I’ll probably submit these items as “official” feedback items to Apple but in the meantime here are a few things I noticed tonight while using my beloved Apple TV running tvOS watching Apple TV+ shows. This is a platform I use every night and I want it to be better.

First some praise

You’ve always been able to say “what did they say?” to the remote and it would rewind 10 seconds and turn on the captions for a few seconds. Incredible feature.

Now in tvOS 18 the same thing happens when you click the left button. No need to talk, just click.

It’s an tiny improvement but I know so many people will benefit from this, especially with shows like All Creatures Great and Small. The world would be a much better place if companies focused on sanding off the hard edges and just made things nicer.

(Unrelated but using a pair of HomePods with your TV is incredible. That is until it randomly loses connection. It doesn’t happen too often but it feels impossible to recover from.)

Apple TV Plus

  • Stop spoiling massive season 1 mysteries in your season 2 pre-roll promos. What is hell is wrong with you? (Referring to both Silo and Severance.)
  • You don’t need to tell me to watch shows I’m already watching.

tvOS

  • It’s impossible to see who directed specific episodes of a TV show. (How do I know which episodes Ben Stiller directed of Severance?)
  • Cast & Crew should be separate rows to better highlight directors, producers, writers, costume, etc. The list of actors (especially on shows) can be endless and there’s so many other people that come together to make film and TV.
  • Rotten Tomatoes scores are shown for movies but not TV. First: it’s a crass way to judge art. Second: you could lose many nights to a bad show but a bad movie is… 2 hours? Third: RT offers distinct Critic and Audience scores, which can be useful.
  • This doesn’t happen often but sometimes the Match Frame Rate setting gets stuck: I’ll finish an episode and the tvOS UI will keep running at 24fps instead of buttery 60. Horrendous and hard to fix.