Agreed.

I love the Chromecast and any other option that gets me playing computer files or internet streams on the TV set. They're all great. But my instinct when I suddenly want to pause the movie is still to mash the pause button on my infrared universal remote.

Just last night, in fact, our housemate Fishy was chromecasting a Netflix episode of TNG from his phone. A knock came at the door and he scrambled to pause it so someone could get up and answer the door. Now, he's a big supporter of all things Chromecast and has touted the advantages of using a better interface other than IR remote D-pads to find your content. So he loves the Chromecast and prefers to use it for playing Netflix movies, even though the PS3 with its infrared remote adapter works fine for that purpose. Yet he STILL DOVE FOR THE PAUSE BUTTON ON THE INFRARED REMOTE. And after a bit of cursing, retrieved his phone from his pocket, took two tries to wake it up and unlock it, and finally was able to pause the video. (Later, when he tried to unpause it, he accidentally rewound the movie a couple of minutes rather than simply unpausing it.)

So touchscreen phones are still a terrible way to quickly control TV set content.

Here's what I want to know: Has anyone used the Chromecast API to make an infrared remote control adapter for the Chromecast? Googling the Google says no, so far. Is this a market segment we should be researching so we can patent and build something?