Because Apple has designed a specific type of capacitive touch-tracking technology to use in all of their products, which works best when your fingers can glide across it with as little friction as possible, to perform multi-touch gestures while still accurately tracking finger positions.
This includes the Magic Trackpad, MacBook, iPhone, and iPad. They all have glass trackpads.
Similar devices made with plastic or other materials develop friction over time, with wear, vs. glass.
Although a few materials exist which might work well on the remote, their design also requires translucency for devices with screens, making “glass” the most logical choice overall.
Apple decided to add a touch remote in an effort to make it easier to port touchscreen apps to tvOS. It makes some sense to use the same technology as every other device you manufacture, so that they work and feel the same.
But I hate that remote to no end, even though I understand the choices which made it a reality.
Source: former researcher at a major video streaming company.
CNachoZ on January 2nd, 2020 at 00:46 UTC »
I have the same remote, never cracked it. Then again i don’t have hardwood floors and i never leave it out BUT that sucks.
notluciferforreal on January 2nd, 2020 at 00:52 UTC »
To know when you drop it
dgamr on January 2nd, 2020 at 01:44 UTC »
Because Apple has designed a specific type of capacitive touch-tracking technology to use in all of their products, which works best when your fingers can glide across it with as little friction as possible, to perform multi-touch gestures while still accurately tracking finger positions.
This includes the Magic Trackpad, MacBook, iPhone, and iPad. They all have glass trackpads.
Similar devices made with plastic or other materials develop friction over time, with wear, vs. glass.
Although a few materials exist which might work well on the remote, their design also requires translucency for devices with screens, making “glass” the most logical choice overall.
Apple decided to add a touch remote in an effort to make it easier to port touchscreen apps to tvOS. It makes some sense to use the same technology as every other device you manufacture, so that they work and feel the same.
But I hate that remote to no end, even though I understand the choices which made it a reality.
Source: former researcher at a major video streaming company.