While exciting on the face, though, today's update ends up being less than thrilling. Much-needed keyboard functionality came to the Opera browser, but it's still limited, and the Wii remote must be used to navigate through text boxes. Take the average search form as an example; at the computer, most of the time, you can type in your search terms and hit enter -- or at the most, tab to the search button and then hit enter. No such luck with the Wii's browser. It's more like this:
- Navigate to text box with Wii remote
- Enter text on keyboard
- Navigate to enter/search button with Wii remote
- Profit. Very slow and awkward profit, but better than a poke in the eye with ye olde sharp stick.
All of this would have been great with the last update, but now it's a little disappointing. We can only hope that another update is soon to follow that makes keyboards a little more useful. For now, it seems best to continue to use the browser sparingly. It's great for showing off YouTube videos to friends from the comfort of your sofa, but for any high-powered browsing, chatting, or forum-hopping, we'll recommend you stick to your computer. Unless, of course, you want to check out Wii Fanboy. Then we're with you 100%.
Logitech announced today that they're planning a special Wii keyboard for use with the system and the Opera browser. We're gonna guess that it will look and function much like a keyboard (shocking!) and that it will be white. But wouldn't it be awesome if it included a pointer? It could be like this, but smaller. Now that we'd consider.
The Everybody Votes channel was updated as well, and we'll give anyone a shiny new nickel if they can tell us what's new. There may be a new background or something, but updates seem to be cosmetic at best. We'll say they're clearly great if we don't even notice! But maybe we'll spy the purported enhancements over time.
In the meantime, we would like to offer an illustrated (but not well) version of our adventures with the updated Internet Channel.
Okay, so it's still a little unwieldy, but hey, baby steps.
All in all, this is a step in the right direction, but we need more. We need page down functionality, we need tabbing, and we need the enter key to work as more than just a line return. But we'll take this for now!
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-10-2007 @ 8:02PM
ELIJAH said...
I have to say i don't mind the way you enter searches with the wii because i am a great shot and its not that bad.
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10-10-2007 @ 8:04PM
Archibold said...
Typing of the Dead, anybody?
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10-10-2007 @ 8:13PM
Kurtis said...
According to the message Nintendo sent to my Wii, the update to Everybody Votes was for the channel to work with Wii Menu 3.1.
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10-10-2007 @ 8:19PM
Mr Khan said...
Sweet, now all i need is a USB keyboard (still stuck in PS/2 land here)
ah well, Best Buy giftcard, do your stuff
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10-10-2007 @ 8:23PM
Kurtis said...
Also the new version of Everybody Votes "lets you view even more detail on the country map when viewing the results of polls." Per the Shop Channel.
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10-10-2007 @ 8:25PM
crazypenguin said...
i downloaded the everybody votes update, apparently that button that no one uses that talks about the region votes or w/e got updated, ha ha, so now it looks slightly different. so its really really silly!
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10-10-2007 @ 8:40PM
Croove55 said...
Hey, Buddy, I use that button! You jerk.
Aaand that's why I should never try to copy Jim Gaffigan's comedic stylings. Sorry. You are not a jerk. Wanna go hang out at Starbucks or the mall or something?
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10-10-2007 @ 8:44PM
CackNBallz said...
I haven't noticed a difference. What exactly has changed with this enhanced detail for the country map?
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10-10-2007 @ 8:52PM
Alisha Karabinus said...
Uh oh, guess I'm gonna be sending out some nickels.
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10-10-2007 @ 10:03PM
ramuji said...
> We need page down functionality, we need tabbing,
> and we need the enter key to work as more than
> just a line return.
Try using Alt + Enter after entering text on the text input display. It works for me.
I can also use the arrow up/down keys for screen scrolling (as well as the arrow left/right keys if the screen is zoomed in greater than 100%).
And yes, Tab key functionality would be great.
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10-11-2007 @ 12:04AM
jamesFF said...
Why do they use the QWERTY keyboards? Why can't we get an alfabetized keyboard for once?
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10-11-2007 @ 12:51AM
Joshua Tonies said...
It looks like the update to the Opera browser had put a kink in Orb streaming content. Now when I try to stream media from my computer onto the Wii, I get a 240020 Error "File Format application/sdp not supported" . Bummer, I really liked using it to listen to my Itunes library.
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10-11-2007 @ 1:25AM
Krist Byrne said...
Well, I have to admit this keyboard thing is pretty cool even if you can't use OR . I was doubtful but my wireless Logitech keyboard works perfectly and I typed this entire message from my couch!w00t w00t!
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10-11-2007 @ 9:22AM
Prof_Chaos said...
jamesFF.
1) QWERTY keyboards are standard products. There's a historical reason to their development (typewriters and jamming keys).
2) If you're going to ask such an inane question, it would help if you could spell alphabetized.
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10-11-2007 @ 12:34PM
Jago said...
My voting channel stopped working a few days ago, I wasn't able to send in my votes and it would come up with error code: 2030500 or something like that. Everything else worked and I had no other connection issues so I called for help from Nintendo and they said the voting channel was working just fine and that I would have to delete my channel and re-download it...so I did that on Tuesday. I lost all of my voting results, been using it since it first launched and I had about 119 votes on it....and of course to my surprise, they update the Voting channel the very next day and that would have fixed my problem!! GRRRRR it sucks that I lost my voting data and have to start over.
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10-11-2007 @ 5:50PM
Skwid said...
I've noticed that er...certain sites of ill repute that I used to use to watch the occasional slideshow on the Wii will no longer pull up since I ran this update. As in, I enter the address, and the progress meter in the toolbar stalls right after it begins. I am able to access those sites from other machines on the network, so I know that's not the issue, and it was working the day before the update. Anyone else seeing anything that looks rather like filtering since this Opera update?
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10-11-2007 @ 7:41PM
Pez said...
I don't suppose there's bluetooth keyboard support yet, is there? I guess I can dream...
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