Teevox (YC S10) Turns Your iPhone Into A Computer TV Remote Control | Hacker News Reader

Teevox (YC S10) Turns Your iPhone Into A Computer TV Remote Control

techcrunch.com

88 pointsjiggity27 comments

I think that this just the beginning for Teevox. When I met the founders last spring they were showing off a prototype iPad app that was sort of like a live newsfeed for television. As you watched a show it would pop up additional information about what was going on at that moment, like who the actors were, what song was playing in the background, trivia, and I'm sure in the future targeted ads.

I think the integration with Twitter and Facebook also indicates that they're going to be building some social features into the app, which would be pretty interesting to see. Anyway, definitely keep an eye out for these guys.

When I read the headline, I thought it would be some sort of infrared emitter that you attach to your iPhone to transform it into a remote control similar to the (Logitech) Harmony ones.

It's not. Sigh...

Hey, that's my idea. Except you apparently had it first, and your app looks a lot better than mine. Congratulations on your success.

The latest YC companies seem to be features and add-ons for other products : things that can easily be bought by a big company!

Everything can be spinned as an add-on for something else.

Yeah. Google was an add-on for portals. Microsoft was an add-on for the Altair.

Yes, makes me wonder how much 'optimizing for exit' is too much. Small investments, small companies, small 'dipshit' exits?

The latest YC companies, like all YC companies, are encouraged to launch as soon as they've built something with a quantum of utility. Of course such things are small initially.

I find it a bit confusing when pg invests in companies such as this, which will most likely increase the addictiveness of stuff (in this case TV), given his growing concerns of the issue[1]. I can see this makes investment sense in terms of the ROI on money, but wouldn't you rather invest in things which steer the world in a direction that you would like it to go in?

[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html

I didn't read that essay the same way. I'd say he was making an observation rather than expressing a general concern.

He also said "Good" and "bad" technological progress aren't sharply differentiated, so you'd find you couldn't slow the latter without also slowing the former"

Of course he is expressing concern. Did you not read the second half of the essay? He's mostly talking about how people, including himself, have avoided, are avoiding or will avoid addictions.

Noticed a bug when creating a new account - I use password safe to manage my passwords, and it created a password that contained a symbol that caused an "Invalid Password" message to show up. Some feedback here would be nice ("Invalid Password: Numbers/letters only please" or something like that). Better yet, accept anything in the password box (there may be i18n issues here, others may be able to chime in with their experience).

thanks for the catch! we'll be fixing that up

Who cares that the product seems simple right now... check out the website! http://teevox.com

LOVE the sense of humor and personality of the company. The testimonials at the bottom are awesome. Good luck!

This is really nice. I love how it's easily integrated UNO third parties!

Interesting... the application has a Windows Vista/7 scrollbar.

No, it does not.

Well their screenshot/mock-up does, take a look again.

It's not a screenshot or a mockup. It's your browser rendering a scrollbar. The "mockup" is actually usable. If you actually see how it works, you'll see you can use the actual "mockup" to see how it would work.

It's better then a mere screenshot or mockup.

It's not a picture of an iPhone running the app, it's a screenshot of the website, which has a scrollable area embedded in a picture of an iPhone. Very confusing screenshot!

How is your traction? It wasn't mentioned in the article.

Damn guys, now I need to buy an iPad for sure ;).

good stuff guys. Really nice simple interface. Best of luck to you guys.

This is crazy cool, congrats jiggity.

Because it's so difficult to stand up and manipulate a television, or use the gasp remote control that came with it. I'm quite surprised YC would invest in a .. television company.

Very cool!

super sweet!

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