About the smartness aspect of it: You have set top boxes like Roku which are designed well. Hell my PS3 is fairly easy to use. The previous generation of the LG smart TVs were also pretty good without having to deal with the gestures.

As for dealing with switching the inputs, many older TVs and computer monitors come with a simple enough mechanism to switch between various inputs. This particular article may be about regression in the UI.

There is nothing "new" Apple can do here. If they end up doing something it will not be not that far off from existing and very functional UIs.

Samsung's smart tv was a fantastic experience for me personally -- in fact it made me regret I hadn't bought a TV sooner. UN55F6300 was the model we had (and, after ~6 months parted ways with to go back to our ipad) and enjoyed every minute of it.

There were some caveats like the keyboard on the remote not working inside some 3rd party apps. that the TV allowed you to install.