Sadly, though, it appears the company hasn’t learned from that mistake. Thank you for your patience.- MaxHelp June 9, 2021 Ensuring HBO Max viewers have a quality experience is our top priority and we missed the mark here. We just released an update to our Apple TV app, restoring the native tvOS video playback experience you know and love, with more improvements to come. When HBO rebranded as HBO Max two years ago, leaving the Apple TV Channels service in the process, it released a new version of the HBO Max app that switched to a custom player, degrading the user experience significantly.Īpple fans quickly and vocally pushed back against the change, resulting in HBO Max head Andy Forssell apologizing on Twitter and announcing the native player would be making a return.

What makes this even worse is that it’s not the first time this has happened. This is such an essential set of features that even Netflix has gotten with the program, despite being one of the staunchest holdouts in supporting other Apple TV features such as AirPlay and Apple’s TV app. Apps that use the player built into tvOS inherit all these features.

You can also set the Apple TV to dim flashing lights and reduce loud sounds. What’s even more unfortunate is that by abandoning the native tvOS player, Max also loses support for the system-wide accessibility features that make the Apple TV one of the best set-top boxes on the market for people with disabilities.įor instance, the Apple TV Accessibility settings let you customize sizes, colors, and fonts for subtitles to make them easier to read. While Max shows do support captions, you’ll need to dig through the menus to toggle them on or off, which isn’t nearly as quick and easy as using this handy accessibility shortcut on your Siri Remote. This also extends to other Siri features like asking “What did he/she say” to quickly skip back a few seconds and temporarily turn on closed captioning.Īlong the same lines, there’s also no support for system-wide accessibility shortcuts for doing things like turning on closed captioning. There’s no Siri support for skipping forward or backward or adjusting to a specific position. The jog-wheel mode of the Siri Remote doesn’t function at all, so users will need to swipe left or right to scrub through a show. Most significantly, Max has rolled its own custom media player rather than using the one built into tvOS, leaving viewers without many of the user interface elements they’ve become accustomed to.įor instance, the navigation experience is noticeably different. Discovery has decided to go down a less popular road with its tvOS app, creating an experience that doesn’t integrate into Apple’s set-top box nearly as well as the previous HBO Max app. TV shows and movies, including material from the DC Universe, Cartoon Network, and Looney Tunes, to name a few, plus Discovery brand favorites such as the eponymous Discovery channel, plus HGTV, the Food Network, TLC, and more.Īs great as the new array of content is, it seems that Warner Bros. While there’s a lot to like in the new apps, including some significant improvements to offline downloads, it’s not all sunshine and roses for those in the Apple ecosystem.Īlthough HBO content still gets center stage, Max is chocked full of other stuff, including “Max Originals,” plus a selection of other Warner Bros. Max officially launched today with a new set of mobile and smart TV apps that have been rebuilt from the ground up. With the addition of Discovery to the mix, it’s not just about HBO anymore. Discovery announced that it would be rebooting the popular HBO Max service as just “Max” to better reflect the broader availability of content stemming from its new partnership.

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