A rant on Ars Technica:

I wanted to love the Apple TV remote. It was sleek and futuristic. Plus, it
had an accelerometer and its own little trackpad. Besides which, I didn’t
think I’d really need the remote, anyway, since I could simply tell the TV
what I wanted to watch. What wasn’t to love? Turns out, pretty much
everything.

I largely agree. After Apple added 3rd party app support on the Apple TV, I
considered it for a bit (I don’t care about the iTunes eco-system, I’m mostly a
Plex + Netflix kind of guy, but I’m interested in getting AirPlay/mirroring
working between my iPad and the TV). However, after test-driving the new remote
and asking friends about it, I realized I didn’t like it at all. It really felt
like one of those times where Apple designers care more about how it looks that
how it gets used. The Roku remotes are not perfect but immensely better as far
as I’m concerned.

Some updates to the Highlander reboot have surfaced on io9 via Collider
and, as a fan of the original movie¹ and TV series, I’m carefully excited:

Anyone who knows anything about the property knows it has a lot of meat to it.
It’s a good property. It’s got a lot of potential. We’re just trying to figure
out the best way not to fuck it up.

I do indeed hope they don’t fuck it up. Of course, they need good historical
flashbacks and proper sword-fight choreography and over-the-top music² and
all that, but there’s more to it.

To me, the key element of the Highlander franchise is that it’s a mix between
vampires and battle royale:

• From vampires it obviously takes the whole immortality thing, but it removes
  the almost obligatory “vampirism as sexual intercourse/harassement”
  sub-text. Immortals in Highlanders can represent whatever theme or metaphor
  you want, and from that angle they might be more similar to X-Men or
  something. It’s especially interesting given the fact that, in Highlander’s
  case, you can look at societal changes through the lens of century-spanning
  history.

• From battle royale it takes the “there can be only one” goal, and turns it
  into a catchy slogan, even. But since the game is played over the course of
  centuries or more, there’s a lot more politics than pure combat and violence
  – another thing you often find in vampire stories too, by the way. It means
  that all the interesting themes of friendship and betrayal that are touched
  upon in Battle Royale or Hunger Games can be explored deeper here.

This is all a lot more conductive to a TV series than a bunch of movies in my
opinion, so my guess is that it’s the form it will eventually take.