I watched some of Apple’s recent shows using…different methods than the official app and I believe they’re making some of the best content out there, currently. Shows like Severance and For All Mankind are masterpieces and they give me the SciFi fix I desperately needed.
So I’ve decided to bite the bullet and get a subscription - after all, you should support the creators you’re really invested in, right?
Watching content on their platform is so painful - it’s one of the worst experiences I ever had. If you want to watch the shows in a browser, you need to use Microsoft Edge on Windows because that’s the only browser which comes with Playwright DRM - and it only works if you have a HDCP 2.2-capable screen. If you don’t have that, the content gets served in 480p with a low bitrate. Might as well just put in a VHS at this point.
There’s another alternative: The official Windows 11 app you can get from the store. It is indeed capable of serving you UHD streams…if it wants to. All episodes that are age-rated to 16+ currently don’t work, because they forgot to implement an age verification mechanism and pressing play doesn’t do anything at all. According to their forums, that even seems to happen on MacOS in some cases, so they really messed up the most important thing of their own streaming platform: Pressing Play to watch an episode.
Even if you’re lucky and you’re watching a show that isn’t age-restricted, they serve the content in the language your Apple account has been set to when you’ve created it by default. So every time you open an episode, you have to start it and switch the audio to English. If you go to your account settings to change the language it tells you that your subscription needs to end before you can do that. So you have to wait four weeks or a whole year to change the default language, depending on the subscription model.
Adding to that, sometimes the video streams just freeze, the audio doesn’t play at all or the app straightup crashes in the middle of a stream.
I have rarely seen a platform messing up the user experience this badly. It’s as if Apple doesn’t even want you to watch their own content. I’ve decided to not renew my subscription and procure the episodes from other sources. I wanted to give you money, Apple. But you fucked up.
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lmfao rofl
YOU DESERVE IT, SPENDY
It literally wouldn’t even let me sign up. I tried on desktop and mobile. Got some different type of error every time, even with attempts several months apart. I decided to just hit the high seas.
We’re going to see a lot more software going down the shitter as companies downsize, scale in, lay off with the plan to use AI to save money.
It used to be “move fast break things”. Now it’s more like “vibe code good enough”
Always been a thing
It’s pay for a foothold, recoup costs
As someone in the ecosystem and who has no interest in watching on Windows, works for me.
- smart tv app just works
- iOS/iPadOS devices just work
- subscription is trivial to manage on iOS
My objections were
- do not like using smart tv apps
- FireStick does not have an AppleTV app
- I was set to try an Apple TV device but the current version was released 3 years ago so I have been hoping for an updated one
- shows were outstanding but it had less content than other streaming services
Fwiw my firestick does have an appletv app. That being said, I can’t stand how many ads the firestick throws in my face and am considering replacing it with another appletv device.
I think it’s positive that you had the thought of contributing and trying to watch the series through their platforms. I’m not sure it has been mentioned here but I’d suggest to hit their support channels as well, probably opening a request per individual issue you had (which are plenty).
I believe what others have said: Apple made it frustrating to use outside of their ecosystem to lure you in. Perhaps you’re lucky enough to draw the attention of some devs of the platform and they take pity.
I find that Apple supports their software and services on platforms they don’t own cradle to grave while holding their nose, seemingly just so they can say they are available on other platforms. And catch a few bucks from people that don’t have their hardware but really want to watch Ted Lasso and the like legally on their Android/Roku/Fire TV device.
Sure, it technically works, but like you have seen it is clearly a very distant afterthought.
Do not watch Constellation!
It’s a great show, but it was cancelled after the first season.
I don’t have an apple TV. Or an iPhone.
I have Apple TV for a while, during the ForAllMankind days and especially Ted Lasso. Some of their TV is great.
But killing my subscription took me three tries. Holy hopping shit, Hannah, was it a bag-drive just to find the page and make it happen. Their entire website is one big incestuous circle asking you why you don’t have an iProduct and why not buy one here.
I’m 30 years in Linux, I should mention, and I worked at a distro building and securing Linux and AT&T Unix, and I’m somewhat nerdy. Still. It was such a mortal trial.
Never going back.
Remember when the US successfully sued and dismantled companies using their market presence to unfair advantage?
I watch on an Apple TV and via my PS5. Both work well.
It’s just an app on my tv I open and it worked right away.
My only issue I’ve had is that on my Android phone I can’t Chromecast the episodes. It won’t let you. So even though I had a subscription I still needed yo pirate the episodes so my friends could all watch it in a group on their TV.
You can pay for the subscription while getting the content onto your computer through other means, this is sadly the best compromise and it also gives you long term access and ownership of things you want to hold onto, with no DRM bullshit and the creators still get paid.
P.S - whatever content you want to support, make sure to let it play on mute in the background, just so the streaming service knows it’s actually popular and worth supporting
You can pay for the subscription
Thanks for giving OP the opportunity to give money to a corporation with more money than Hades.
TV shows and movies don’t get made for free mate. The people making and producing them need to get paid one way or another, if nobody paid for anything, nothing would get made. I got everything for free when I was a kid but as an adult if I can afford to pay for something and I like it I will pay for it as it’s not only the right thing to do but the only way to guarantee good stuff still gets made.
You’re forgetting about communism
I don’t get what’s so wrong with paying for a service he finds useful. If everybody sailed the high seas, there would be zero content for you to watch.
If everyone sailed the high seas, we’d be a lot closer to a communist revolution, and then artists wouldn’t need a profit motive to survive. They could just make art.
I know this isnt what you want to hear, but it’s actually one of the better apps on my smart tv. It works pretty smoothly, and video seeking (fast forward/rewind) actually works well, which is a main criteria for me. The Max app, on the other hand, is dog shit.
It used to be the worst app because Netflix was so damn good. Then Netflix took a shit all over their user experience and jacked prices to the tits so we cancelled them. And HBO got bought by Time Warner who is actively antagonistic towards streaming because the CEO just looks at their entire catalog as a tax writeoff - so the max app is fucking dreadful.
Then Apple decided to make things suck less and they succeeded. The one thing they screwed up is there is no way to disable that obnoxious auto-play bullshit at the end of each episode. All of the other apps are now so bad that we exclusively subscribe through the appletv app. My wife likes giving money to paramount for some reason - but at least if we do it through the apple app there are no ads.
I didn’t even know they had a Smart TV app. What TV are you using?
I have a big 2012 Samsung screen which is still surprisingly good, with a Roku stick in it. Works just fine. I hope it never dies.
I have a roku TCL which works.
Any TV made in the last few years, all Google TVs at least and LG WebOS
Watching it on Apple TV hardware was always simplicity. Very high quality on my OLED.
It works really well on iPhone and Apple TV. I imagine that is by designs AppleTV+ is a loss leader to get people to buy into the ecosystem. If you feel you have an ethical duty to support the creators, subscribing and continuing to obtain the content via alternative means is the best bet
The language thing sounds like real BS, but otherwise I haven’t had any of those issues in Firefox on Linux.
I’m still rocking an old 1080p plasma TV, but I probably would have noticed if good-looking shows like Severance, Silo, and Foundation were only rendering at 480p.
