It's been just over two weeks since YouTube updated its Apple TV app with a major redesign, essentially bringing the app in line with YouTube on other products like Android TV, smart TVs, PS4, and Xbox One. While the original YouTube Apple TV app was never widely favored, the new update was met with even more blowback from some users, who referenced laggy controls, poorer playback UI, illogical changes to the subscription tab's channel list, and more.
This week, YouTube pushed out version 1.01.04 of the app for Apple TV 4th and 5th generation devices, and it addresses a few of these user concerns. The major update is a "modified" subscriptions tab that nixes the long horizontal list of subscribed YouTube channels -- which made it take much longer to get to channels at the bottom of the alphabetized list -- and reverts back to a grid layout akin to the original app. YouTube said this was done for "easier channel selection."
Although it's not mentioned in the update notes, one user on Reddit said that there have also been a few tweaks to video scrubbing, so users can "go through the video with the touchpad again instead of slowly rewinding/fast forwarding." When doing this, thumbnail previews of the video pop up to give you an idea of where to land as you jump through the video, but YouTube still doesn't use Apple's systemwide playback UI and there isn't any support for quick 10-second jumps forward and backward.
Otherwise, YouTube said that the update fixed an issue with the search keyboard when people were using "non-Siri TV remotes," and it includes the usual bug fixes and stability improvements.
Friday January 17, 2025 2:42 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
iOS 19 is still around six months away from being announced, but a new leak has allegedly revealed a completely redesigned Camera app.
Based on footage it obtained, YouTube channel Front Page Tech shared a video showing what the new Camera app will apparently look like, with the key change being translucent menus for camera controls. Overall, the design of these menus looks similar to...
Sunday January 19, 2025 6:58 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple on late Saturday removed TikTok from the App Store in the U.S., and it has now explained why it was required to take this action.
Last year, the U.S. passed a law that required Chinese company ByteDance to divest its ownership of TikTok due to potential national security risks, or else the platform would be banned. That law went into effect today, and companies like Apple and Google...
Monday January 20, 2025 9:01 am PST by Joe Rossignol
A new iPhone SE is widely rumored to launch this year, and the device has potentially been confirmed today by known leaker Evan Blass.
In a private social media post, Blass shared an image of what appears to be source code mentioning an iPhone SE (4th Gen), which casts doubt on the alternative "iPhone 16E" name rumored for the device. However, the name in the source code could be a...
Saturday January 18, 2025 10:28 am PST by Joe Rossignol
iOS 19 will not drop support for any iPhone models, according to French website iPhoneSoft.fr.
The report cited a source who said iOS 19 will be compatible with any iPhone that can run iOS 18, which would mean the following models:
iPhone 16
iPhone 16 Plus
iPhone 16 Pro
iPhone 16 Pro Max
iPhone 15
iPhone 15 Plus
iPhone 15 Pro
iPhone 15 Pro Max
iPhone 14
iPhon...
Sunday January 19, 2025 8:11 am PST by Joe Rossignol
After a four-year wait, a new AirTag is finally expected to launch in 2025. Below, we recap rumored upgrades for the accessory.
A few months ago, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said Apple was aiming to release the AirTag 2 around the middle of 2025. While he did not offer a more specific timeframe, that means the AirTag 2 could be announced by the end of June.
The original AirTag was announced...
Tuesday January 21, 2025 12:46 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
A leaker known as "Majin Bu" today shared an alleged image of a component for the rumored, ultra-thin "iPhone 17 Air" model.
The blurry, pixelated image shows a pair of rear iPhone shells with a pill-shaped, raised camera bar along the top. On the left side of the bar, there is a circular cutout that appears to be for a single rear camera. On the right side of the bar, there appears to be an ...
Sunday January 19, 2025 8:25 am PST by Joe Rossignol
In September, Apple said that it would be launching Powerbeats Pro 2 in 2025, and it appears the wireless earbuds are coming very soon.
Powerbeats Pro 2 images found in iOS 18 code
In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said the Powerbeats Pro 2 are "due imminently." In addition to Apple filing the Powerbeats Pro 2 in regulatory databases last month, Gurman said Apple is...
Thursday January 16, 2025 12:39 pm PST by Juli Clover
Apple provided the third beta of iOS 18.3 to developers today, and while the betas have so far been light on new features, the third beta makes some major changes to Notification Summaries and also tweaks a few other features.
Notification Summary Changes
Apple made multiple changes to Notification Summaries in response to complaints about inaccurate summaries of news headlines.
For...
Why does YouTube insist on using its own player code rather than the excellent built in video player API? That's my only complaint about the new app. Apple's API works well and is consistent across all of TVOS. There's no reason not to use it.
The real issue isn't the layout or feature set. It's the fact they appeared to have replaced the old native app by a web view that performs poorly, and where touch inputs are inaccurate.
The whole app is choppy rather than the smooth 60fps we're used to. Touch inputs don't feel native, you constantly skip over the elements you want to select while navigating. Navigating the app is unpredictable, you don't know how it'll respond to your input, and the animations don't always have the same speed for some reason. It's like the app can't keep a steady framerate, and animation length are based on the number of frames drawn rather than duration in seconds.
It's a super frustrating experience all around. Hoping a dev can make a native 3rd-party app. I don't care if it's really basic feature wise, I just can't stand this kind of poor input quality and UI performance.
youtube's new app on the apple tv is a garbage fire. the old one wasn't great but at least it felt like an apple product as opposed to this new abomination. whoever made this decision should be fired and never work in tech again. are you listening youtube?
