YouTube App update

[2010mini]

You can't get objectivity in any Apple endorsed option vs. anything else here. If it was Apple vs. God, a good chunk of this crowd would choose Apple... or not recognize that there is a difference between the two.

Basically, this is an issue of "open source" vs. a source that nets Apple some money. A poll with a better chance of objectivity would cut Apple out of the question and simply ask "open source" vs. "closed source." As soon as we can see that Apple takes a side in ANYTHING, THAT becomes THE side that most of us take too. It doesn't even matter if it might generally be bad for us consumers: Apple knows best. If Apple is against something, we're against it too. If Apple then flips to being for it, we flip to be for it too.

In some parallel universe it might be Apple pushing VP9 and- say- Samsung pushing h.265. There, "we" would be pounding the tables about the great benefits of open source and even superiority of VP9 (whether there's any or not would not matter).

Regardless of how a bunch of Apple fans vote, if we want 4K via YouTube, Apple would need to make VP9 work in TV. If they won't, then we need to turn to other options to access such stuff if we want. All the griping we can muster against Google/YouTube is pretty much the same as all the griping we can shoot at Android or Windows- it won't make the rest of the world change to comply to what Apple wants. Walled garden is both benefit and anti-consumer, sometimes at the same time.

My own take: Apple should make TV capable of playing mainstream audio & video codecs to simply make it more useful to users. I don't expect them to do that but I wish they would. The more they aim for "lock in" the more they also "lock out." As consumers want- but cannot get- what they want, they are basically pressed to get it other ways... or do without. That seems corporate-centric or profit-centric over customer-centric.

I thought Apple like everyone else was taking a bath with H.265 royalties?

 

[dugbug]

I don’t mind them rethinking menus but the playback ui acts like a crappy web app

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

I thought Apple like everyone else was taking a bath with H.265 royalties?

Apparently I’mconfused about Apple owning a piece of that pie. Apologies for the misinformation.

Edit: correction on my correction- I knew I should have looked this back up. I don’t know how to interpret “net beneficiary” and not loop back to the original thought: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/..._not_at_the_codec_party_microsoft_and_google/

And here’s a little more: https://medium.com/@eyevinntechnolo...-to-support-hevc-change-the-game-1996c4f67874

So, unless someone wants to counter what these articles say, there’s money in Apple NOT also embracing the “royalty free” option that is apparently just about the same in terms of compression efficiency. It doesn’t look like this is an Apple vs. Google debate... just a “which is more profitable?” choice.

Very simply: with every HEVC adoption Apple makes money. They wouldn’t with VP9 because it’s royaly-free, open source. So the choice to support only the money-maker explains much.

 

[Macalicious2011]

Arghhhhhh I forgot to switch off automatic app update on my replacement device I hate when the decision to update an app to a major revision escapes. Oh well.

There is nothing I can do but switch off auto app update now and learn to love the new YouTube App.

 

[Ritsuka]

VP9 has the wonderful license: "you can use it only if you don't sue Google".
Anyway, AV1 is coming out this year. No one will care about VP9 ever again.

 

[Michelasso]

Netflix mobile is starting to use of VP9. Google Movies and TV shows (obviously) use VP9 to some extent according to wiki.

But Netflix for 4K 10-bits content should use HEVC. At least that's what I've read from ArsTechnica:

"There's also the matter of hardware decoding support for 10-bit HEVC, the 4K codec used by Netflix and other streaming services"

So, yes. Netflix may adopt VP9, but I doubt they will drop HEVC for it, also considering that many devices do no play VP9 or VP9.2 (for HDR on VP9. Like the Sony Bravia early 2016 and before). Not even the Nvidia Shield supports VP9.2 HW acceleration.

About the new YouTube app... Personally I have got used to it on my PS4 and Bravia TV. I like the general UI, at least it does the job for the way I use YouTube (no playlist shuffle and the like). It guesses what I like and give the list of what has been recently uploaded by the few channels I subscribed. Also it keeps my last recently used channels and video on top.

What is terribly wrong is the video player. I don't see how it could be so hard to use the standard Apple TV player, with the menu appearing scrolling down, skip back/forth clicking left/right and then swipe up to get the current controls (in case something doesn't fit in the menu). As it is now it's a complete mess, highly confusing.

 

[cynics]

I can copy the feedback I sent to Google; In short I hate the update in pretty much every single way.


Dear, Google and the YouTube-team

Please remove or at least do some serious work with this "new app" for Apple TV and tvOS. I'm not normally one to complain, it seems to be the norm these days to complain about any kind of noticeable change to software like everyone complains each and every time Facebook does a UX-change and update to Facebook and Facebook Messenger or when Snapchat recently did a UX-overhaul of Snapchat etc.. People tend to hate change for whatever reason.

I don't want to be that guy, I don't like to be that guy. But this update is just something that doesn't work for me, and its even more hated by my fiancee which is even more important to me. You know how it is. Happy wife, happy life and so forth..


The biggest problem with this new update is how its no longer a native-app on tvOS. Its just a wrapper for your YouTube.com/TV web-application. This is a rather lazy approach, and I'm somewhat surprised that its even allowed on the tvOS AppStore as Apple does not allow such wrappers onto the iOS AppStore, but I guess they have different rules, guidelines and terms and conditions for each platform.

This approach works out really bad for tvOS. As with most "one-web-application-fits-all-platforms" approaches it lacks any kind of platform specific features and optimisations. This becomes abundantly clear with this new version as it behaves so much more poorly in so many ways compared to the previous version. Even basic things like integration towards the Apple Siri Remote is gone which makes navigation feels slow, wonky and horrible. It seems like you utilise zero tvOS specific API's so the Siri Remote's touchpad is not just emulating clicks in this new app resulting in slow and unintuitive navigation and control. There is no swiping, swiping only results in a emulated direction click, there is no acceleration when swiping faster and if you swipe for a extended amount of time there is no logical correlation with the swiping motions and whats being emulated in the app so even when you stop swiping the app will keep moving as it has registered additional emulated clicks compared to what you might have intended. It looks and feels horrible when the app keeps going when you have stopped swiping on the remote. It often misinterpretation the direction of swipes and everything.

So we went from a version that was perfectly integrated with the remote, to a version that doesn't seem to integrate at all.


And as this is just a wrapper for the web-application it also uses the YouTube HTML-player instead of the native tvOS player like you did previously. This have removed support for automated frame rate switching and automated dynamic range switching. It also features playback controls that don't follow or correlate with pretty much any other tvOS-app so it feels weird and clunky to use. Its even more hampered by the fact that the remote functions as badly as it does.

The change of video-player has also changed how ads work and are being displayed. Previously we only had ads being displayed before playback, but now we have ads all-over the videos. There might be some before, several during playback etc.. This doesn't seem to follow Apple's strict rules for non-intrusive ads? What is going on here? This i degrading the user-experience by a lot. Where I had one 5 second to 15 second ad before, I might now have several 5 second ads popping up out of nowhere during playback in the most intrusive way with a box right in the middle of the screen with uneven audio levels? What is going on here?


Other than that the new UX-design doesn't comply with any tvOS guidelines or logic. There is no longer a top-bar you can easily access by swiping down from the top of the remote.On my 65-inch TV it feels like the UX-design is just blown-up as everything is just crazy large for no apparent reason? Why waste so much space on a always showing search bar, way too much information and large text under video thumbnails so we only have 3 1/2 video shown at once compared to the grid of 12 videos we had before. Combine this inefficient use of screen realestate with how badly navigation on the Siri Remote works it results in a really inefficient and clunky experience.

The worst part of the new UX-design is the "Subscriptions" list. What is going on here? Its a endless list of huge circular icons? The icons are way too large and makes navigation and getting to the correct channel a shore. My fiancee are subscribed to over 50 channels and this UI only shows three icons at the time on a single row. She spent over 1 minute navigating from letter A to letter M. Its just not good design at all.



We didn't really get that many new features either? The only real thing that was added besides a different UX-design has been access to like/dislike and the capability of viewing and clicking embedded links in videos and that's pretty much it. We still lack access to comments, we still can't add videos to playlists or watch-later. And we lost any kind of optimisation towards tvOS and the Siri Remote, we lost automatic frame rate and dynamic range switching, we lost the capability to not have intrusive ads, we lost the option to shuffle playlists.



I do understand its easier for you to have this "one-app-for-every-platform" approach. But for heavens sake, at least try to optimise and integrate it towards the tvOS-platform. The way the Siri Remote works and navigates and how we have lost each and every tvOS specific feature is just poor customer service.

At least provide the previous app separately for users that appreciate platform optimised applications.
[doublepost=1518182681][/doublepost]


This is a pathetic excuse. The new version on longer uses the native tvOS video-player so its no longer limited to OS specific decoders. They could easily add VP9 decoding into their own video-player just like VLC and Infuse/Infuse Pro have added tons of additional codec into their own video-players making them capable of playing a bunch of files not supported in the native tvOS video-player.
[doublepost=1518182787][/doublepost]Everyone that wants to leave feedback about the new app should do so directly to the correct 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
[doublepost=1518183026][/doublepost]


Apple doesn't earn anything on pushing HEVC/H.265, they have to pay the license as anyone else. And even-though VP9 is royalty-free it does come with licensing requirements. Have you even read them? Its obvious why Apple can't comply with the license Google requires for Apple to use VP9.

And YouTube is no longer using the native tvOS video-player so they are no longer limited to the OS specific decoders, they can embed VP9 decoding into their video-player just like VLC and Infuse have done with theirs.
[doublepost=1518183772][/doublepost]

I find this really fascinating, how people can have such hugely different opinions and feelings about something. The ONLY good things I have to say about the new app is;

- Like/Dislike
- Support for viewing and clicking embedded links and media in videos
- Google Cast support (I don't care, I have it directly in my TV but I see how its nice for people)
- Better captions
- Some additional stuff like stats for nerds, even-though I see no use for it


But they have removed EVERY SINGLE tvOS specific feature which is mind-boggling to me;

• Apple Siri Remote integration. Everything is now just emulating regular clicks. Its horrible and makes navigation a shore and far worse than any other tvOS-app I have ever tried. Swiping is just not being used at all, its just emulated direction clicks.
  
  
• Automatic frame-rate switching
  
  
• Automatic dynamic range switching
  
  
• Shuffle in playlists
  
  
• Grid-view
  
  
• Top-bar/menu (swipe down from the top of the Siri Remote to get easy access to common settings)
  
  
• INTRUSIVE ADS! We have bloody pop-up ads during video play-back. Popping up out of nowhere, right in the middle of the screen with uneven audio... Its horrible and makes the one essential thing, watching videos incredibly frustrating. I would take ZERO features over having my videos interrupted with pop-up ads all the time.

We still don't have:

• Access to comments
• Capability of adding videos to playlists and watch-later

Its like taking one step forward, three steps back if you ask me.


And there are so much wrong with the new UX-design. First of all its not designed for tvOS at all, it follows zero guidelines and makes zero sense compared to other apps on the platform.

And the UX is obviously a "one-size-fits-all" solution, its solely vector graphics being scaled to fit whatever display size. On my 65-inch OLED-TV things are just so huge it becomes stupid. There is so much wasted screen realestate that its not even funny. Where I could view 12 videos in a grid, I can now view 3 1/2 on a row. Combine this with really inefficient and clunky navigation with the control it takes forever to get to what I want to watch. Its infuriating to use.

Worst part is the Subscription list. Oh boy, has to be the worst use of space I have ever seen. Like come on? My fiancee have over 50 channels she has subscribed to and it took her over 2 minutes to just get to letter S in the horrible list.... I have never seen her so mad in my life, she was red in her face and almost watery in her eyes when she told me that she felt she just didn't want to watch YouTube on the TV anymore.

Sorry for the delay in response. I wanted to use YouTube for a few days to have a less bias opinion.

Much of what you say is accurate and things are missing/lacking, the remote support especially when scrolling, frame rate switching, icons in certain views are massively oversized for the rest of the UI, and OS access (swipe down).

However I feel compelled to play devils advocate on a couple of points.

If anything its more of an "app" now than the Apple made client for YouTube. The Crackle app is that basic client, which is <1mb in size while an app like YouTube is now with the other streaming apps >60mb. The TV platform layout was an obvious choice, it is an AppleTV. And its identical to my Samsung 4k HDR set and very near identical to my PS4 Pro.

I'm not so sure about the remote emulation all in all. If you mean everything is sensed as a generic click that is obviously not the case as you wobble the icons around. They even have the parallax glare effect (not the app icon effect though). This wouldn't be possible if everything was interpreted as click.

My "pathetic excuse" is just me being a realist.

VLC can play VP9 however when you through a complex VP9 like YouTube offers, namely high color depth, 4k, 60fps and/or a combination of them at it....

The World in HDR via VLC


You get stuttering, pixelation, and eventually freezing.

While software decoding can be improved upon and if anyone could do it it would be Google. However I don't think its a reasonable to expect Google to make a software decoder (again, if possible) for a competing device. That is a very specific piece of software for a very specific device on a very specific OS. To risky anyone, a couple more tvOS and the youtube might not have the CPU to leverage for the decoding.

Some problems you have are just due to how the YouTubes business structure works. Ads for example, content creators are presented with:



To keep the ATV monetized it needs to display ads like on other devices. While most content creators select "Everywhere" I have been met with "Playback not supported on this device" on non monetized platforms. I've even seen this in tvOS however only for first hour or so of a videos launch which I assumed was due to the content creator wanting to maximize profitability of a video. I'm not exactly sure where the AppleTV is/was on monetization but the YouTube help still list it under "all platforms" aka everywhere.

Also the content creator is who allows mid-roll video ads and they can also control their placement. So there existence and intrusive placement can only really be blamed on the content creator themselves.

I'm not sure about Apples rules on mid-roll ads however they have devices in place specifically to implement them. Do you use the free version of any other service? If not download and use Crackle, it has the purest form of how Apple implements them. By basically pulling you out of the player I actually find YouTubes implementation of them less intrusive. Hulu's implementation is even worse, they would often ask the user to "Choose your ad experience" lol.

The new app is FAR from perfect and we will likely start seeing some updates from Google just like consoles and TV's however I don't know how much we should expect moving forward. Their is certainly a lot they can improve on when it comes to the remote touch interface and Siri integration (only do what the controls of the app can do).
[doublepost=1518489264][/doublepost]

But Netflix for 4K 10-bits content should use HEVC. At least that's what I've read from ArsTechnica:

"There's also the matter of hardware decoding support for 10-bit HEVC, the 4K codec used by Netflix and other streaming services"

So, yes. Netflix may adopt VP9, but I doubt they will drop HEVC for it, also considering that many devices do no play VP9 or VP9.2 (for HDR on VP9. Like the Sony Bravia early 2016 and before). Not even the Nvidia Shield supports VP9.2 HW acceleration.

Netflix "mobile".

 

[MagicBoy]

It's driving me up the wall frankly. I'm trying to cue into a video about an hour. Each swipe gets me 20 seconds, so that's 360 swipes. It's just unusable garbage.

 

[Michelasso]

It's driving me up the wall frankly. I'm trying to cue into a video about an hour. Each swipe gets me 20 seconds, so that's 360 swipes. It's just unusable garbage.

Honestly that is not an issue. I can easily swipe a 10 hours video in few seconds. Just go into the controls (top) and swipe fast. More you accelerate and many more positions it move. I actually have the other problem around. To skip back/forward few seconds needs too much precision. Somehow the press left/right works but it's a bit of a nightmare, it shows the controls as well after pressing.