New Siri Remote touch behavior inconsistent, cause unknown

AppleInsider

The new Siri Remote for the Apple TV 4K is causing problems for some users, with the new circular gesture periodically not scrubbing through media as advertised.

The update to the Apple TV introduced a new design of Siri Remote that uses a circular trackpad, as well as a new gesture that turns the trackpad into a large scroll wheel. By using a circular motion around the edge of the trackpad, users can scrub forward and back through content.

However, posts to Twitter and Reddit show users trying out the gesture but getting unexpected results. Even using the tap and hold method, waiting for the proper user interface affirmation of the gesture, one complete circuit of the trackpad scrubs through a video timeline in one direction, then returns it back to where it was previously.

Anyone else having weird scrolling behavior with the new #AppleTV4K and Siri Remote? When I try to scroll on the new clickwheel it keeps scrolling back and forth. Happens on several apps like #DisneyPlus and #Netflix apps. Did you also see this during your review @Andrew_OSU ? pic.twitter.com/VfIOzQNuOP

-- David Kurz Durchhalten (@kurze_info)

May 23, 2021

In testing, AppleInsider encountered the same issue with the Siri Remote. The problem isn't limited to one specific app, with it affecting all video apps in the same way.

AppleInsider also found the remote to be inconsistent when trying to invoke the jogging behavior in the first place.

If this is a system-wide bug, it is likely Apple will have some form of fix for the issue as part of a future tvOS update.

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stuartf

 was beginning to think it was me and "a holding it wrong" moment

I'm seeing exactly this behavior. Workaround at the moment is a partial circular motion, lift and repeat

cg

He is using the pad to scrub NOT the wheel. Pick up your finger put it on the wheel and pause until a little circle appears then start scrubbing on the wheel.

stuartf

CG said:

He is using the pad to scrub NOT the wheel. Pick up your finger put it on the wheel and pause until a little circle appears then start scrubbing on the wheel.

Thanks. I will try that. I have not noticed a wheel appear so far. I didn't know it required a wait action

appleish

Yeah, that's fixable. But the annoyingly loud click of the buttons are not. With the old remote, I could quietly adjust the volume. That's over.

And why the hell did they move the play/pause button up one? They should have left it and the Siri button where they were and put the mute button on the side.

And speaking of the mute button. Really? Why would you mute rather than pause whatever you are streaming? You'd just have to scrub back to the point where you muted. That button is absolutely useless to me and until muscle memory learns that they moved the play/pause button up one, I will be muting the damn system by accident.

This remote is better in many ways, (it feels great, I love cutting on/off my ATV box/Receiver/TV with one button) but is so baseline annoying in others.

edited May 2021

cg

Appleish said:

Yeah, that's fixable. But the annoyingly loud click of the buttons are not.

And why the hell did they move the play/pause button up one? They should have left it and the Siri button where they were and put the mute button on the side.

And speaking of the mute button. Really? Why would you mute rather than pause whatever you are streaming? You'd just have to scrub back to the point where you muted. That button is absolutely useless to me and until muscle memory learns that they moved the play/pause button up one, I will be muting the damn system by accident.

This remote is better in many ways, but is so baseline annoying in others.

I have already muted so many times already when I meant to pause. However, while agree for watching content pausing makes more sense, I am strangely addicted to a Sudoku app that has the most annoying music playing and turning down the volume was very annoying so I will just get used to it. A music "off" setting in the app would have fixed my only need for the mute button.  I also, don't really see a need for the power button, it was just a long press and enter to turn everything off before (including a TV that used IR). Watching my mother use the old Apple remote probably explains most of Apple's decisions - it confuses her in a way that I can't seem to get her past

iadlib

Yeah I noticed this the other day. Surprising given that at least the packaging for these Apple TV units look like it was created before HomePod mini given a full size HomePod icon on the back of the box. Makes me think these have just been sitting in a warehouse. 

robpco

Appleish said:

And why the hell did they move the play/pause button up one? They should have left it and the Siri button where they were and put the mute button on the side.

And speaking of the mute button. Really? Why would you mute rather than pause whatever you are streaming? You'd just have to scrub back to the point where you muted. That button is absolutely useless to me and until muscle memory learns that they moved the play/pause button up one, I will be muting the damn system by accident.

I completely agree that moving the play/pause button was a strange decision. It has been a UX nightmare for me.

edited May 2021

strangedays

First let me say this remote is so much better than the previous shit design. But, they messed up by placing Mute where Play/Pause used to be, in the bottom position. It’s much easier to operate a bottom position button blindly by feel, than to cognitively navigate the finger to Play/Pause above it. This is dense. 

As for the circular jog dial, it’s a different gesture than left & right scrubbing. You have to activate the jog dial mode, and you know you’ve done so when the timeline has a “circle” icon on it. Otherwise you’re just operating the normal left & right scrubbing. 

Thus this sounds like user error. 

auxio

StrangeDays said:

As for the circular jog dial, it’s a different gesture than left & right scrubbing. You have to activate the jog dial mode, and you know you’ve done so when the timeline has a “circle” icon on it. Otherwise you’re just operating the normal left & right scrubbing. 

Thus this sounds like user error. 

I wouldn't call it an error.  Just a behaviour people will have to learn.

A lot of people are used to DVD and Blu-ray players where actions are immediate because the video is coming from a local source (so the only delay is for the hardware to react).  The problem with streamed video is that it typically needs to pull down more information from the internet to allow you to scrub the video.  Hence the added wait time.

gregoriusm

Appleish said:

Yeah, that's fixable. But the annoyingly loud click of the buttons are not. With the old remote, I could quietly adjust the volume. That's over.

And why the hell did they move the play/pause button up one? They should have left it and the Siri button where they were and put the mute button on the side.

And speaking of the mute button. Really? Why would you mute rather than pause whatever you are streaming? You'd just have to scrub back to the point where you muted. That button is absolutely useless to me and until muscle memory learns that they moved the play/pause button up one, I will be muting the damn system by accident.

This remote is better in many ways, (it feels great, I love cutting on/off my ATV box/Receiver/TV with one button) but is so baseline annoying in others.

There are times when I want to view what is on screen without hearing the sound. And just turning the volume down to zero takes a long time compared to the immediacy of a mute button. Also, if one has children, sometimes it is useful for them to watch the TV with the volume muted for mom or dad’s sake. Again without having to wait 30 seconds for the volume to go down to zero. 

The mute button is very much welcomed. 

rabelais

Appleish said:

Yeah, that's fixable. But the annoyingly loud click of the buttons are not. With the old remote, I could quietly adjust the volume. That's over.

And why the hell did they move the play/pause button up one? They should have left it and the Siri button where they were and put the mute button on the side.

And speaking of the mute button. Really? Why would you mute rather than pause whatever you are streaming? You'd just have to scrub back to the point where you muted. That button is absolutely useless to me and until muscle memory learns that they moved the play/pause button up one, I will be muting the damn system by accident.

This remote is better in many ways, (it feels great, I love cutting on/off my ATV box/Receiver/TV with one button) but is so baseline annoying in others.

Yes, i would rather mute than pause in live programming commercial that I’m not allow to skip or fast forward through. 

itguyinsd

I wonder if it's related to a recent tvOS update?  I ask because our normal ATV Siri Remote has started acting irregularly.  The 10-sec skip-ahead rarely works, and frequently cannot move forward quickly by clicking the pad and swiping right.  Also when we click on the pad, the timeline has the "current time" in the wrong place, in other words, it looks like we are not current and can skip ahead, but we are, indeed, current already.

gaby

INSTRUCTIONS FOR SCRUBBING (Jog dial) - People are doing it wrong. All you need to do is pause whatever is playing and then gently touch and hold the perimeter of the wheel without moving for about half a second or so, and the scrubbing indicator will appear and you can begin rotating. It took me a minute or so to figure it out but it works consistently if you do it properly. Although I don’t find it any more useful really than scrubbing by sliding left and right. Hope this helps 

edited May 2021

mbenz1962

I think that this “inconsistent” behavior is a combination of user error/no documentation from Apple and that the various streamers out there have different “video players” (APIs ?) built in to their apps. This site was pretty helpful in understanding what to do to get the “circular scrubbing” (which the author of this article calls “rinsing” [maybe a translation error?]) to work. https://www.aroged.com/2021/05/23/siri-remote-2-fast-forward-and-rewind-on-apple-tv/

I did find that this article says that this scrubbing method doesn’t work with Netflix although it does in my case (Germany with a US account base). It also works with Prime and Apple’s native video player (AppleTV+ and iTunes Store purchases). I doesn’t work with Disney+ (yet?). I haven’t yet tried YouTube or any other streamers (HBO et al). 

japhey

Appleish said:

Yeah, that's fixable. But the annoyingly loud click of the buttons are not. With the old remote, I could quietly adjust the volume. That's over.

And why the hell did they move the play/pause button up one? They should have left it and the Siri button where they were and put the mute button on the side.

And speaking of the mute button. Really? Why would you mute rather than pause whatever you are streaming? You'd just have to scrub back to the point where you muted. That button is absolutely useless to me and until muscle memory learns that they moved the play/pause button up one, I will be muting the damn system by accident.

This remote is better in many ways, (it feels great, I love cutting on/off my ATV box/Receiver/TV with one button) but is so baseline annoying in others.

I don’t know if anyone else has this problem, but when I’m streaming something that contains commercials, I’m frequently forced to watch the same ad 3,4, sometimes 5 times in a row. Flo, Jake, Lilly, and all the happy big-Pharma actors loose all their charm when I’m forced to listen to them on repeat for 3 minutes straight. Again, maybe it’s just me, but that is the main reason why a mute button is both welcomed, and long overdue. However, I do agree that the placement of said button is a very curious decision that will require time to get used to. 

edited May 2021

strangedays

auxio said:

StrangeDays said:

As for the circular jog dial, it’s a different gesture than left & right scrubbing. You have to activate the jog dial mode, and you know you’ve done so when the timeline has a “circle” icon on it. Otherwise you’re just operating the normal left & right scrubbing. 

Thus this sounds like user error. 

I wouldn't call it an error.  Just a behaviour people will have to learn.

A lot of people are used to DVD and Blu-ray players where actions are immediate because the video is coming from a local source (so the only delay is for the hardware to react).  The problem with streamed video is that it typically needs to pull down more information from the internet to allow you to scrub the video.  Hence the added wait time.

No, that’s not the issue here. The jog dial gesture is a different operation mode than left & right scrubbing, which also use the outer ring surfaces. Two modes. Even when you have 100% buffered content you can demonstrate this. 

strangedays

Gaby said:

INSTRUCTIONS FOR SCRUBBING - People are doing it wrong. All you need to do is pause whatever is playing and then gently touch and hold the perimeter of the wheel without moving for about half a second or so, and the scrubbing indicator will appear and you can begin rotating. It took me a minute or so to figure it out but it works consistently if you do it properly. Although I don’t find it any more useful really than scrubbing by sliding left and right. Hope this helps 

Great instructions. But it’s IMO the action you’re describing is jog dialing, not scrubbing. Scrubbing we’ve had for years, it’s left & right based. Jog dial is circular. 

strangedays

rabelais said:

Appleish said:

Yeah, that's fixable. But the annoyingly loud click of the buttons are not. With the old remote, I could quietly adjust the volume. That's over.

And why the hell did they move the play/pause button up one? They should have left it and the Siri button where they were and put the mute button on the side.

And speaking of the mute button. Really? Why would you mute rather than pause whatever you are streaming? You'd just have to scrub back to the point where you muted. That button is absolutely useless to me and until muscle memory learns that they moved the play/pause button up one, I will be muting the damn system by accident.

This remote is better in many ways, (it feels great, I love cutting on/off my ATV box/Receiver/TV with one button) but is so baseline annoying in others.

Yes, i would rather mute than pause in live programming commercial that I’m not allow to skip or fast forward through. 

Sure, Mute has a function (tho it used to be long-press on Volume Down, which rapidly lowered volume). But the question is what deserves the bottom-button position, which is high-value as you can operate it instantly by touch in the dark. I’d argue Play/Pause is higher priority than Mute, and should get the spot. 

edited May 2021

japhey

StrangeDays said:

rabelais said:

Appleish said:

Yeah, that's fixable. But the annoyingly loud click of the buttons are not. With the old remote, I could quietly adjust the volume. That's over.

And why the hell did they move the play/pause button up one? They should have left it and the Siri button where they were and put the mute button on the side.

And speaking of the mute button. Really? Why would you mute rather than pause whatever you are streaming? You'd just have to scrub back to the point where you muted. That button is absolutely useless to me and until muscle memory learns that they moved the play/pause button up one, I will be muting the damn system by accident.

This remote is better in many ways, (it feels great, I love cutting on/off my ATV box/Receiver/TV with one button) but is so baseline annoying in others.

Yes, i would rather mute than pause in live programming commercial that I’m not allow to skip or fast forward through. 

Sure, Mute has a function (tho it used to be long-press on Volume Down, so it was there). But the question is what deserves the bottom-button position, which is high-value as you can operate it instantly by touch in the dark. I’d argue Play/Pause is higher priority than Mute, and should get the spot. 

Agreed. 

strangedays

mbenz1962 said:

I think that this “inconsistent” behavior is a combination of user error/no documentation from Apple and that the various streamers out there have different “video players” (APIs ?) built in to their apps. This site was pretty helpful in understanding what to do to get the “circular scrubbing” (which the author of this article calls “rinsing” [maybe a translation error?]) to work. https://www.aroged.com/2021/05/23/siri-remote-2-fast-forward-and-rewind-on-apple-tv/

I did find that this article says that this scrubbing method doesn’t work with Netflix although it does in my case (Germany with a US account base). It also works with Prime and Apple’s native video player (AppleTV+ and iTunes Store purchases). I doesn’t work with Disney+ (yet?). I haven’t yet tried YouTube or any other streamers (HBO et al). 

100% correct. Non-native crap apps, like YouTube, do not support native tvOS functionality. Jog Dial does not work in YouTube, just as other stuff doesn’t work work properly in YouTube (top pull down for audio or subtitle switching, normal scrubbing, etc). It’s a shit port of a click-based console app, and it shows. Jog Dial doesn’t work in it and probably never will until they make a native app.