This is an inane rationale. It's highlighted because it's useful and simple. It's simple because it's obvious and it's useful because it's common. Apple highlight all manners of changes in their software and those changes or enhancements don't regularly correlate with their patent portfolio.
Indeed. If Apple highlighted it in a keynote, it should have licensed the functionality from CustomPlay years ago? That post assumes facts not in evidence.
While I don't know how common this feature is, that Apple chose to highlight it along with other features of tvOS is indicative of nothing more than Apple noting a selling point.
If this is patentable, then could I file for a "method for ordering food when a person says they are hungry" or "a method for turning on lights when someone says 'I can't see'"?
This would be like Thomas Edison filing for a patent on the light bulb, based not on thousands of experiments but on the vague notion that a hot filament would probably generate light.
No, because those patents were filed based off of a physical principle, at least.
In this case, the equivalent of this patent for T. Edison would be to file a patent that says that you can remotely control a light source by turning it off and on. That is it.
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*computer’s case starts spontaneously glowing*
“I did it! I DID IT!”
*glows brighter*
“Wait…”
While I don't know how common this feature is, that Apple chose to highlight it along with other features of tvOS is indicative of nothing more than Apple noting a selling point.