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Anonymous User
Not applicable

Update Now TV app for apple TV

Will the Now TV app for Apple TV ever get an update?

 

The current version is complete rubbish and makes me regret ever getting a Now TV pass.

 

Unless there is an update my Now TV experience will be very short indeed.

2,755 REPLIES 2,755
AlexB83
Scholar 2

@nst 

 

I dunno it seems from the press release Now Tv is very much part of this deal so I don't think it's without hope

nst
Elite

@AlexB83 

 

I admire your optimism however as I mentioned now and sky are separate services with separate customers and pitched differently.

 

The only mention of now in that press release was enabling Apple to be used in order to subscribe to now. This is in line with many other services on Apple and it is attractive to Apple as they take a cut of the subscription fee. This is more a concession from sky using now as a scapegoat and allowing Apple to take a cut of their NOW subscriptions. 

this will in my opinion only leave now lower down the pecking order than sky as it already is as the sky will be looking to premium subscriptions attracting them to Skyglass in order to offset the losses that they will suffer allowing subscriptions to now via the Apple ecosystem.

 

I would love for now to be a higher quality service. I accept that it is and only will be an HD and 5.1 service. I have the choice as a consumer to have a better service but that is why Skyglass exists. I very much doubt there is significant crossover between now and the more expensive Skyglass offering . 

AlexB83
Scholar 2

@nst 

They are unlikely to say we are going to improve the app and give it loads of features in the press release. But with Apple now taking revenue from Now TV being paid through the app then surely Apple would want it to be as high quality as possible to increase the number of subs being taken out through Apple TV. We might get a total bout turn where Now Tv on Apple TV is the best experience on any platform. 

nst
Elite

@AlexB83 

 

I totally agree with your logic there and what you say makes perfect sense.

 

Yes, the NOW app should become a higher priority on the AppleTV platform given this new agreement it would be a little embarrassing for the current situation to continue where the Apple app is a poor second relation to the fire stick.

 

I still completely believe that the fire stick app is better than the AppleTV app on purpose and we are coincidentally coming up to the one-year point after this happened.

 

I would reiterate though that as much as you think now can polish the app it will only go so far as you cannot have the NOW service on a par or exceeding that of the much higher paid sky services out there.

 

 The best we can hope from this is that they finally update the Apple app and discover how to 5.1 stream via the app which of course we already know it can do for live content therefore that switch that they need to flick will be flicked sooner rather than later .

 

One interesting point that springs to mind is that nows adoption of integrating their service with the Apple TV TV app was a surprise as basically this gives AppleTV users a very similar experience or possibly even superior to that which is about to be launched on sky glass. For me the aggregation of streaming services into one app is a massive, massive selling point of the Apple TV as a streaming platform. This function alone has enabled me to ditch more expensive sky subscriptions. let’s hope that now do not realise this and break that integration as functionally it treads all over the toes of sky glass however I think sky have Apple to thank for their inspiration for Skyglass!

Anonymous User
Not applicable

I agree i don't think this deal will be a revolution in terms of app but it will likely bring it up to the level of the Firestick app at the least and maybe give us live pause which apparently it has had for months but it never worked. Sky Go App on Apple TV sounds good but can't imagine great as it sounds like a worse version of a mini box for an alternative TV but you still need main Sky Q/Glass sub

nst
Elite

@Anonymous User 

 

Point being that the Sky Go app is of no use to pure NOW subscribers.... we can't use it.  Its a supplementary app for SkyQ customers to access their subscription content that's all.

 

A Sky Go app is fine for AppleTV but arguably why's it not on there already?  This new deal seems somewhat irrelevant for that but hey... as I say as a NOW subscriber its of no relevance to me.

 

Having said that then yes... there's no excuse for NOW to be a second rate app on the Apple hardware now - integrating with the TV is a huge thing and appreciated... and we've had that for a while though the app itself leaves a lot to be desired and needs a lot more polish to make it less embarrassing for NOW on the platform.

 

At the very least, this announcement means that NOW subscriptions are possible via the Apple mechanism, and of course nobody is going to use that mechanism if the app they are being provided with is sub-par and doesn't fully support all the functionality such as 5.1 etc - you'll just go elsewhere for a better app.

 

Roll on December for the magical fix 🙂 

 

Simonpaddy1
Scholar 2
Spoiler

…when using through a TV app (as opposed to iPhone or iPad version) does anyone else have trouble with position syncing? For instance an episode shows on the Up Next queue but if I watch the episode it won’t register (and I therefore need to manually mark it as watched), or if I stop watching halfway through an episode

the Up Next queue doesn’t register that it’s part-watched: if I then resume the episode the NowTv app does remember position.  This is only an issue on the TV app, not iPad or iPhone version. 

Still having this issue from Oct 2021.  

nst
Elite

@Simonpaddy1 

 

Not sure why that was such a spoiler 🙂

 

Anyway, yes the TV app does have its idiosyncrasies..... or better known as bugs.

 

It does a pretty good job considering the aggregation job it does across multiple content providers different apps but sometimes weird stuff happens.

 

I find Channel 4 to be the worst offender - sometimes it incorrectly shows the wrong next episode then worst still it seems to reset your viewing and tells you that something 8 seasons ago is your next episode AND for some reason the TV app doesnt allow you to 'mark all episodes as watched'.  Thats a pain.  Ive had to remove shows altogether sometimes and re-add them THEN mark all as watched and sometimes even then it doesnt work.

 

Must admit ive not seen issues with NOWs content in this way.

Simonpaddy1
Scholar 2

Thought it was a quote and then couldn’t delete or edit. 

Strange that this issue seems so all over the place. It does make watching box sets difficult, a few times I have started an episode and realised it was a few episodes back from where I actually got to. 

Channel 4 have an annoying habit of highly marking episode numbers - I think the previous series of Taskmaster had a New Year Special episode coded (let’s say) 9101, but then when series 9 started a few weeks later it was coded as 901, 902 etc meaning the whole series never showed up on the Up Next queue automatically. 

nst
Elite

@Simonpaddy1 

 

Totally.

 

Its annoying when this happens.  I had the same thing for taskmaster - in the end I just had to remove the series as I was annoyed at the New Years thing appearing over and over.

 

Just goes to show that its down to the individual companies.  Apples TV app is only as good as the metadata that it is provided with I suppose.

 

Anyway by and large its a fantastic feature and makes the AppleTV the obvious and unbeatable set top box of choice for me.  Nothing else comes close to that and its the only way Ive been able to cancel SkyQ and forgo any recording functions - there's just no need with the AppleTV TV app. (when it works)