A couple days ago we wrote a nice, healthy rant about the awful state of television controls. Now Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh (also known as Queen Elizabeth’s husband), has joined the cause. Speaking to Britain’s Channel 4, the duke went on a rant of his own again the complexity of modern television operation. I’m not saying for sure that he reads TechCrunch, but I’m saying he definitely should be, it’s apparently right up his alley.
The reason for the interview was that it’s the 50th anniversary of the Prince Philip Designers Prize, an award given by Britain’s Design Council to celebrate elegant design. When asked if the state of design was deteriorating in some ways, the duke agrees and immediately starts his rant against television design (about 6:50 in to the video below).
Some of the best bits of the interview aren’t in the video, but are highlighted in the BBC article about it. At one point, the duke says, “To work out how to operate a TV set you practically have to make love to the thing.” And speaking specifically about remote controls, he says, “And why can’t you have a handset that people who are not 10 years old can actually read?” My thoughts exactly in noting that remote controls these days are Fisher Price-like.
Overall, it’s an interesting discussion about the move away from exceptional design and towards more functional and in some cases, convoluted design, especially in technology. What I want to know is, if the the 88-year-old Duke of Edinburgh understands that modern television controls are awful, why don’t the cable companies who are now largely in control of the interaction between you and the television?
The answer is that they do, but they just don’t care. And by most accounts the situation is much worse in the U.S. than in Britain because here the FCC has seemingly decided that they’re fine with a lack of competition in the marketplace.
[thanks Steven]
Do you really need to give those useless tax-money-stealing jobless prats any attention? The “Royals” need slaughtered or something.
lol… be nice…
The Queen is the UKs biggest welfare drawer
you’re right. at least if he was gay, or if the queen would release some bizarre GMILF vids, they would be of some use. boring royals -> to burn.
btw great article, really adds to the elevated quality levels here
They tried that in France and it didn’t work out so well ( http://en.wikip...Reign_of_Terror ).
@Michael
I’m no monarchist but the royals contribute more in terms of tourism and also the rent on the land they own – than they cost the taxpayer, by a considerable factor.
Hey @Paul, I ‘m greek and i can assure you dead kings make lots more money
“The “Royals” need slaughtered or something.” Are you illiterate? Please engage brain before touching your keyboard.
Suggesting that the heads of a country be murdered is pushing your right to freedom of speech to the limit. I hope your IP address gets picked up, men in black turn up and flog you until you cry like the pathetic anonymous twat that you are.
filthy sadist bastard!
tv’s need a beeper to tell you where the remote is.
Maybe we could have an IR port in the CrunchPad to actually build a nice remote?
The ideal remote wouldn’t use IR at all…
Hi,
The Royals – Always ahead of their time!
The problem for the CE manufacturers is that they pander to the ignorance of the masses with function-creep, people think more buttons = more features.
Rather than hiding most functions that aren’t going to be used 90% of the time in the On-Screen menu, esp. all those for set-up.
The Sky+/Phillips remote is actually really elegant for the range of functions provided, though it’s proprietary.
Now the television manufacturing company that thinks like Apple in design aesthetic, but with the pricing, tech. and distribution of LG, could really make a difference.
Yours kindly,
Shakir Razak
P.s.
Do you want to delete that comment above about slaughtering people who have already had previous attempts on their life?
This is totally off-topic, but I just noticed a very very tiny smiley face at the bottom of TC pages (below the footer). Was it always there?
Well, I’ll be damned, you’re correct sir.
WordPress Stats.
I know you likely don’t care, but you shouldn’t say “At one point, the duke” when he is in fact a Prince.
He’s Prince Phillip, the Duke of Edinburgh. Technically speaking, the correct term is “his Royal Highness”.
One would have thought the old chap would have a butler or footman or someone to change the channel for him. I mean, what’s the point of being a Royal if you have to do these menial jobs yourself?
The Duke sounds remarkably lucid and has some pretty relevant and astute views on design, particularly for an 88 year old.
Ahh Prince Philip.. http://www.bizf...ate-posted.html
The relevance on design as is with remote’s certainly need to be user friendly such with other complex interfaces its one of more things that does not look right from the bulky one’s in the past to button graphical screen infrared whatchamacallit neucense nuisance.
I have trouble with my own remote Prince Philip iseu reference to the design clearly can be seen as a lost of opportunity in good designing remote.
I like it when Prince philips speaks about the need for clear and functionel design and we all know the need for this. Thats why the Ipod for example is a succesful design its gracieus and functionel.
“an interesting discussion about the move away from exceptional design and towards more functional and in some cases, convoluted design, especially in technology”
More convoluted you have me, but exceptional design is more functional by definition: “it just works [functions]” and is really pretty too.
anyone still care about the Brits?
Yes, plenty. Unless you think a whole nation has nothing to contribute. It’s Brits who designed the Psion computers (best pocket device by a mile before the iPhone) like the Psion 5. And the head designer at Apple is a Brit. Oh that’s right, you were just trying to discredit someone who is sharing their opinions on something. Which by the way he’s exactly right. Not bad for an 88 year old.
I like V+ (cable DVR box in the UK) but they could learn a thing or two about design. Like wasted space in the TV Guide (they have 2 lines of text trying to explain how to use the thing!). Then you press TV and it shows the Mini TV Guide instead of just showing the TV. And you have a button for the TV Guide, but you actually have to press two buttons to view it every time. List goes on.
As good as the Psions may have been, it looks really bad that that’s the main thing you could think of that justifies our existance.
Psion…what a piece of crap (as Lisa Lampanelli would say). Its design is so flawed that the tape connecting keyboard to screen always cracks even under light use, resulting in what the community calls, “prison bars” on the screen. Ask anyone who ever owned one, or penny-google it. I threw mine in the trash, since no one on eBay wouldn’t touch it, and I couldn’t fix it anywhere.
You’re right, but the screen-ribbon cable is the only flaw I can recall with that device. When I mention Psion I mean in terms of overall design – which is the topic of conversation. The whole hardware/software package was designed from the ground up to be used by anyone. The keyboard was the best by a mile. The EPOC software was rock solid. Even the object embedding was well designed and useful. If you like I’ll use the Series 3a as the example though – I don’t remember any noticeable flaws with that one and many actually preferred it. The point is all their hardware/software was designed to be used, little fuss, very Applesque.