24-10-2015 17:50
Solved! Go to Solution.
30-10-2015 18:23
Hi @Anonymous User, @Anonymous User, @Anonymous User, @Anonymous User, @Anonymous User, @Anonymous User, @Anonymous User, @Anonymous User, @Anonymous User, @Anonymous User, @Anonymous User and anyone on this thread I may have unintentionally missed 🙂
The NOW TV app for the new Apple TV should be coming out soon, so please keep an eye out.
Thanks,
Rich
04-11-2015 8:55
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.
04-11-2015 8:22
04-11-2015 8:22
04-11-2015 8:49
04-11-2015 9:38
Agreed. This thread is now done.
Lets
1) Thanks NOW TV for at least listening getting the App out
2) They do need to get better at commnunciation to the customers
3) now someone create a new thread to badger Sky/NOW TV to give the ATV4 the App it deserves
Thank you all, job done.
04-11-2015 10:33
I agree, I am pleased they've got an app out as I said previously. I think it's simply a matter of we thought a new app would be ready in time, we were wrong so here is the old one.
04-11-2015 9:23
04-11-2015 9:29
04-11-2015 9:38
04-11-2015 9:51
Hey Now TV Developers,
Can you incorporate the ability to see which episodes of a box set that you have already watch to make it easy to keep track of where you are in a series. I know this has been requested so many times before and realy puts me off signing up to the service again.