Can I turn off / stop my MacBook responding to a remote control?

This is a legitimate problem and I see it even worse because my standard charging dock for my Apple iPhone is the A/V dock from the company. Turns out that also has the ability to listen for an Apple remote control, so when I started testing out the Apple TV I had three devices responding, the Apple TV itself (good), my iPhone in the dock (not good) and the MacBook Pro on my desk (definitely not good). I don't know how to disable the dock, but I did quickly figure out how to turn off - and then reenable - the remote control sensitivity on the MacBook Pro.

This really speaks to the hidden gotcha of such a simple design, however. It's great that the basic Apple Remote will work with any of the different Apple products, but this is a case where it'd be nice to be able to "pair" the little gadget with a particular device, and there's no way to accomplish that, as far as I can see.

Instead, let's disable the Apple remote...

Start by going to System Preferences:

There are a ton of different preferences you can tweak, but we're looking for one that I bet you'd never stumble into in a thousand years - Security:

Click on the "Security" icon and make sure you're looking at the "General" tab:

The option to disable the computer paying attention to the Apple Remote is near the bottom. I'll zoom in so you can see it better:

That's the option you want. "Disable remote control infrared receiver". Check the associated box and simply close the preference window. Done!

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