This is not how you make a universal remote for the iPhone.
Don’t get us wrong. The ability to use your iPhone as a universal remote is functionality we’re all on board with, but if there’s any one cardinal rule to designing an accessory meant to do just that, it’s this: make it into something you either can’t lose even more easily than your remote, or something so unobtrusive or otherwise helpful that you’ll never really want to take it off your iPhone.
So, for example, this iPhone Universal Remote Case? It has the right idea. Same with the Unity Remote, which was a Bluetooth puck you just put on your coffee table and which would interact with an iPhone remote app to change the channels for you.
What you don’t do is what RyzMedia did with the My TV Remote: make your universal remote accessory an easy-to-lose, obtrusive, ludicrously colored dongle with the sleek design aesthetic of a deflated clown’s nose.
Luckily, actually buying one of RyzMedia’s My TV Remotes is largely an academic problem, as there is no price listed on their homepage, and the “buy” link on their website doesn’t actually work.
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
15 responses to “This Stupid Looking Dongle Will Turn Your iDevice Into A Universal Remote”
So you don’t like it?
is there any chance that you write something interesting someday?
uh John, methinks you overlooked oh so many details.
While I agree with the observation that a little dongle is easier to lose than a remote, the purchase is described in the App Store and in the App itself. You use in-app purchase to get the activation and a unit is shipped $9.99 inclusive of shipping.Â
Clearly, an app that controls a device that remains attached to something, preferably the TV/HT/DVD etc is preferable as it will not result in lost devices. But, for the price, it appears to be a pretty good option compared with the $100+ for other options out there. Perhaps with a lanyard, it might be less likely to get lost?
None.
Don’t bother correcting him Rob, he never listens and just continues to post nonsense. Me and everyone else on here have given up you should too.
 Why r u then still following his post….
Because, unfortunately, you can’t filter the CoM Twitter TL by author.
Griffin Beacon.