'd also like to find a way to avoid using the remote controls for our Sony digital TV and our Sony DVD/VCR player when we want to watch something. Neither Claudia or I have mastered the use of them, especially when we want to watch something with the lights dimmed low. The layout is confusing, not memorable, and I often end up pushing buttons blindly until what I am looking for happens.

If Apple has mastered controlling the display of content in a well- designed and easy-to-use remote, I can imagine all stored programs on a computer and wirelessly broadcasting the output to either an LCD display in the kitchen or to the Sony digital TV in the family room via AppleTV, one for each HDTV set.

Dick

Then a short while later I wrote:
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I just watched most of the iPhone intro by Steve Jobs via streaming video from the Apple server. The streaming failed just as he was finishing the call with Phil Shiller during which Steve sent a photo as an email attachment. I wasn't able to restart the stream to finish Steve's presentation, but I think I have the picture. I am impressed with its possibilities.

In the context of my previous message on the notion of replacing our collection of movies and music on CDs and DVDs with a central computer-based store plus AppleTV and a suitable HDTV monitor in the kitchen and a similar setup in the family room, it strikes me now that an iPhone -- or whatever Apple decides to name it when it is finally released 6 months from now -- incorporating an application to provide remote control of these two AppleTV-driven HD viewing centers would be just the thing. Steve made using the touch-screen controls look so simple that even my techno-phobic wife might learn to love it.

I can imagine starting the transition by getting one iPhone with TV remote control for an AppleTV box feeding our Sony HDTV set in the family room. It would be even better if the iPhone integrated software for the control of our Sony HDTV and our Sony DVD/VCR player as well. That way, we could put away their remote controls and use the iPhone.

Better yet would be additional software in the iPhone to control our digital Cox Cable interface box as well. Then all three big and hard-to-use remote controls that decorate the redwood coffee table in the family room could be put in a drawer and replaced with just the iPhone with its sweet 3.5" diagonal display and touch-screen controls.

Then while we are enjoying a warm wood fire burning in the fireplace, we could - watch some video or listen to some audio, live or pre-stored, and - I might occasionally read and respond to an email or to a phone call, or - answer some obscure question that occurs to one of us by googling for the answer using Safari, etc. all without getting up from the couch. It would just be Claudia and I with the iPhone as the master control.

I don't think it would take her long to request that I show her how. Once she gets the hang of it, I can imagine her then asking whether she might be able to do the same thing while using a smaller HDTV set in the kitchen.

Dick