Apple to Overhaul TV App, Remove Standalone Apps from Apple TV

[Surf Monkey]

when I get home I want to relax and have fun, I don’t want to watch politically correct shows, stuff about gender, etc. I just want to have fun with my family, we are not perfect Apple, we don’t want to be politically perfect, we are just a happy family living in a suburb. Also I don’t understand how in 2023 “music” isn’t capable of having music videos, live performances etc in a good quality. It seems Apple want me to hear music while my huge TV is showing an album cover, music videos are in stereo pcm.

Everyone has different content tastes. Some want material that challenges and find that fun and rewarding. Nothing wrong with that. Apple and the other streamers offer all sorts of content that targets virtually any audience you can imagine. The stuff that doesn’t appeal to me? I just don’t watch it.

 

[Ctrlos]

At this point you're better off buying all your digital movies through Amazon where they're watchable on any device, it just Apples.

 

[supertomtom]

They really need to work on the branding.

Many people I come across still get confused between Apple TV (hardware), Apple TV (app), and Apple TV+ (subscription).

And they always ask why so many shows/movie inside the tv app isn’t free when they’ve already paid for Apple TV+ 😅

Trying to explain it to them isn’t that easy either cuz the app itself is such a mess. I worry that merging iTunes into it will probably make it worse.

 

[Octavius8]

Will Plex continue to work?
HBO dedicated app is no more?.
It will become another HomePod disaster. Totally closed ecosystem in streaming is not successful as it is in the phone ecosystem…

 

[ss2cire]

TV is the worst thing Apple makes. It's glitchy, inconsistent, confusing, and just doesn't work most of the time I try it. Old units, new units, doesn't matter, they're all irritating to use.

My $40 Roku has been utterly flawless, still allows me to AirPlay (and Android friends can cast), and oh yeah it's $40.

The only app that I haven't been able to get to work right on said Roku is, surprise surprise, the Apple TV app. No sound when attempting to play movies. Never been able to get it to work.

Wow, you've had a really bad experience with it. In contrast, my experience has been great. I use Apple TV app more than anything, I even have it on my Xbox and Playstation.

a bit more on topic though: I think it's great to consolidate, I have felt for a while now that it was odd to have 2 different locations/apps for the same functionality. Hopefully the iTunes Extras feature still work. Time will tell.

 

[JiveTurkey]

The Apple TV device should be an 8-port HDMI 2.1 hub that smartly connects your entire home theater and many gaming consoles to your television.

Then Apple could team up with a high-end audio company to produce multi-channel amplifiers designed to be connected to and controlled entirely by an Apple TV app.

 

[CrysisDeu]

But why don’t they just integrate into tvOS? It’s “tv”OS after all. It can also help them differentiate apple tv with other streaming sticks with better apple integration.

 

[coolfactor]

I am totally confused by this statement:

To push users to the Apple TV app, Apple plans to remove its standalone Apple TV apps that are available for renting and purchasing TV shows and movies.

As if the TV app wasn't confusing enough as it is. Which standalone apps are they referring? This article is written as if everybody is a psychic. There's just one TV app... a standalone app. Which other ones are there?

 

[coolfactor]

TV is the worst thing Apple makes. It's glitchy, inconsistent, confusing, and just doesn't work most of the time I try it. Old units, new units, doesn't matter, they're all irritating to use.

My $40 Roku has been utterly flawless, still allows me to AirPlay (and Android friends can cast), and oh yeah it's $40.

The only app that I haven't been able to get to work right on said Roku is, surprise surprise, the Apple TV app. No sound when attempting to play movies. Never been able to get it to work.

The TV (hardware device) works flawlessly. Which glitches and confusion are you experiencing? Never had a problem with it.

Sometimes the "no sound" issue can be caused by HDMI ... either the cable you use is low-quality, or the TV itself isn't processing the audio properly. HDMI has built-in authentication and some cables can cause issues.

 

[AL2TEACH]

Well, I have to admit that I'm confused and will sadly have to wait to see what was removed from the Apple TV and what was added to the Apple TV+.

 

[Nicole1980]

I honestly didn’t understand any of what I just read 😩

agreed. Are they talking about the app thats on the iphone/ipad or are they talking about the apple tv OS that's on our apple tv boxes? The pic shows an appleTV box and remote, suggesting that its some kind of major change to the appleTV OS

 

[zapmymac]

So the bloated iTunes app will be replaced by a soon-to-be-bloated TV app ✅🫣

 

[Lucky736]

Could consolidate everything into one and call it....... hmmmmmm...... iTunes. Screwed it all up. Should have left it alone.

 

[CarAnalogy]

I’d be all for this as long as they finally give us the option to turn off auto play next episode. I HATE that ”feature” so I usually use the TV Shows app to watch shows.

It’s amazing how fast Apple went from the best experience to the worst. Amazon Prime Video is way better than Apple’s TV app. And that’s not because APV is so great. It’s that they at least pretend to care what the user wants.

 

[CarAnalogy]

We might have a chance for this to happen if we all submit this feedback to Apple: https://www.apple.com/feedback/apple-tv-app/

Been submitting feedback about their user hostile app for years. It just keeps getting worse. They don’t care. Apparently they hired the worst of the people from streaming a few years ago. Netflix has gotten better, Hulu has gotten better, even Disney has gotten slightly better (even though they are second worst and appear to be where Apple is getting inspiration.)

Apple keeps demonstrating more and more clearly that they don’t know how to make a good streaming interface and they don’t care, they just want to sell AppleTV+ and MLS subscriptions.

The ONLY thing they are putting development time into are the ads. The ad banners keep getting bigger and more numerous and more animated, yet the bugginess and slowness remains and gets worse.

Every single time I go to family sharing library it has to reload all over again, taking at least ten seconds each time. And I have to keep going back because it keeps defaulting me to the TV+ tab even though I never go there myself. I could go on and on and none of it gets better.

 

[stealthytolkien]

I think somewhere in an unknown location, far away from the rest of Apple products, Apple TV engineering teams have been busy hosting competitions amongst themselves and winning them for the worst designed remote control (twice) and the worst designed TV app (counting). The box itself is fine and blends nicely with other stuff but pretty much everything else about that product is plain unappealing.

 

[GtrDude]

I prefer Roku.
Apple TV has always been a mess.

 

[CarAnalogy]

This is the nail in the coffin for the ‘iTunes Store’ branding. Now, it will be the ‘Apple TV Store’ & ‘Apple Music Store’ etc.

As long as I can still purchase movies, I’m fine with it.

I’m done buying content from Apple. They are tipping their hand that they don’t really want to sell media anymore. They only want to rent it though Music and TV+. They are just going to make the experience for purchased content worse and worse.

 

[nawnp]

Makes sense as this is how they've handled other devices at thai point(iTunes not being a PC thing anymore), the problem right now though is they've turned the Apple TV app to nothing but Apple TV+ advertisement and it's hard to navigate now. If they plan on it all being one app there should be a what to watch tab (with up next front and center with recommended shows filling the rest), an Apple TV+ tab, purchase content tab (that can now cover services and iTunes purchases), and then already purchased content tab(s).

In short Apple TV+ could be handled so much better to make it's content seem enticing sitting next to other recommendations rather than the row after row of Apple TV+ being in the way of trying to go to the content we're actually looking for.

 

[CarAnalogy]

I’m on board as long as I can still filter out services I am not subscribed to. E.g, I don’t need to see Disney+ content in my guide since I don’t subscribe to that platform

If the current tv app is any indication, the point of this redesign will be expressly to prevent you from doing that. They want you to see all the stuff they want to push you, they don’t want you to see what you want to see.

This is the definition of ******tification. Once you see it you can’t unsee it: any time you do or see something YOU wanted to do or see, Apple sees it as a missed opportunity for you to do or see something that THEY wanted you to do or see.

What THEY want is the priority, what you want doesn’t matter. It’s not just Apple, it has infested nearly every technology company and beyond.

 

[MallardDuck]

Totally agree. What I want is for my “Library” to be for both purchased content as well as streaming content that I want to save and organize. I have a couple “go to” shows I put on when I have nothing else I’m watching or just want something on in the background (Frasier, Seinfeld, etc). Why can’t I add those to my Library for easy access whenever I want to quickly pick an episode and play? Up Next is just for single episodes, and then those are removed after you play them.

On top of that, the Library is still missing the ability to see and add playlists and folders on mobile. That’s basic functionality — and it’s already in the Mac app!

Bonus points for adding content that's in my local iTunes library into a single integrated view.

 

[MallardDuck]

Makes sense as this is how they've handled other devices at thai point(iTunes not being a PC thing anymore), the problem right now though is they've turned the Apple TV app to nothing but Apple TV+ advertisement and it's hard to navigate now. If they plan on it all being one app there should be a what to watch tab (with up next front and center with recommended shows filling the rest), an Apple TV+ tab, purchase content tab (that can now cover services and iTunes purchases), and then already purchased content tab(s).

In short Apple TV+ could be handled so much better to make it's content seem enticing sitting next to other recommendations rather than the row after row of Apple TV+ being in the way of trying to go to the content we're actually looking for.

I don't want it to ever recommend shows, especially anything that's ad supported. There needs to be a 'my content section' with all my stuff and a real watch list of both streaming and owned content (at the show level, not the episode), that's separate from 'browse new stuff' section. Auto play on previews needs to be disabled too (I hate that about netflix). There also has to be an easy and clean way to reset 'watched' on shows so that you can re-watch a series without having to manually remember what episode you're on.

 

[BreuerEditor]

I’m so confused by the title and the content of this article. It makes it sound like third-party apps are not going to be in the Apple TV anymore.

 

[mazz0]

Damn, I read that headline and I thought it meant they were going to get rid of the app launcher so all streaming services have to integrate with the TV app and we’d finally have the sensible TV interface Jobs dreamed of decades ago.

 

[vinklarek]

Are we ever going to get a porn tab in the TV app? Asking for a friend.