this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2023
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Over at avforums.com I've heard a while ago that a user was told by the BBC tech support that the app has all those limitations because of the lack of "MPEG-DASH" support on Apple TV.
So the solution would be that the BBC does some extra work to find workarounds for Apple TV or Apple would have to add support for "MPEG-DASH" in tvOS. I don't think any of this will happen.
I think this is similiar to Netflix not supporting interactive content on Apple TV because they say there is no support for "seamless branching". Or Spotify not rolling out their new "TV experience" to Apple TV because they can't use the same cross-platform code.
So to me it seems that we can also thank Apple for the state of some apps. Not supporting some standards and technologies in tvOS that are supported on many other devices. And I think it's understandable that some app providers don't want to do time and cost intensive extra work for the Apple TV device that has a relatively low market share.
I dont know the story behind BBC, but these two do not work properly by choice of those companies. They compete with Apple with Apple Music and TV+, so the higher ups refuse to allow this support to work properly on AppleTVs. Its dumb.
Frustrating. It's the one app I don't use some TV for. Fortunately it works well on my LG tv
The BBC is not competing with Apple TV or music. They are archaic and intransigent though.
That’s a neat point not relevant to my comment lol
I was going to argue but I just re-read your comment and see I mis-read it the first time. Will remove my comment as it is indeed not relevant.
I could imagine that Amazon is making the Prime app on other devices bad by intention. Because they want that people use their services on their own Fire TV devices. But neither Netflix nor Spotify have their own hardware. And both have already stopped offering their subscriptions over Apple's AppStore. So if they provide an app for Apple TV, why should they have an interest in making the experience less good than on other devices? Instead of just ignoring Apple TV completely?
So personally I still think that those apps would be in a better shape if the developers could just use the same cross-platform code on ATV. Nowadays many apps are basically just dynamic webpages. But as far as I know Apple doesn't allow WebView on ATV. So developers would have to write workarounds or use wrappers to do things on ATV. So to me it seems that tvOS is just not a very developer friendly platform in this regard. But maybe a developer following this might want to comment on this.
Amazon won’t care about hardware; I doubt they make any money on it, really it’s a means to an end, that end being subscription services.
I would think Amazon would actually like the idea of taking subscribers away from Apple on their own hardware so there is an incentive for them to make the app as good as possible.
Apple has a history of questionable decisions around widely accepted standards!
I agree about Apple making some questionable decisions. If it wasn’t about having proper “frame rate matching“ across all major streaming apps, I think I would not own an Apple TV.
And of course Amazon doesn’t care about selling hardware. They want you to use a FireTV device to be able to force you to watch more and more ads.
https://www.aftvnews.com/fire-tvs-now-autoplay-full-screen-video-ads-when-waking-up-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/
Google and Netflix have had multiple deals over the years.
Same with Spotify and Google. Both apps have integration on google video devices
I dont own Amazon products, how does fireos work with them? Amazon is running away frkm android soon, so I imagine itll break if it works now
As FireOS is based on Android, the apps (Netflix and Spotify) look and feel almost identical to the Android TV versions. I would think the same about the BBC iPlayer app, but I don’t use it myself.
But Amazon‘s new OS (Vega OS) is said to also be Linux based (like Android) and rely even more on web technologies. Maybe similar to LG‘s WebOS they use on their Smart TVs. So I don’t think app developers will have problems porting those apps over.
And that’s my point here: Apple doesn’t allow WebKit on tvOS. So developers can’t rely on those web technologies and use the same shared code base on Apple TV. But as a hardware device, Apple TV is just not important enough, so they will spend much time and money with developing a native tvOS app. So I think that’s why we end up with those apps that feel very basic compared to other devices.
But I agree that it doesn’t help that especially Netflix and Spotify aren’t really big friends of Apple. Of course both can’t afford to ignore Apple‘s phones and tablets. But I guess it doesn’t hurt them much to kind of ignore Apple TV.
Arent there certain browsers that Netflix refuses to allow to work properly as well? I feel like Prime Video and Netflix are assholes toward specific browsers too.
I don’t use those services in a web browser. But of course they want to have a working copy protection / DRM. Chromium based browsers should work without issues (Chrome, Opera, Edge). But again: On Apple devices, all web browsers are forced to use Apple’s own WebKit engine. Even Google’s own Chrome browser. And on Apple TV, WebKit and web browsers aren’t supported at all.
But again, Chromium is a Google product and these companies have deals with Alphabet/Google
On the flipside, Apple’s TV app works on pretty much everything.