AppleTV touch remote no longer scrubs

Question

AppleTV touch remote no longer scrubs

I got the new AppleTV when it can out & the best new feature while watching videos was the ability to slide left & right to scroll through content, or tap the left or right edge to jump forward or back. Now after a SW update, edge jumps still work, but scrubbing works once in a blue moon. I did a factory reset & the issue persists. The remote still recognizes left and right gestures because I can still navigate the home screen. Was this feature removed or is the software buggy about recognizing the gestures? Or could it be my remote its simple defective? This happens while watching video content on all apps I’ve tried.

MacBook Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.4), 16GB/2.6GHz Quad-i7

Posted on Apr 30, 2016 2:33 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Vinceassociate

Level 4

1,766 points

May 1, 2016 8:08 AM in response to Michael Ruiz2

Read and follow these directions:

http://help.apple.com/appletv/#/atvb7944597f

They changed the functionality in the last update.

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Answer 2

Taxes

Level 1

68 points

May 1, 2016 5:09 AM in response to Vinceassociate

Is your link supposed to be a jojke?? It sends you right back to this page. If you're going to help someone then help them properly.

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Answer 3

May 1, 2016 6:16 AM in response to Taxes

No joke but problem with this site not handling links correctly for some reason lately.

Here is the content:

Control what’s playing

Whether you’re watching a TV show or a movie, you’re in control.

Play or pause. Press the Touch surface or press the Play/Pause button

Show controls on the screen during playback. Press the Play/Pause button or rest your finger on the Touch surface. A status indicator appears showing elapsed and remaining time. The solid bar indicates how much of the item is cached (temporarily downloaded on Apple TV). You can still jump ahead of the cached area and begin playback from there.

Preview video on the playback timeline. During playback, press the Touch surface to pause playback and show the preview window, then swipe left or right to move back or forward in time. Press the Touch surface again to start playback at the new position, or press the button to cancel and resume playback at the original position.

Skip backward or forward 10 seconds. On the Touch surface, press left or right to skip backward or forward. Press again to skip another 10 seconds.

Rewind or fast forward. While playing, on the Touch surface, press left or right and hold to rewind or fast forward. Release to resume playback.

Get more info. Swipe down to show the Info panel. Swipe left or right to switch between panels.

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Answer 4

May 1, 2016 6:56 AM in response to Vinceassociate

Thank you. This was exactly the problem: you have to pause before scrubbing. I guess I missed the release note about that if there is one.

I wish this was on the remote operations page accessed from the main site & not buried somewhere, because the quoted content this still makes no mention of scrubbing.

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Answer 5

May 1, 2016 8:04 AM in response to Michael Ruiz2

Check out the link for the user manual on the main page. Unlike prior user manuals which were pdf files of the paper copy and was lacking in details, the ATV4 manual is a highly detailed interactive resource. I spent some time and read it and found it very useful.

I wish I could post the link but in the past few days, these links just take you in circles on this web site. Prior to that links to the manual worked perfectly.

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Answer 6

May 1, 2016 8:08 AM in response to Vinceassociate

Without a link “main page” is too vague. The AppleTV sales/info page? That is a mess for finding actual post-sales info. I could find the manual yesterday under help.apple…, but now I can’t.

Nevermind. I had to search for it using “AppleTV Manual” and go to this: http://help.apple.com/appletv/#/atvb7944597f (but this link is messed up by this forum. so if anyone else find this, copy and paste it into the browser.) The manual itself doesn’t actually mention the scrubbing feature. So, I take it Apple decided to un-document it.

(Man this site is like going into Windows Control Panes—A spaghetti mess of pages)

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Answer 7

May 1, 2016 8:26 AM in response to Michael Ruiz2

Your comparison to the navigation pane and the content is dead on to windows control panels.

The feature is under basics, control what playing.

They do not use the scrubbing term probably because to most users it involves brushes and soap unless you do video editing.

On the release notes, they have always been sparse.

The feature was changed since many people would be watching a movie and reach for the remote to adjust the volume or for a drink and scrub to another spot in the movie and get frustrated.

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Answer 8

May 1, 2016 9:35 AM in response to Vinceassociate

Yeah, I read that & the description is “swipe left or right to move back or forward in time” is clear, but only if understand what will happen when you do that. This could mean that the AppleTV will jump forward and back instead of (key)frame by (key)frame. The technical term “scrubbing” should also be next to it so (a) when people with any knowledge search for “scrubbing” they can find it, & (b) people who’ve used video players with jog shuttles in the 80s & 90s (which was most mid-level and up VCRs by the time they went out of style) & audio or digital video players would have probably picked up the term by now (reinforcing point “a”, & (c) users can learn the correct terminology to use so they don’t say “I’m trying to slide it back and forth” which leads to the other person confused as to what is being talked about. Part of the reason there is “jargon” is so people know exactly what someone else with the lingo is talking about without having to use a bunch of imprecise words to try to describe precise things.

Anyway, thanks for the initial link (it did work when pasted—I’m guessing Apple support communities redirects all URLs to the same page to prevent link spamming). Had the above been done, I would not have had to come to communities in the first place. I consider having to go to communities a sign of documentation and/or organizational failure considering the answer is there, but unreachable unless you know the way Apple’s technical editor chose to describe it & can use the magic words to make the full instructions appear.

What’s funny is hyperlinks were invented to link related documents together & so a person could go on infinite knowledge dives. But now that search engines control all access, & inter-document links are limited to the very basic, it kind of defeats the purpose of hyperlinks if there are none where they should be and documents are viewed as static page dead ends.

If Apple was smart, they’d dedicate a chunk of their resources analyzing queries & building synrings so “swipe left or right in a video to move forward or backward in time” will also have the technical term associated to the “ui control::playback::scrub” node (or something similar), and they could apply that knowledge for synring building heuristics and improve other search products—like that one they keep trumpeting but fails miserably at understanding speech because it’s only expecting basic questions. But that is another matter.

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Answer 9

May 1, 2016 9:53 AM in response to Michael Ruiz2

Actually jargon or acronyms are short hand for two people who have intimate knowledge of a subject to save time communicating. The problem with using them with people who are not knowledgeable in the subject is either they completely miss the point or worse they repeat the jargon without knowing what it means. It is actually funny watching two or more people trying to use these terms (to impress each other) when neither understands them.

Personal Experience: We were discussing a products "thermal event" while 80% of the people in the room were getting a nice warm feeling and smiling. When I broke all the double speak rules and explained the thing caught on fire the 80% got it and bug eyes were all around.

By the way, don't bother using Apple's search field to find relevant information on the web site. It produces frustratingly poor results. Using Google search and simply picking the Apple links is much faster and relevant.

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Answer 10

May 1, 2016 11:06 AM in response to Vinceassociate

Hello Vinceassociate,

I know you're as frustrated by these bad links, as I am. I've just learned that the difference is that only https links work. I've edited some of my bookmarks to use https and, at least on Apple sites, they remain https, and they work properly when posted. They don't update the titles like the support pages, but they at least work. Thot you'd like to know...

Cheers

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