Offbeat

iAnnoy: Why the Apple Remote is the Perfect Prankster Tool

By Aaron Klemow ⋅ December 8, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment ⋅


As much as I would love to stir up the emotions of the Mac vs. PC die hards, I’m not about to start a pointless argument about which is better. It never amounts to anything and frankly it doesn’t matter to me what other people choose to spend their money on. I will however point out that Apple’s obsession with building computers with great music and entertainment functionality has created what is possibly the greatest opportunity ever to harmlessly prank and annoy large numbers of people. I am talking of course about the Apple Remote.  Originally designed to control the multimedia capabilities any Apple device built after 2005 that has an infared port, the little white remote almost works too well.  With a fresh battery, the range is fantastic, and the ability to access the multimedia menu, put devices to sleep, and change volume makes for a handy tool.  Apple however in an effort to ensure the remote’s compatability with all devices created a gigantic weakness.  Since the remote can control any infared equipt Mac, people can use them to mercelessly harass Mac users.

I first discovered this amazing feature a few months ago while I was working part time in the audio visual department at my University.  All of the computers in our graphic design labs were Intel powered iMacs (just like the one above that I found on Wikimedia Commons, except in english) so we had tons of remotes lying around.  When I was adjusting the volume on the iMac I was using, I realized that I had just muted iTunes on a coworkers laptop.

Realizing that the huge portion of the student body that used Apple computers was now at my mercy, my inner six year old went nuts.  I snuck through computer labs to toy with unsuspecting students, dimming screens and blasting whatever terrible music I could find in the media menu.  Although I am the first to admit this behavior was childish, I don’t really care.  Trust me when I say this was even funnier than you think it is.

One of my favorite tactics was to camp out in the large common area in our student center where at any given time, there were atleast five students using their MacBooks.  When you have multiple Macs making the volume up/down noise in unision every 10 seconds, people start freaking out.  People are quick to assume something has gone terribly wrong and almost nobody has the feature turned off.

Anyway, I guess the point of all this is to admit that for me, this trick finally got old.  So all you guys that I harassed, yeah, it was me.  Sorry.  I also want to open this up to anybody that might own an Apple Remote.  Trust me, the possibilities are endless.  Also, if you are constantly in Mac heavy environments and want to purchase one of these things, they are 20 bucks in the Apple Store.  Maybe you can find them cheaper elsewhere but if you think of it as an investment in entertainment, it’s totally worth it.

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Discussion

24 comments for “iAnnoy: Why the Apple Remote is the Perfect Prankster Tool”

  1. if your a saavy macster, youll be able to use your own remote to pair it with your computer so only that remote+mac combination will work- just google apple imac remotes pairing

    Posted by a | December 8, 2008, 6:27 pm

  2. LOL I used to teach High School technology and had a lab with all Macs. I use to do the same thing to some students who were goofing off. Pretty funny!!!

    Posted by Steve | December 8, 2008, 7:27 pm

  3. Try holding down the play button for about 5 seconds to put the computer into sleep mode. It has an amazing effect on the victim because the newer macbooks won’t wake up imediately after falling asleep. You need to wait for the hard drive to stop spinning. Most mac users don’t know this and will end up shutting off their computers in frustration.

    Posted by Jacob | December 8, 2008, 7:59 pm

  4. That is hilarious. Perhaps one day I will do the same. And, I think I’m going to go and make sure I have that feature off since I don’t need it.

    Posted by Mathew Ballard | December 8, 2008, 10:29 pm

  5. My roommate was playing with his in our room the other day. Our desks face away from each other, and I had no clue what was happening when my iTunes would suddenly pause, and then the FrontRow program that I had never used before kept popping up unbidden…it was frustrating to say the least until I turned around and saw him grinning

    Posted by Luke | December 8, 2008, 10:33 pm

  6. I realized that the remote could control any computer shortly after I bought my MacBook Pro. I promptly set about pairing my remote to my computer so that I wouldn’t interfere with others and vice versa.

    Posted by Eric | December 8, 2008, 10:49 pm

  7. lol. that was the first setting i disabled when i got my mac book pro.

    Posted by bob | December 8, 2008, 11:10 pm

  8. You just pair it with that computer only. Problem solved.

    Posted by DK | December 8, 2008, 11:24 pm

  9. That’s better than it used to be. I used to have a remote that came with my Sony Receiver, and when I pressed the Power button it would shutdown my Performa. Needless to say I used this trick all over the campus labs after I figured out what was going on. We’re talking 1996 or so, but yeah, Apple and various remotes have a long and storied history of pranks.

    Posted by Acer | December 9, 2008, 1:59 am

  10. This is sooo great, im currently doing work at a centre that contains atleast 80 iMacs, 20 next door and good little point if i want to harass them school pupils with the volume on the iMacs ;] good job.

    Posted by Ryan | December 9, 2008, 7:36 am

  11. Remember the wrist watch remotes that could turn the TV’s on and off in highschool? Priceless!

    Posted by Ghost | December 9, 2008, 8:00 am

  12. A friend of mine had a universal remote calculator watch in high school. His pranks with that were mildly amusing. I particularly liked it when he muted the television in the middle of a video presentation with 30 students simultaneously thinking, “WTF?”

    Posted by Eric Hamilton | December 9, 2008, 9:13 am

  13. lol. that was the first setting i disabled when i got my mac book pro..

    Posted by alezx | December 9, 2008, 9:52 am

  14. There’s a pretty neat device I think you might have some fun with called the ‘TV Be gone’.

    Even more fun than the apple remote - turns off almost ANY TV.

    Posted by Andy | December 9, 2008, 10:03 am

  15. Speaking of which, I just re-installed my OS after a hard drive upgrade so I need to re-pair my remote.

    Thanks for the reminder!

    Posted by Zealot | December 9, 2008, 10:07 am

  16. Pairing the remote will only keep your Mac from responding to other remotes, it will not stop your remote from affecting other Macs.

    Posted by KCB | December 9, 2008, 11:19 am

  17. I used to have a friend who’d go out to the balcony and aim his Sony remote to his neighbor’s TV until his neighbor figured out that the IR goes through walls and then wreaked havoc with my friend’s TV. Volume gets turned up or TV shuts off for no reason. It’s a trick that backfires once people get it.

    Speaking of hacking other peoples devices there are still computer networks out there that are not protected by encryption. I can go anywhere in my city and find an internet connection because there are so many people with linksys routers who leave the default username and password as is. Google “default router password” and you’ll find them all. Sneaky trick for this is to connect to someones network and change the password.

    Posted by Ryan | December 9, 2008, 12:31 pm

  18. Mac’s are also PC’s. ALL (P)ersonal (C)omputer(’s) are PC’s. No matter what OS they run or what brand it is, they are ALL PC’s.

    Posted by Nobody | December 9, 2008, 2:54 pm

  19. Thanks for the tip. I just disabled my infrared receiver.

    Posted by Rob | December 9, 2008, 3:51 pm

  20. If you dont have a remote you can use a wii remote and mess with lots of computers

    Posted by Kyle | December 9, 2008, 4:58 pm

  21. Apple has been doing dumb stuff like this for a long time. I remember back in the apple ][ days when they had that idiotic reset button in the upper left corner. You would be sitting there in the lab and the class bully would just walk around and with one touch of the reset button all your work was gone.

    Posted by Rosco | December 9, 2008, 8:43 pm

  22. Pairing the remote will only keep your Mac from responding to other remotes, it will not stop your remote from affecting other Macs…

    Posted by lokki | December 17, 2008, 10:22 am

  23. Speaking of which, I just re-installed my OS after a hard drive upgrade so I need to re-pair my remote.

    Thanks for the reminder!!

    Posted by Erik | December 20, 2008, 1:09 pm

  24. Thanks for the tip. I just disabled my infrared receiver..

    Posted by Steaven | December 22, 2008, 7:50 am

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