Good idea for a remote

With the way that cable tv works now, you can sometimes spend a lot of time selecting words in the guide with a very clunky remote. If you want to find episodes of Mad Men, for example, you have to use the up and down arrows to move through an on-screen keyboard.  Not very easy to deal with.

So TiVo, taking a page from Blackberries and other smart phones, has rolled out the new Slide, an optional remote that includes a keyboard:

There is an excellent review of it in the Wall St. Journal.

This is just good common-sense design.  I'm surprised Apple did not think of it.