[HN Gopher] Blank turns your TV screen black until you press any...
___________________________________________________________________
Blank turns your TV screen black until you press any button on a
remote
Author : tambourine_man
Score : 102 points
Date : 2023-04-12 18:00 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (furbo.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (furbo.org)
| [deleted]
| post_break wrote:
| My receiver supports airplay and spotify so I can have the TV off
| while listening. But I suppose this is a decent hack.
| mlindner wrote:
| BTW, if you happen to have an OLED device, when you display a
| black image on your display, other than the electronics that run
| to render the image, it's equivalent to actually having the
| screen functionally off. Unlike an LCD display where dark versus
| white pixels use approximately the same power, on an OLED display
| black pixels use no power.
| mattmar96 wrote:
| This also applies to local dimming screens. Just tested it on
| mine and its fully dark.
| kingsloi wrote:
| I wish there was a button to temporally turn off video & sound,
| in 30 second increments, without losing the position of where you
| are (contrast/brightness -100%?), mainly to get around watching
| ads.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _mainly to get around watching ads_
|
| This is probably precisely why this feature won't find its way
| into a lot of new smart tvs
| jcalx wrote:
| I've always thought that a button to "blur" the video and audio
| (the latter using a low-pass filter or similar) would be a more
| effective way of doing this. You can still infer enough detail
| from the video and audio to know when the ads are over, but you
| wouldn't subject yourself to the higher-frequency, information-
| dense content of those ads.
| evandale wrote:
| This reminds me of an Arduino project I started but never
| finished! I bought an IR LED and made a dumb TV remote webapp
| that could change the volume and channels and mute the TV and
| had the mute time be 30 configurable. The Arduino just sat on
| my coffee table pointing at the TV and was connected to my
| wifi.
|
| I ultimately wanted to detect how loud my TV was and lower the
| volume automatically when I watched Avengers or something
| because I was constantly fiddling with the volume when some
| parts were excessively loud. I wanted to extend this to ads too
| so that when they came on my TV would mute automatically but I
| got the microphone and kinda lost passion for the project.
| rtsil wrote:
| Some TVs (LGs for instance) allow you to turn off the screen
| while keeping the audio on. Perfect for podcast or songs.
| basicoperation wrote:
| Sony Bravia also allows this.
| Arrath wrote:
| Yeah, a dedicated button right on the remote for it. Love it,
| comes in very useful.
|
| It was also handy to annoy my GF with, before she cottoned on
| to it.
| isatty wrote:
| While true, I barely even know where the TV remote is. AppleTV
| + it's remote is all I need.
|
| I also airgap the TV and distrust any smartTV software.
| joshmanders wrote:
| I'm genuinely curious if anyone reads things thoroughly or just
| sees no use for it in their workflows or life and immediately
| thinks everyone else is just like them and has no use for it
| either...
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| I'll admit using a TV as a podcast player seems excessive but
| everyone's use case is different.
| karolist wrote:
| I have listened to random YouTube content and podcasts to fall
| asleep for years now. When I live alone I simply use a tablet or
| phone, with screen facing down before YT Premium, now with the
| screen simply off. If someone is sleeping in the same room or
| besides me, I put in a single 2nd gen AirPod to the ear facing
| up, sometime near the morning I find it in the bed and put it to
| charge. In case I don't fall asleep for long I change the AirPod
| to let the other one to charge. No wireless earbuds before plain
| AirPods did it for me, the sealing ones (i.e. pros) are not
| comfortable to me.
| freeplay wrote:
| I do exactly the same as you described to fall asleep.
|
| If you ever want to save the money on youtube premium, the
| Brave browser on iOS lets you listen to YouTube content in the
| background or with the screen off. Just make sure you enable
| that feature in it's settings. It also blocks all of the
| pre/mid/post ads.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| ublock also does this on FF/Android.
| scrollaway wrote:
| While some people are asking "oh why don't you do X", I'd like to
| know if this exists on the nvidia shield.
| alex_young wrote:
| This is the real reason to buy a soundbar IMO.
| neogodless wrote:
| For my uses, no. The soundbar was a compromise between tiny,
| terrible built-in speakers and all the space and wiring needs
| of a proper surround sound system.
|
| We got a soundbar which mounts to the wall, and has detachable
| satellite speakers if we really want "surround." And it comes
| with a wireless subwoofer, so we still get the boomy sound for
| action movies.
| alex_young wrote:
| Yeah, I meant it enables one to listen to whatever without
| the display on, for some definitions of whatever..
| KMnO4 wrote:
| I think the confusion is that that's not the "real reason"
| to get a sound bar; just one of the reasons.
|
| The more common reason is still: it sounds better than your
| TVs built in speakers.
| andrei wrote:
| How is this different than just turning your TV off? I feel like
| I'm missing something
| piperswe wrote:
| tvOS allows you to play audio in the background - Blank allows
| you to blank the TV while still having the background audio
| playing from the speakers.
| DHowett wrote:
| Most televisions do not continue playing audio when they are
| turned off.
|
| From the project page:
|
| "That second paragraph hints at why this is important, despite
| the app's simplicity."
|
| and the second paragraph on the simulated display:
|
| "Use this app when you want to listen to a podcast or music
| without seeing artwork or a screensaver."
| andrei wrote:
| _facepalm_ I read that paragraph, but my brain skipped that
| sentence for some reason. Thanks for clarifying
| [deleted]
| skyyler wrote:
| A lot of setups route audio through the TV so if you turn it
| off you turn off music / podcasts which a lot of people use to
| sleep. (including the author, as noted in the article)
| [deleted]
| jtsiskin wrote:
| That's the joke :)
| [deleted]
| JLCarveth wrote:
| It's wild the type of rudimentary software than sometimes ends up
| on the front page.
| graypegg wrote:
| Software doesn't have to be complex to be useful. Rudimentary-
| ness isn't really a good barometer for "interesting-ness to the
| sorts of people that browse HN"
| amne wrote:
| An older LG tv I had used to have a quick setting for "Screen
| off". A newer model has this buried deep in 3 layers of eco mode
| settings.
|
| "Screen off" should be a button on the remote. By law.
| antnisp wrote:
| You can move it to the first layer. I can do it without looking
| at the remote now.
|
| I don't remember how I dit it though.
| croes wrote:
| >If you want to listen to music or a podcast before going to bed,
| it's impossible to avoid a bright now playing screen or animated
| screen saver.
|
| Use something other than a TV? Isn't the power consumption pretty
| high compared to devices like a smartphone especially if you only
| want audio without any video display?
| alsetmusic wrote:
| It's addressed near the bottom:
|
| > An additional benefit became apparent after we started using
| Blank: it significantly lowers the energy consumption of the
| screen.
|
| > All modern TVs have circuits that detect a blank signal and
| turn off LEDs to reduce the power required by the device. If
| you've ever felt heat coming off your big screen, Blank makes
| that go away.
|
| > So besides improving your sleep, you're also helping out our
| ever warming planet.
| tshaddox wrote:
| That's interesting. I have occasionally been annoyed that I don't
| have an easy way to play audio from my phone to my home theater
| audio system without having the TV on. If I turn my TV off it
| automatically turns my receiver off, and the only way to disable
| that would also disable turning the TV and receiver on
| automatically which is a crucial flow.
|
| There might be a way to build a little HDMI CEC controller that
| could block certain control sequences, but I haven't looked into
| that yet.
| iruoy wrote:
| When I turn on my TV my receiver also turns on, but when I turn
| on my receiver my TV doesn't. My apple TV (connected through
| the receiver) turns on both. Same goes for off in all cases.
| mlindner wrote:
| At least for my case, turning on my receiver doesn't turn my TV
| on, though turning my TV off turns the receiver off, in such
| cases I just turn the receiver back on again, or never turn the
| TV on in the first place.
| OJFord wrote:
| Some TVs and AVRs certainly support individually enabling one
| direction or the other.
|
| (Some also 'support' it accidentally of course!)
| graypegg wrote:
| So I think this is to be used where turning off the TV (the
| display device, not the Apple TV) would also turn off the audio
| right? (Built in speakers, or a sound bar that routes thru the TV
| etc)
|
| Simple solution! I'd lead with the problem though, had to think
| about why you might want this.
| vageli wrote:
| In the author's defense, a primary usecase is listed in the
| first graphic under the top paragraph (and the sentence just
| below the image highlights it).
| graypegg wrote:
| Yeah I totally missed that at first haha, tiny text when it's
| a screenshot of a big TV viewed on my tiny phone!
| triyambakam wrote:
| How common is it to not own a TV?
|
| I had a contractor over the other day for an estimate and in our
| living room he said, "wow, no TV"
|
| I hadn't really considered it would be a surprise. We consume
| lots of media, just on laptops and tablets instead.
| tomatotomato37 wrote:
| Less common than not paying for a cable subscription service I
| would imagine. There's still a lot of advantage to possessing a
| really big screen even if the traditional way of consuming
| media on it has gone out of fashion
| fckgw wrote:
| Something like 97% of all households have a TV, down from 99%
| around 2000. So yes, not owning a TV is still very rare.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| ~5% See https://senalnews.com/en/research/how-many-us-
| households-cho...
| majormajor wrote:
| I think watching on laptops is increasingly rare as streaming
| services have moved to TV-app-first product development
| willcipriano wrote:
| > We consume lots of media, just on laptops and tablets
| instead.
|
| Everytime I meet a no TV guy they have a laptop or a 37 inch
| monitor in the corner of a room somewhere with a comfy chair.
| It wasn't they had no TV, they just had a crappy TV.
| Retric wrote:
| Assuming you're excluding laptops, tables, and phones I know
| quite a few people without any TV's hooked up.
|
| Watching YouTube on a tablet you can drag it around the house
| as you do stuff and easily use the interface or do web
| searchers etc. With a larger screen you're just stuck in that
| room and remotes suck for navigation.
|
| There's been several attempts to be able to seamlessly swap
| content from one screen to another, but their clunky.
| Jolter wrote:
| Maybe for YouTube, but for consuming long-form content like
| movies, there's something to be said for sitting down and
| watching purposefully with a more immersive experience.
| weberer wrote:
| The Wii U perfected this, but it only worked on its own
| tablet.
| agilob wrote:
| I don't think it common, but I feel you. I have a TV, but it's
| a 3rd computer screen just for playing movies. Every now and
| then someone from my family calls me asking for help with her
| TV, something broke, video is breaking, there's white noise on,
| or audio interrupts, etc. Gradma calls me because I work with
| computers. I don't have an antenna or decoder or something else
| I don't even know what these things are called. For music I
| play from phone connected to bluetooth speakers.
|
| >I'm happy to announce the release of a new tvOS app called
| Blank
|
| This got me so confused, I didn't even know TVs have apps, I
| mean I knew there is AndroidTV and nvidia shield, but somehow
| concept of 3rd party apps on a TV didn't get to me.
| [deleted]
| yardstick wrote:
| Have you used a TV in the last? Don't you miss the larger
| screen and not having to squint when there's some tiny text
| within the show that's hard to read on small screens etc?
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| I'm more curious the last time you saw a show with
| significant text on screen. It seems far more common to have
| essentially no text or "complicated-science gibberish-for-
| the-geek". Everything else is read by a character.
| sho_hn wrote:
| It's partially cultural. At some point I realized that when
| American friends say "I've watched that", they more often than
| not mean it was running off to the side or in the background
| while they were doing other tasks. Previously I was mystified
| why anyone would watch certain type of content that wouldn't be
| able to hold anyone's attention span.
|
| It seems quite common in the US to have TVs in several rooms
| and have them run in the background for long stretches of day.
| This is far less common in the cultures I've lived in where
| sitting down to watch TV alone or together is more of an
| occasion and modal, and TVs have no place outside the living
| room.
|
| This is to say the _use case_ different folks have for TVs also
| varies widely. Now, when I do sit down at the TV, I generally
| appreciate the nice big screen.
| wvenable wrote:
| For me, the culture has shifted. With regular cable TV, we
| definitely had the TV on more often and just in the
| background with maybe nobody paying particular attention to
| it. I actually found it quite helpful when working from home
| to have that sort of background noise.
|
| However, in the time of streaming this has gone completely
| away in our household. The TV is only on for the time it
| takes to to watch a show and then is immediately turned off.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| We use PlutoTV for that old school cable ambient streaming
| feel.
|
| It even has crappy low budget local ads like old cable tv
| did. Unintentionally hilarious sometimes.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Frankly, I find a lot of _films_ are better as "background
| watching".
|
| I especially find Marvel movies much better at home. I might
| find one entirely OK watched at home, but get frustrated and
| bored with the same film in the theater, and leave feeling
| pretty unhappy with it. This is because I can divide my
| attention at home, and most Marvel movies are kinda worse the
| more closely you're watching them. Poor filming and editing,
| interminable action scenes that have me wanting to take a nap
| rather than watch them by a certain point--all that's better
| if you can check out for chunks of the movie.
|
| And this isn't a my-attention-span thing: I closely watch
| "boring" shit like silent films all the time, because they
| reward close watching far more than a lot of modern
| blockbusters do (older blockbusters often reward it better,
| too--at least, the ones we still remember)
| [deleted]
| shagie wrote:
| > It seems common in the US to have TVs in several rooms and
| have them run in the background for long stretched of day.
| This is far less common in the cultures I've lived in where
| sitting down to watch TV alone or together is more of an
| occasion and modal.
|
| From yesterday on Marketplace: Why streaming networks love a
| good background show
| https://www.marketplace.org/2023/04/11/why-streaming-
| network...
|
| > Tomorrow Warner Bros. Discovery is supposed to reveal it's
| new but not really new streaming service. What once was
| called HBO Max will now just be called Max, according to The
| New York Times.
|
| > Beyond the name change, it could include more light reality
| TV shows like "Dr. Pimple Popper" and "House Hunters
| International" --you know, the shows you might put on in the
| background while you're doing chores, paying bills or
| working.
|
| > There's a term for shows like that: ambient streaming.
|
| And from a few years ago: "Emily in Paris" and the Rise of
| Ambient TV- https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-
| comment/emily-in-...
|
| > In this and other recent programming, Netflix is pioneering
| a genre that I've come to think of as ambient television.
| It's "as ignorable as it is interesting," as the musician
| Brian Eno wrote, when he coined the term "ambient music" in
| the liner notes to his 1978 album "Ambient 1: Music for
| Airports," a wash of slow melodic synth compositions. Ambient
| denotes something that you don't have to pay attention to in
| order to enjoy but which is still seductive enough to be
| compelling if you choose to do so momentarily. Like gentle
| New Age soundscapes, "Emily in Paris" is soothing, slow, and
| relatively monotonous, the dramatic moments too predetermined
| to really be dramatic.
| incone123 wrote:
| Not that common. Most people watch shows and films on a screen
| bigger than a tablet if they are at home.
| ravenstine wrote:
| I don't think it's very common, although having a TV is
| increasingly meaning something different than it used to. A TV
| now is just another glorified tablet that a family might share
| some time in front of, but isn't necessarily the entertainment
| center of the home like it once was given the amount of
| personal screens and choices available to everyone.
|
| There's a TV in my home, but if it died I probably wouldn't
| replace it, at least for a while. I barely need it. Only if I
| have someone over to entertain might I want to use it. For most
| people, TVs will still be around because watching a movie
| together with friends is simply a better experience in front of
| a TV than someone's 13" laptop.
| jrockway wrote:
| I have a TV, but only because the previous owner left it
| attached to the wall. It's easier to not take down than it is
| to take down and donate. I've never turned it on.
| dt2m wrote:
| This is a great example of how bad the UX has gotten for at-home
| music playback.
| graypegg wrote:
| I noticed a little while ago that A-B repeat is just gone from
| every media player (soft- and hardware) that I own. I think VLC
| is the last place it exists.
|
| I understand why; it's not exactly the most useful feature, but
| it used to be pretty ubiquitous: iTunes, Winamp, every DVD
| player, some CD players. We lost all the fun features! I want
| to hear the last 4 minutes of Freebird on repeat sometimes!
| kachnuv_ocasek wrote:
| A-B repeat works just fine in mpv.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| The Emby player has all the usual repeat and shuffle options.
| taumoeba wrote:
| Finally! I've been wanting this for years. I have my living room
| surround sound system hooked up to my Apple TV and it's super
| annoying to have to leave the screen on when using the Apple TV
| for music because turning off the TV turns off the surround
| sound.
|
| There may not be many people who need this app, but it's
| appreciated by those of us who do.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > but it's appreciated by those of us who do.
|
| It will definitely be appreciated around these parts. I use the
| sound bar to listen to music whilst pottering about (it's
| easier than headphones or carrying a speaker around with me)
| and I never need any visuals.
| tapvt wrote:
| I'll be installing this tonight! Spotify on my Apple TV is my
| go-to for winding down before bed. I've always wanted what I
| call "video mute."
| 6d6b73 wrote:
| Best way to keep your room dark - remove tv and other electronic
| devices from that room.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| It is pretty crazy you can turn down the sound but not the
| picture on almoost every TV
| jnwatson wrote:
| You can with LG TVs.
|
| It makes sense. LG and Samsung want the TV to act as the media
| hub. You can even control smart home devices from the tv now.
| Mindwipe wrote:
| And Sony TVs, you go into the action menu and hit screen off.
| altairprime wrote:
| My various smart TVs have all have a Picture Off function. It's
| a menu button and third down from the top on the current Sony
| TV. I suspect this feature is far more widely distributed than
| anyone realizes, and this app is certainly a valid response to
| that.
|
| Samsung - All Settings, General, Accessibility, then Picture
| Off; or Bixby "Picture Off On" (heh).
|
| Sony - Remote button Quick Settings (gear), then Picture Off.
|
| Vizio - Remote menu button, Timers, then Blank Screen.
|
| LG - Full settings, Energy saving, then Turn screen off (I
| think?); or voice command "Turn screen off".
|
| etc. But these are all atrociously unusable. I would say I
| don't even know what they were thinking, except I'm certain
| it's "if we give people a button to turn off the screen,
| they'll call tech support after they turn off the screen" --
| which, having worked in tech support, is completely valid.
|
| It'd be nice if the HDMI CEC folks would add a command "turn
| screen off but maintain audio playback/passthrough", but as of
| HDMI CEC 1.4b, they assume that all streams are video, and so
| provide (and _mandate_ ) the Display On commands when a source
| is active.
| dr_kretyn wrote:
| So, what happened with that "anti-flashlight"?
| myhf wrote:
| Context: the same author created a notable flashlight app in
| the early days of the iOS App Store:
|
| http://files.iconfactory.net/archive/safetylight/
|
| There are a large number of low-effort apps in this space that
| flood the App Review process and resulted in a policy that apps
| must have a minimum level of functionality.
| yellowapple wrote:
| This situation is why I continue to keep a receiver between a TV
| and the things connected to it, even when the receiver's gonna be
| hooked up to absolute shitboxen of speakers I picked up at the
| thrift store for a dollar each. Being able to turn off the TV
| without disrupting the audio is a godsend. Nowadays receivers
| have HDMI inputs, too (on top of the gazillion other inputs
| available on a typical receiver), so it's entirely unnecessary to
| ever do anything on the TV except turn it on or off and it's
| absolutely wonderful.
| rcme wrote:
| Don't many TVs communicate bidirectionally with receivers now?
| When I turn off my TV, my receiver turns off as well. Which is
| usually what I want. If I want to only use the receiver, I can
| connect my laptop of phone to the receiver directly via
| bluetooth. No need to involve the TV.
| izzydata wrote:
| The TV should have a setting for this which you can turn off.
| yellowapple wrote:
| In addition, the receiver doesn't necessarily need to obey
| CEC signals from the TV. If my TV's sending any, my
| receiver sure ain't noticing.
| rcme wrote:
| On my TV, this happens with only one of the HDMI ports.
| zerocrates wrote:
| Though the device on the other end may not cooperate, like
| if it's playing something that uses HDCP it might stop
| playing when there's no display on the other end of the
| connection to handshake with. No idea if this is a problem
| with an Apple TV though.
| yellowapple wrote:
| > like if it's playing something that uses HDCP it might
| stop playing when there's no display on the other end of
| the connection to handshake with
|
| My understanding is that HDMI switches/receivers do the
| handshakes themselves, specifically to avoid this
| problem.
| zerocrates wrote:
| They can't just totally do it, at least: then the last
| hop to the actual display would be decrypted, sort of
| ruining the whole point of HDCP. My understanding is more
| that a receiver is just a passthrough for the
| communication between the source and the display. Though
| I'm surely oversimplifying.
| soylentcola wrote:
| Yep. Should be labeled CEC unless the TV's UI hides that
| behind "user friendly" naming. I also have mine set to turn
| on/off the AV receiver with the TV, but it can be disabled.
| Only drawback is that you then need to remember to turn off
| the receiver.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| This is actually awesome.
|
| Occasionally, I like to fall asleep on the couch with Spotify
| playing off the TV. Problem is Spotify can be really bright. This
| solves that issue.
|
| Yes, I could play music a different way. However, this is really
| convenient.
| captn3m0 wrote:
| The old dumb TV I had earlier had a simple "Screen Off" button
| on the remote. It was very helpful, for exactly these usecases.
| Especially at home-events, where a display could be
| distracting.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| In my case, I only use the AppleTV remote then rely on HDMI-
| CEC for everything else.
|
| I've found it far simpler than explaining remotes to people.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I wish my chromecast could turn my tv back off when done with it.
| It can turn it on. And then when done with an app it wastes power
| telling me the weather with random photos of graffiti and
| mountains.
| shahar2k wrote:
| my chromecast absolutely can turn the TV off (seems like
| standard cec stuff no?)
|
| I use it all the time to turn the tv off via google assistant
| when I walk out of the house
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Whaaaaa. How? I need to check again.
| roywashere wrote:
| HDMI CEC is great if it works, but that is not always
| (although support got much better in the last 5 years from
| TV vendors)
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| > As you get older, a good night's sleep becomes harder to
| achieve. One thing that works well for my wife and me is to lower
| light levels before bedtime.
|
| Blackout curtains and put tape over any obnoxious LED light.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| I wonder what this does for the lifetime of the TV. Is the the
| video really off? Is it just showing a black screen, but the
| screen is still on? Is there a difference between the two from a
| wear & tear standpoint?
| capitainenemo wrote:
| From TFA. "An additional benefit became apparent after we
| started using Blank: it significantly lowers the energy
| consumption of the screen.
|
| All modern TVs have circuits that detect a blank signal and
| turn off LEDs to reduce the power required by the device. If
| you've ever felt heat coming off your big screen, Blank makes
| that go away."
| mlindner wrote:
| I'd note that only high end TVs actually have that
| functionality, and only if it's relatively new.
|
| Though it's especially true for an OLED TV, where a black
| pixel is a pixel drawing no power at all.
| neogodless wrote:
| Given I wasn't the only person confused, I suspect this web page
| could be improved by just coming out and saying "sometimes I want
| audio to come from the TV, but want the screen to be blank." The
| tiny screenshot was too hard for me to read, so I skipped over
| it, and was a bit confused about the purpose of this project.
| bern4444 wrote:
| Agreed - communication is important. This should be the very
| first sentence.
|
| Keep your TV screen off while playing audio through your Apple
| TV.
|
| Then the page can go into why they built this, the problem it
| solved, the benefits, challenges etc.
|
| When I listen to a song I give it 3 - 7 seconds to see if I
| like it. Similar for books, 30 pages max. People move on
| quickly.
| brycedriesenga wrote:
| Tiny screenshot? You may have some vision issues.
| ignite wrote:
| or he's on a phone.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| Sony TVs have a "screen off" button that leaves the audio on.
| I'm surprised other brands don't have this.
| unfocused wrote:
| Samsung also has this. It's on my 10 year old Samsung and I
| confirm the latest Sony TVs have it.
| cdurth wrote:
| I have a TCL that does this. Use it every night.
| parentheses wrote:
| LG also has this capability. It's hidden in the menus though.
| Wistar wrote:
| I have wished many times that I could just "mute the picture"
| but not the audio, especially when I am trying to fall asleep.
| Wish there was something like this for Roku.
| bayindirh wrote:
| Our Sony TV has a "Screen off" mode under quick-settings
| menu. Everything goes off related to screen, incl LEDs. We
| use it a lot while listening to music via Spotify and other
| services.
|
| The beauty is, volume buttons don't turn the screen back on
| either, so it truly becomes a connected speaker.
| Wistar wrote:
| Sounds like a well-considered implementation. Wish I had
| it.
| slg wrote:
| But it does directly say that. You just need to read for 30
| seconds instead of 5. The 1st paragraph tells you the features
| of the app and paragraphs 3-6 tell you the motivation behind
| the app and the primary use case. That is a pretty good
| structure for this type of web page.
| ok_dad wrote:
| You don't even need to read for 30 seconds, the very first
| image has text in it that explains what the app does, and the
| sentence after it, still in the opening section, explains
| that you should read the text of the image to learn what the
| app does. Literally, the people complaining about not wanting
| to read too much must have the attention spans of gnats.
| mbesto wrote:
| > That is a pretty good structure for this type of web page.
|
| Not really. Honestly, it was kind of confusing to me too...
|
| All they had to say was "Apple makes it impossible to avoid
| playing a screen or animated screen saver during a podcast or
| listening to music. So, this app lets you listen to a podcast
| or music over a blank screen. That's it. That's all it is.
| It's a feature that AppleTV should have, but doesn't, so I
| made this app for it."
|
| Literally don't have to write anything more than that.
| slg wrote:
| Maybe the context of this appearing on HN is shifting the
| perception of this page, but this is posted on an
| individual's blog. If the author had the mindset of
| "literally don't have to write anything more than that",
| then they wouldn't have been blogging for seemingly 15
| years.
|
| This page is very far from the worst offenders when it
| comes to this sort of thing. The features are outlined in
| the first paragraph. You truly can't get better than that.
| Odds are people who will want this app will immediately
| identify why those features are useful. For the people who
| don't immediately see the use, you only have to read a few
| more short paragraphs.
| mbesto wrote:
| > Maybe the context of this appearing on HN is shifting
| the perception of this page, but this is posted on an
| individual's blog. If the author had the mindset of
| "literally don't have to write anything more than that",
| then they wouldn't have been blogging for seemingly 15
| years.
|
| 100% agree. But the OP is the highest rated comment, so
| clearly HN thinks this is important.
| slg wrote:
| HN has a long history of being completely wrongheaded and
| dismissive in the top comment when something like this is
| shared. It is the old _it is trivially easily to
| replicate Dropbox with FTP and curl_ situation.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > you only have to read a few more short paragraphs
|
| Which, while not hard, is fair to classify as confusing
| design.
| pempem wrote:
| The suggestion of OP is that 30seconds is too long.
|
| I have to agree. Thats why every single industry has their
| own term for "above the fold".
|
| It is easy to understand. It could crucially be easier to
| understand, reaching more people, if it was faster to explain
| itself.
| neogodless wrote:
| It says this:
|
| > A big ass screen in the living room makes this hard to
| achieve. If you want to listen to music or a podcast before
| going to bed, it's impossible to avoid a bright now playing
| screen or animated screen saver.
|
| I found that super confusing - why are you using the TV to
| listen to music or a podcast? Can't you use a different
| device? It still wasn't clear why you needed the TV on but
| blank after reading that. Why not grab headphones or use a
| bluetooth speaker? Why use the TV, which probably has
| terrible built-in speakers?
|
| Given the explanations that some people want to use their
| Smart TV specifically for music/podcasts, it does make sense.
| But I would lead with that - not beat around the bush.
| slg wrote:
| The page clearly outlines the need for the app, listening
| to audio in the dark. The app isn't the only way to satisfy
| that need. If you have some alternative way to address that
| need which you think is better, then maybe the app isn't
| for you.
| neogodless wrote:
| We're not discussing whether the app is for me. We're
| discussing whether the information was presented in a
| good way for determining whether the app was good for me,
| and my opinion is that it was not. Even if the app was
| for me, I could've determined that much more readily if
| the author led with the problem "wanting audio from a
| smart TV with the screen off." Paragraph 6 is not the
| optimal location for a description of the problem being
| solved.
| slg wrote:
| >why are you using the TV to listen to music or a
| podcast? Can't you use a different device? It still
| wasn't clear why you needed the TV on but blank after
| reading that. Why not grab headphones or use a bluetooth
| speaker? Why use the TV, which probably has terrible
| built-in speakers?
|
| That was from your original comment. You seem to be
| wanting to discuss the effectiveness of the app rather
| than the information presented.
|
| As I said in the other reply, people with this need will
| immediately understand the use case. The people here
| being confused about why anyone would want this app are
| confused because they aren't familiar with this need in
| which case they aren't the audience for this app anyway.
| hervature wrote:
| I think you are being unreasonable with the OP. The
| reason why this is confusing is not because some people
| want to listen to podcasts on their TV. The Apple TV
| comes with the podcast app preinstalled. The reason this
| is confusing is having a second audio input connected to
| the same audio system that needs the Apple TV on. The
| solution solves a very real world problem that has
| nothing to do with user preferences. The app is actually
| terrible at listening to podcasts in the dark because the
| podcast player is on a completely separate device. That's
| the confusing part.
| evandale wrote:
| I don't think they are and OP is demonstrating something
| I'm seeing more and more on the internet that's getting
| to be really prevalent and annoying.
|
| _presents product_
|
| oblivious_user: I don't get this? Why don't you do xyz?
| This provides me no value? What am I supposed to do with
| this?
|
| happy_user: If you're in situation abc and don't wish to
| do xyz this app can help. If you don't see the value in
| this product you're probably not the target market.
|
| oblivious_user: but why would anyone use this!? Just use
| xyz for crying out loud! I looked at this page for 5
| seconds and I can't figure out what is does! This product
| sucks and they're not doing a good job convincing me I
| need it so nobody should need it!
|
| happy_user: I literally told you the use case in my
| previous comment.
|
| oblivious_user: It's still a stupid idea with a poor
| presentation. Use xyz and your life will be better!
|
| It's really really annoying. Everything doesn't have to
| be made for everyone. If you don't have a use case for a
| product and you don't understand why anyone else would
| use a product then the product isn't for you.
|
| It's so exhausting seeing Internet commenters confused
| over the popularity of a product that they have no use
| for because they don't understand it or they prefer xyz
| to abc when the product IS abc...
| zeven7 wrote:
| This reminds me of the following all-to-common
| StackOverflow interaction:
|
| dev: <tries to figure out how to do abc. Due to various
| limitations, dev comes to the conclusion that the best
| way to do abc is using def. Explaining everything
| involved in abc is a lot of work, and dev just wants to
| ask about def> How can I do def?
|
| stackoverflow: Don't do def, it's bad. Have you
| considered xyz?
|
| dev: xyz isn't what I want. I really just want to do def.
|
| stackoverflow: Don't do def, do lmnop.
|
| dev: lmnop won't solve my problem. I just want to do def.
|
| stackoverflow: No you shouldn't do def.
| alanbernstein wrote:
| I'm amused at your description, since a common term for
| this is actually "XY problem"
| (https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/66377/what-is-
| the-x...)
| zeven7 wrote:
| Yes, however there are times when you are enough of an
| expert in the domain to know why Y is the solution you
| need and you just want someone to help you with that
| part. You might know X better than anyone else, and
| explaining X won't get you far. You just want help with
| Y.
|
| It is also true that there are many people who ask for
| help with Y and are wrong in thinking it is the correct
| way to solve X. I am describing the former situation and
| not the latter.
| shagie wrote:
| You need to reach the point where you have the
| appropriately shared context with the other person so
| that you are both able to work in the same direction.
|
| That often involves explaining the situation sufficiently
| so that it is clear that the thing you are looking for
| doing it in such a way is the way that it needs to be
| done.
|
| The vast majority of the time, when such questions are
| posted they are in the form of a work order and people
| who have gone through "maybe I should do XY" in the past
| have encountered some problems and are trying to warn you
| off of that path for the incomplete context that has been
| provided.
|
| In such cases, it is necessary for the person with the
| question to sufficiently explain the problem, the
| context, and the constraints so that is is clear that XY,
| despite its known issues remains the clear and correct
| course of action.
| zeven7 wrote:
| On the other hand, there are times when people in the
| past have tried WY and decided in that situation Y was a
| bad idea. But your situation is X and it is quite
| different from what the answerer is familiar with from
| their experience with W. In this case you know X well,
| the answerer doesn't, and you know Y is what you want to
| do in this situation to solve X. The answerer assumes
| you're trying to solve W or something similar to W and
| you have to waste an inordinate amount of time assuring
| them your situation is sufficiently different from W in
| order to get a simple answer about how to do Y.
| shagie wrote:
| And that is why the onus is upon the person asking the
| question to explain the problem scope fully enough that
| anyone looking to help will be on the same page from the
| start and those who have encountered problems with
| similar approaches are aware that their experience isn't
| relevant.
|
| Most often, the request comes in as:
|
| > dev: How can I do def?
|
| to which responses warning them of the problems with that
| approach and lacking the surrounding context are
| completely appropriate.
|
| The issue is:
|
| > ... Explaining everything involved in abc is a lot of
| work, and dev just wants to ask about def ...
|
| Yes, it's a lot of work, but necessary to do either at
| the start or piecemeal consuming a lot more time overall
| between multiple people. To be respectful of other
| peoples' time, explaining abc is the correct thing to do.
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(page generated 2023-04-12 23:03 UTC)