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Anonymous User
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New Apple TV App...

So we finally got the old Now Tv app ported over from ATV 3 to the New Apple TV (ATV4 if you will) after much whinging... When will we get one that's actually made for ATV4? That is now the new question!
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Anonymous User
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I agree, whilst I haven't been home to install yet I believe the app is basically the Apple TV 3 one. The latest Roku one has a great interface and nicely shows what you watched recently.

Siri search would be great too!
Anonymous User
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good to see the app, finally!!

 

My old apple tv can now be retired 

 

looking foward to new interface updates over the next few months, especially if unversal voice search gets added in future. 

 

i'm not a fan of the green color scheme that the  now tv app has had over the last year, 

 

i would really like to see a my list feature ( save for later list ) like netflix has 

Anonymous User
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Well said CJ5, we have the old app and im pretty sure before long we will have a new app with more functions.
Anonymous User
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Ill post here what I posted in the other thread, regarding the state of the app for the new Apple TV. The old app hasn't been ported per se, but the interface built using the same kind of tools as the old one, resulting in it being much the same.

 

I think, in short and in a TL;DR internet style, it's a case of waiting.

 


An explanation as to why the NOW TV app looks as it does is unlikely to be forthcoming from Sky. But, there are two ways you can create Apps on the new Apple TV and this might explain what's happened.

 

One is very simple - TVML. This is results in interfaces as you saw in previous generation Apple TV apps. A few simple menus, buttons that start streams and information text. Whilst you can't port them directly from old versions, making a new one and taking an existing one are fairly simple. This is what you have with the current NOW TV app that's just gone live.

 

The other type of interface can be created by building a full app, with its own interface and code, built using the SDK from Apple. An example of thing would be a game, like Lumino City. A native app.

 

If you want to knock out something really quickly, you can using TVML and that's what we've got with the NOW TV app as it is. Given the current furore over the missing app, I'm guessing that's excatly what Sky have done. No bells and whistles, just knock out the app as fast as possible, before it's picked up by the tech blogs as an issue and becomes "An Internet Thing" and his friend "Bad Press" quickly follows.

 

Apple makes it simple to mix and match native and TVML. I would guess there's a NOW TV app that is much nicer and offers a lot of features on par with other platforms that's built either partially or fully native. Possibly, it was held for the Nov 18th (am I remembering this date right from earlier posts?) announcement. Or, it's not ready for release. Or, it's been rejected by Apple for some reason. Anyway, it's either not ready for commercial or technical reasons and to bridge the gap and give everyone the abaility to watch on the new Apple TV, they've knocked out this version in TVML quickly. I would also bet they knew they would not be ready with the new app on time, but looked at their Apple TV viewing numbers and rationalised the issue thus: "not too many people are watching on Apple TV now and how many of those are likely to go out Day 1 and buy a new Apple TV and how many of those will even notice the app is missing?". Customer focus is not Sky's strong point at all. They are not a Customer Service driven company. They are a content driven company. You buy Sky because you want the content. You do not sign up because of their customer service. 

 

I would therefore suggest we all be happy we can watch NOW TV on the new Apple TV for now. After all, we only need to start the stream from the interface, right? After which, you're watching the stream for hours and don't have to see the interface again. I would bet that within a few weeks or possibly to align with the annoucement later in the month, a new app is coming. Or possibly, they'll just now put the new Apple TV onto the back burner as a low priority as they've effectively met their obligations. Whatever happens, I'd bet there's a much nicer app somewhere, because Apple listed them as a launch partner, and they would be most unlikely to do that unless they were supporting some of the new Apple TV features - such as the video scrubbing, remote features, search or Siri.

 

To be clear, I don't work for Sky, NOW TV or have any inside knowledge. Just speculation based on what's happened and at least they've taken note of doing wrong (even if there's no apology) and bashed out a solution as fast as was possible. I bet there was a late night or two for somone gettting this running quickly.



 

Anonymous User
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Given Sky's resources the incredibly lazy effort they've dumped on the App Store is inexcusable. It also makes no sense.

Evidently Apple have foolishly provided lazy developers with a quick XML type route to get some video links on screen with a barely functional and incredibly primarily interface. Zero design, zero flair, and zero brand identity. All apps written using TVML are plain text on a black screen. It's impossible to make them any less attractive or any more ugly. They're rock bottom, and Apple should be taken to task for enabling such abominations to be made. After all the work they put into the new UI in iOS 7 it's amazing they could poop out something so ugly.

Honestly, I've seen far more attractive and designed things during early development of software, at which point no UI designers or artists have touched the app.

Sky have been working on a Now TV big screen UI for a good while now, and it's in place on the PS4 and Roku. So the UI work has been done. They also have mature iOS code from their iPad and iPhone apps. All that would need to be done is to marry the two. Not a big job.

Instead we get this mess and the forum mods are silent. It's unacceptable to us and it should be unacceptable to Sky too. The new ATV is a big deal and it's hard to believe Sky are happy to let new users' experience of Now TV be with something with such terrible aesthetics and functionality.

An answer please Sky. When are you going to fix this?
Anonymous User
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And for those that don't know, Now TV has had 'my list' functionality for a while now on the PS4. It still doesn't queue up the next episode as Netflix does though.

Basically use the PS4 app if you can, as its streets ahead of the others, especially the 1980s micro styled Apple TV app.
Anonymous User
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I hope this app was put up due to issues with a fully featured Apple TV 4 app, but anyway:

 

Ommissions:

1. No My TV section, so you can't see what you were watching, you have to search every time.

2. No titles display if in the top row on the home screen.

3. No now/next or live TV channel swapping whilst watching a live channel

4. No Siri integration, which I expected as this was supposed to be a lauch partner app.  Hopefully when Apple release the gerenal SDK for this it will still arrive.

 

Bar point 4 the Roku (and imagine other) Now TV apps have all these features, even the iOS one!

 

App bug:

The app title shown on the Appe TV home screen is the same as the one with the scrolling advertising text for the store, so it doesn't fit (or scroll).  It should be just NowTV on the Home Screen, the Sky News app is just Sky News on the Home Screen and that has a longer scrolling title in the App store - so it can be done.

Anonymous User
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@Anonymous User wrote:

I hope this app was put up due to issues with a fully featured Apple TV 4 app, but anyway:

 

Ommissions:

1. No My TV section, so you can't see what you were watching, you have to search every time.

2. No titles display if in the top row on the home screen.

3. No now/next or live TV channel swapping whilst watching a live channel

4. No Siri integration, which I expected as this was supposed to be a lauch partner app.  Hopefully when Apple release the gerenal SDK for this it will still arrive.

 

Bar point 4 the Roku (and imagine other) Now TV apps have all these features, even the iOS one!

 

App bug:

The app title shown on the Appe TV home screen is the same as the one with the scrolling advertising text for the store, so it doesn't fit (or scroll).  It should be just NowTV on the Home Screen, the Sky News app is just Sky News on the Home Screen and that has a longer scrolling title in the App store - so it can be done.


 

The list goes on - 

 

5 - No thumbnail when scrubbing (which works great in iTunes and Netflix, try it!)

 

6 - No viewing history

 

7 - No resume play to pick up where you left off

 

8 - No progress bar beneath a video to show if you've watched it already

 

9 - TV schedule is just a tiny and crude looking list showing a single channel. Come on, TV guides have been full screen multi channel affairs for decades now. 

 

10 - And of course the big one..  it is completely devoid of the standardised Now TV user interface design as used on the Roku, PS3, PS4, Xbox One and so on. White text on a black background isn't a user inteface, it's a crude placeholder. It isn't acceptable.

 

The ugly UI is a big, BIG problem, but beyond that, the total lack of any of the new Apple TV functionality is inexcusable. The new device was sold on universal Siri voice search, that's why it exists. Doing a Siri search shows Netflix and iTunes results no problem, but Now TV is completely absent. Then you throw in the lack of a My List and you have to manually search, LETTER BY LETTER (!!!) every time you load up the app to find the show you want to watch. And unlike Now TV on every other platform, it doesn't even show you if you've already watched an episode.

 

Tom said that new features are added to the various Now TV apps on a gradual basis, so they won't all be in perfect sync. The new Apple TV app so far behind every other Now TV app it surely must be at the front of the queue for a total ground up re-write, and by that I mean in native iOS code, not TVML.  The current app is functional, only just, but the user experience is absolutely horrible and it's aesthetically terrible. The goal should be so simple - use the Apple TV's new features (as listed above) and give it the PS4/Roku user interface design. I know that requires work, but they have programmers and money, so such things are possible. Heck if they can program an app for a complex oddball architecture like the PS3, the Apple TV should be a total walk in the park.

Anonymous User
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Of all the devices I have tried the  picture quality is the best so far on ATV 4. App may still be in the transition phase but pic quality is amazing.