YouTube App on Apple TV Updated Following User Complaints Over Subscriptions Layout and More

[QuarterSwede]

Why does YouTube insist on using its own player code rather than the excellent built in video player API? That's my only complaint about the new app. Apple's API works well and is consistent across all of TVOS. There's no reason not to use it.

Consistency in the UI and code across their products is likely the answer. It’s easier and more efficient for them.
[doublepost=1519408399][/doublepost]

Using the public for testing?

Google’s been doing that for years. Gmail sat in beta for years before they finally took the label off.

 

[Rogifan]

Why does YouTube insist on using its own player code rather than the excellent built in video player API? That's my only complaint about the new app. Apple's API works well and is consistent across all of TVOS. There's no reason not to use it.

Can’t Apple mandate something like this?

 

[mdelvecchio]

Oh google. you just don’t ever learn what makes good design. this ain’t it. this thing is anti-user...

 

[CarlJ]

The real issue isn't the layout or feature set. It's the fact they appeared to have replaced the old native app by a web view that performs poorly, and where touch inputs are inaccurate.

The whole app is choppy rather than the smooth 60fps we're used to. Touch inputs don't feel native, you constantly skip over the elements you want to select while navigating. Navigating the app is unpredictable, you don't know how it'll respond to your input, ...

As you mention, they appear to have said, "let's just drop the native Apple TV app, and ship them a stripped-down web browser that pulls up the same youtube.com/TV web interface that we use for game consoles and smart TVs".

This web interface expects you're using a game controller's (or TV remote's) D-pad for input, which is why the scrolling seems so screwed up - if you ignore everything you know about touch input on the Apple TV, and just tap-without-clicking on the upper/lower/left/right part of the touchpad, it works passably well. In menus and lists, I'm fairly convinced that they're not parsing swiping at all, your swiping input just happens to sort-of/halfway work because it's (mis)reading it as taps on U/D/L/R. I've found it possible to move through the menus (and especially the "More options" row under a video) by tapping areas on the remote to get somewhere and then clicking to select. This in no way excuses what they've done, it's more like a workaround (hopefully temporary). It also makes it much more clear that what we've been handed is a webview of a generic least-common-denominator web page.

Shipping it with this kind of input mapping was idiotic. Doing so without at least popping up a dialog initially saying, "you have to use your remote in this specific unfamiliar manner (U/D/L/R) for it to work right" seems... cowardly. Like they'd rather not own up to what they've done, and hope people just suffer along quietly with it.

To me, though, the worst changes, which are still in effect in today's version, are: 1) the extraordinary loss of context in the menus, using a grid where one can now see only one-and-a-half rows by three-and-a-half columns, which makes it like trying to navigate while looking through a telescope, showing you a postage-stamp-sized area in great detail; and, b) the clunky interface obscuring nearly half of the screen while playing a video, if you do anything other than letting the video run (want to pause the video to read something on-screen? too bad if it's in the bottom half of the screen!).

 

[Millah]

I love to throw this sort of thing into the face of idiots who love to proclaim “Google is better at design than Apple.”

As a famous man once said, design is how it works, not how it looks. Google design has ALWAYS prioritized look over feel, where Apple has always strived to nail both because they’re linked. Look and feel can not be separate concepts when it comes to UI and UX.

This app is a perfect example of showing ZERO interest for the feel of the interface. Because this interface feels like absolute trash. And feel is not something you can present quantitatively, it’s based on good intuition and taste.

So for the last time, no. Google is not good at design. Apple isn’t perfect, but anyone with any semblance of good taste would agree that native tvOS controls and behavior feel substantially better than anything Google has ever touched.

 

[zorinlynx]

Can’t Apple mandate something like this?

Technically they can. Realistically, though, they can only threaten to remove YouTube from the App Store, and doing so would piss off FAR more people than this bad UI does.

It sucks because this allows big companies like Google to bend the rules, whereas small developers can't.

 

[JRobinsonJr]

Thank God. This new YouTube app is a total disaster. I don't understand why the felt like replacing the existing app. It was great, but

Can’t Apple mandate something like this?

Probably, but Google could just as easily remove YouTube from the AppleTV... like they did with the Echo Show... and say it's about maintaining the user experience.

 

[mariusignorello]

The typical “let’s try something new” corporate mentality is shown in the YouTube app. It is inconsistent with tvOS and iOS design standards and needs to be redone. They sure followed Material Design to the letter though huh?

Apple needs to reject this app and tell them to play nice or their app isn’t welcome.

 

[iBluetooth]

The typical “let’s try something new” corporate mentality is shown in the YouTube app. It is inconsistent with tvOS and iOS design standards and needs to be redone. They sure followed Material Design to the letter though huh?

Apple needs to reject this app and tell them to play nice or their app isn’t welcome.

Better yet - Google will learn that it's better to use the native design elements instead of forcing the Android TV design on users that are unused to it. But, it makes me appreciate the Apple TV design much more.

 

[CarlJ]

It’s the PlayStation 4 YouTube app, copied wholesale.
It’s attrocious. The previous app was a UI mess too, but this is even worse.

Actually, it's youtube.com/TV, which is their least-common-denominator interface they send to game consoles and "smart" TVs. The old app was missing features, but it was an actual Apple TV app. The new app is just a web browser pointed at youtube.com/TV. Saves work for them, at the expense of ... sucking.

 

[frankmcma]

Oh google. you just don’t ever learn what makes good design. this ain’t it. this thing is anti-user...

Yeah the design is not great...BUT it does offer a lot more functionality.

Last version you played a video, and that was it. Now when you play a video you can swipe down and see a row of suggested videos that tie into the topic, go down again and there is the actual producers channel (which you can click into) along with recent uploads. Down below that are auto-generated playlists based on the video you are watching.

Oh and now you can like videos. In the app. I used to have to go to my phone to like a video. I still want to be able to add a video to a certain playlist, not sure if I can do that yet.

Also now you can be watching a video and explore different playlists, video keeps going until you hit play on something else.

Anyway, aside from the bad design, I find myself spending way more time exploring and watching. A constant stream of suggestions and options. Much better for exploring, ability to like clips as well play clips while you continue to explore.

Too bad they could not keep the new features and options and go back to the standard Apple interface...

 

[ikir]

I think we will all look back on it as a big mistake that Apple did not put more restrictions on the design of video-centric apps. They should have to use standard playback methods and UI elements—and Apple should have continued adding new UI element options such as, for example, DVR menu functionality. It's quickly becoming a bigger mess every day and the fact that they even allowed apps like Amazon special access to UIWebView on the Apple TV makes me think that they really just don't give a crap any more.

The problem is with users, a restriction like this is easily twisted by anti Apple propaganda! Apple is eviiiillllllllll!!!1

 

[Apple_Robert]

Why does YouTube insist on using its own player code rather than the excellent built in video player API? That's my only complaint about the new app. Apple's API works well and is consistent across all of TVOS. There's no reason not to use it.

I am guessing that they want to have as much control as possible, working to push people towards their own model service.

 

[bchery21]

I have the same LG tv! That being said, I need to upgrade to a new ATV...still rocking the older, smaller gen.

 

[imola.zhp]

The side menu was very sensitive too. Looking forward to trying the new layout.

 

[LiveM]

This app should never have made it past Apple. How they let the pause button work as rewind, etc., is phenomenal.

 

[alexgowers]

Some design choices are weird in this update but they got the general idea right imo. The player UI is garbage, I’m a skip forward kind of guy and this is impossible now without activating other player controls.

The other issues for me relate to lack of access to comments, making comments and subscriptions. Sure most don’t use a keyboard but having those options would be amazing.

 

[341328]

Google has turned a good app into a dog. The app feels like a crap android app. Yuck. 1 Star.

 

[Muzzakus]

The app still behaves horribly with the touchpad on the remote and features we had before like automatic frame rate switching and dynamic range switching it still gone...

I would like to remind everyone;

The best way to provide feedback would be to go through the official channels;

You can give feedback directly to Google/YouTube; https://www.youtube.com/tv_feedback And you can also give feedback directly to Apple; https://www.apple.com/feedback/appletv.html

And it doesn't hurt to give everyone a tweet as well;

@teamyoutube @youtube @google @Apple

There is also a thread over at the Google forums for feedback; https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/youtube/O_QjzLHptbc

Thanks, have submitted feedback on YouTube.com and Google forum.

 

[Vintuitive]

I find the easiest solution is to bypass the AppleTV interface altogether and simply airplay YouTube from your device instead. But the iOS YouTube app is horrible to use as well. As someone else mentioned, it's like its designed for someone who is only following a handful of accounts. I subscribe to well over a hundred.

 

[photograft]

Why does YouTube insist on using its own player code rather than the excellent built in video player API? That's my only complaint about the new app. Apple's API works well and is consistent across all of TVOS. There's no reason not to use it.

Not only that, YouTube’s player breaks several functions. When invoking Siri, video playback pauses and doesn’t unpause automatically, whereas normal video playback continues uninterrupted.
You can’t swipe down to get to subtitle settings and audio output settings.
If you’re using YouTube and want audio output to stream to a HomePod, you need to go all the way to settings, set HomePod as your audio output, then navigate back into the app to resume.
Their app is totally horribly designed, but likely inspired by Amazons ****** interface. If amazon can release an app that feels awful but conforms to their design on other platforms, why can’t YouTube?

 

[Shanghaichica]

It’s a big plie of poop. I’ll have to see if mine has been updated because for now I can’t see a difference.

 

[Glockworkorange]

It's been just over two weeks since YouTube updated its Apple TV app with a major redesign, essentially bringing the app in line with YouTube on other products like Android TV, smart TVs, PS4, and Xbox One. While the original YouTube Apple TV app was never widely favored, the new update was met with even more blowback from some users, who referenced laggy controls, poorer playback UI, illogical changes to the subscription tab's channel list, and more.

This week, YouTube pushed out version 1.01.04 of the app for Apple TV 4th and 5th generation devices, and it addresses a few of these user concerns. The major update is a "modified" subscriptions tab that nixes the long horizontal list of subscribed YouTube channels -- which made it take much longer to get to channels at the bottom of the alphabetized list -- and reverts back to a grid layout akin to the original app. YouTube said this was done for "easier channel selection."

Although it's not mentioned in the update notes, one user on Reddit said that there have also been a few tweaks to video scrubbing, so users can "go through the video with the touchpad again instead of slowly rewinding/fast forwarding." When doing this, thumbnail previews of the video pop up to give you an idea of where to land as you jump through the video, but YouTube still doesn't use Apple's systemwide playback UI and there isn't any support for quick 10-second jumps forward and backward.

Otherwise, YouTube said that the update fixed an issue with the search keyboard when people were using "non-Siri TV remotes," and it includes the usual bug fixes and stability improvements.

Article Link: YouTube App on Apple TV Updated Following User Complaints Over Subscriptions Layout and More

How about just giving me YouTube 4K and HDR?

 

[threesixty360]

Build once, run anywhere stuff should only exist in enterprise! I hate when it’s done for consumer products. In enterprise people get paid to use crappy tools so it’s ok. A consumer wants, needs and appreciates the best that’s on offer. And I don’t care how long it takes to test or roll out features, it’s not as if your not a billion dollar company!

Obviously Apple have granted amazon and now YouTube with this special web environment because they have the content. So everybody is hostage to the dreams of IT project managers in these companies. But it’s sad. I think it’s the one thing where maybe Jobs would have said “bye!” If asked to let this happen.

The only good thing about it is FB did this for a while and realised also it’s a waste of time as you can’t keep up with UI changes using WebKit stuff. And you just end up in a buggy mess a few years later. Something that may not be noticeable on lesser platforms but will stick out like a sore thumb on Apple devices.

And then an app will come out to embarrass them. And that will be it. They will be back to native api’s. Let’s see how this plays out.

 

[tonyr6]

Thanks, have submitted feedback on YouTube.com and Google forum.

Don't bother you have a better chance of writing Santa for a gift you want and he will respond then Google listening to feedback. They listen to zero feedback. Just go into there disaster of a forum. Any issues and they tell you to leave feedback and it is always ignored. Actually Netflix is another company that listens to zero feedback and I keep saying that Google and Netflix should merge they are a perfect pair in doing whatever they want to apps annoying people with zero user input.