Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
From the first Android TV unit I bought in 2015 to the Chromecast with Google TV and now the Google TV Streamer, nearly every streaming box I’ve used with an Android-based operating system has triggered my one pet peeve: branded buttons for Netflix, YouTube, Disney+, and/or other services.
I don’t have a Netflix subscription and probably never will. I have a YouTube Premium family sub, I get Amazon Prime Video with my Prime subscription, Apple TV Plus and Paramount Plus with my local French Canal Plus sub, and I also have a huge Plex server with dozens of shows ripped from old DVDs. Having a permanent button imposed on me for a feature I’ll never use on hardware I have paid for irks me to no end, so I always and immediately installed Button Mapper to regain control over that button. I even paid for the Pro in-app purchase to access all features.
I thought I was doing the smart thing, but it took me years to realize that I was only hurting my Android TV-slash-Google TV experience. Let me explain.
Do you use a buttom mapping app on your Google TV or Android TV? 214 votes Yes, I can't live without it. 26 % Yes, but now I'm starting to question if I should keep it. 15 % I did, but like you, I uninstalled them. 9 % No, I had no idea these apps existed! 26 % No, I have no need for a button remapper. 25 %
Button mapping apps ruin Google TV’s responsiveness
Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
For years, I thought that it was normal for my Android TV, and now Google TV, to be glitchy. Any time I pressed a button on the remote, it took a split second to react. Any time I kept my finger on the D-pad to scroll up, down, left, or right, it skipped a few items, then scrolled, then stopped, and hiccuped continuously. Any time I tried to lower the volume or raise it, it only happened in single-level increments; I couldn’t keep pressing the volume up button to go from level 20 to 40, I had to press it 20 times in succession. And if I went too fast, it would skip a few. It was all so maddeningly inconsistent, too.
I hated everything about this, but I blamed Google, its operating system, and the silly low hardware requirements. A cheap 43-inch Xiaomi TV, a $50 Chromecast with Google TV, and an operator-provided set-top box that was anything but optimized; none of these had any remotely ideal hardware. Besides, everyone complained online about how slow, jittery, and buggy their devices were, so I didn’t think I was alone.
Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
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