Product designer Radu Dutzan has come up with something all Apple TV users have been dreaming of for quite some time – a better way to navigate Apple TV menus. Apple has been relentlessly adding new channels once every couple of weeks and each of them comes packed with still another set of options. The number of remote clicks that stands between you and your favorite content is getting painfully high and that is where Dutzan’s concept comes in.

He completely re-imagines the Apple remote (image on top). In addition to the basic Play/Pause, Stop and Menu buttons, Radu’s remote comes with a built-in touch pad. It feels somewhat like the Magicpad and the swipes work like what we’re used to on our iPhones and iPads. A flick will send the menu for an inertial scrolling, while short swipes scroll the options one-by-one. You really need to see the below video to capture it.

Since it isn’t possible to physically create such a remote now, Dutzan has developed an iOS app which AirPlays to your Apple TV and gives you an idea on how this would work.

This is nothing like the official Remote app, if that’s what is going through your mind now. In fact, if you have a developer account with Apple, you can try it out for yourself. You’ll find the code here at Github.

Besides the new remote, Dutzan also conceives how the Apple TV interface could be redesigned to take full advantage of the new navigation system and still stick to its iOS 7 translucent behaviours (image above). And it looks awesome!

You can read Dutzan’s whole article on Medium.

So what do you think? Do let us know in the comments below.

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Finally, Apple has decided to change the way your Apple TV interface looks. However, this might not be the redesign you’ve been dreaming of, since the new UI just brings a new set of icons and a new thinner font.

The picture on top shows the redesigned Home Screen. As you can see, the skeuomorphism (if I may say so) has been replaced with flat icons, pretty much similar to the transition from iOS 6 to 7. This iOS7-ization sees dropped shadows, absent reflections, modern looks and thinner fonts. Many channel icons now correspond to their iOS counterparts and sees the use of  “a whole new palette of colours“. You can go through a detailed gallery of the interface here at 9to5Mac.

Apple has been regularly releasing the beta versions of iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite and alongside, minor updates to Apple TV firmware are also being pushed out for testing the new iOS-Apple TV combo capabilities. So far, we know that the next major Apple TV update will be bringing Continuity features, peer-to-peer AirPlay and iCloud Family Sharing. The final version of the update will be available to non-developers sometime this fall.

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Alongside the release of iOS 7.1 beta, Apple has issued a new Apple TV software beta. The new beta specifically “enables users to mirror content of an iPad to an Apple TV using AirPlay.”

The update doesn’t go into too much detail to explain what this statement refers to, but I expect it is tackling some issues which have arisen from the recent enhancements to AirPlay on Apple TV as a result of the new iOS 6.0 firmware recently deployed to Apple TV.

If you’re a developer you can find the Apple TV software beta in the iOS developer center. Apple notes that this latest firmware is being provided to test the latest AirPlay functionality with iOS apps.

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