Conversation

Me (Watching a thing on the Apple TV app on a Fire TV stick): Wait, I think this is too far in. I need to get to the previous episode.
Apple TV: Do what now?
Me: Previous episode! <Tries all the buttons>
Apple TV: LOLWUT
Me: Googles how to go to the previous episode.
You have to exit out of what you're currently watching, find the same show through a different means, and only then do you get the ability to pick which episode.

I find most Apple things relatively easy to figure out, but this Apple TV app... Wow! So bad...

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@wdormann I think every company needs to stand up a User Experience team made up of random customers. This should have been an obvious issue found during testing.

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I mean, we all know that you indicate the currently selected item by making it obviously glowing or otherwise brighter, right?
Apple TV: Let's make the item just a little bit larger than the other ones. That'll be obvious to anyone sitting on the other side of the room.
🤦‍♂️

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@screaminggoat @wdormann I wonder if it's Bad On Purpose.

"Firestick app? Yeah we support that, but really you should just buy an apple tv."

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@wdormann I HATE the "just slightly larger" selection. I cannot ever see it until I move to a different one to watch the change

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@ferrix
I'm convinced that they didn't have a single real-world person test it out before they shipped it.

It's not normal to have to move the cursor around a TV UI to know where the cursor currently is. And I'm confident that one person testing out the Apple TV UI would make it clear to the developers that this is required with Apple TV. 🤷‍♂️

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@wdormann
I find this ironic because I have to manually mark episodes as watched so it will show the next episode.

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@wdormann This bugs me too, and is basically the first thing you experience on Apple TV. And then every use. It’s a baffling UX decision. There is an accessibility option that improves it, but only marginally. I’m also not really a fan of the top of screen being the selection, but maybe that was closely tied to the “slightly bigger” so as to not make it even worse.

The way you need to enter PINs is also worse than most other TV interfaces (and they enforce this for all third party apps).

I’m also not sure why there’s no way (that I’ve found) to turn off the auto previews.

These things mar an otherwise very nice (and fast) device…

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@onelin
Ah, thanks for the accessibility tip!
WAY better. Wonder why it's not that way by default?

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