Apple's Remote App Is Even Better Than We Thought
A couple weeks ago, I reviewed Apple's Remote app, which lets you use your iPhone or iPod touch as a remote for your Apple TV or for iTunes on a Mac or Windows PC--you get a touchscreen interface for controlling playback that looks nearly identical to the iPhone's iPod mode. By letting you quickly and easily browse through long lists of media--and even search for particular items--Remote provides a near-perfect solution for my biggest beef with the Apple TV: excruciatingly-slow list scrolling.
But in testing Remote for that review, I missed a feature--and it's a good one. You see, my other big interface beef with the Apple TV is that whenever you need to enter text--for example, a username, a WiFi password, or a YouTube search--you have to use the directional-arrow buttons on Apple's overly-simple remote control to move a tiny cursor around an onscreen keyboard, laboriously choosing each letter you want to enter. One attempt at entering a hex WiFi password was all it took for me to curse Apple for not letting me connect a keyboard to the Apple TV's USB port.
