There’s not any real loss in efficiency using the remote over the keyboard. Sure maybe it takes twice as long to put in the characters, but big deal. With active search that they all use you’re not putting in more than 12 characters anyway, so you’re talking 10 seconds to get those characters in instead of 5. That’s just not a change. And of course if the person doesn’t have a smartphone or tablet then they’re still remote driving.
Because it’s only $35 I see a lot of people buying it now. But by next year most won’t even be using it, kind of like Wiis. Smart TVs already can get content from iPads and iPhones, they’re on you network and can get shared content from other things on your network, and even if that doesn’t work half the iToys/ clones have HDMI output so you can always jack in directly.
In fact, I don’t type in my YouTube searches on my iPad. I use Siri and just talk to it. It works.
Actually I agree with you to some extent. The new new TVs are going to integrate IPad/iPhone control and YouTube apps. But people don’t buy new TVs every year. Chromecast and the clones that are sure to follow will fill that void.