Thats 99% of a remote usage, the rest is handled by any GUI.
I'd never want to be stuck with just an Apple remote.
You only have a few channels you like, and should be able to simply switch between them with a D-pad. But the cable industry's broken business model requires you to subscribe to an order of magnitude more than you want. Clunky set-top box UIs have you constantly paging up and down massive lists. A "favorites" system is nestled deep within some unintuitive menu, and never displays anyway when you go to the channel guide, always requiring more button presses followed by high-latency screen redraws. And thus, you're stuck dialing in a numeric code like it's 1968.
I'm sure you'd be ecstatic to be stuck with an Apple remote, if only the entire rest of the TV experience were up to speed with it.
2) Good God, nobody wants to enter "3-digit codes". Your 100+ channels fit into a regular grid, with, you know, pictures. So I can actually see what's what, without remembering that "124" is "shitty shopping channel #16".
Said grid can be navigated quite quickly with a d-pad. If it was just a regular grid of, say, 12x12 entries, you can reach any entry in 12 clicks. (Assuming your UI does the smart thing and wraps)
3) If you had a better interface, like e.g. categorization, you could do with less than 12 clicks. Optimally utilizing the 4 directions, 4 clicks would do. You'll probably need one or two more, but it's fairly straightforward
4) If the UI designers had paid any attention to decent UIs, they'd be aware of such nifty inventions as "Favorites" and "Recently visited", which means even less key strokes.
5) Can we already ditch the "dedicated remote" nonsense, even the Apple one, and admit pretty much every household has some sort of Wifi enabled touch screen in their home? E.g. a much better device for your UI?
They control the screen, the software, and the controller, same as Apple. They're just not as good at it as Apple.
I don't like Apple - I don't like the horrifying complete lock-in of hardware/software/media. But I admit something: Apple wins because they're the best. Period.