What I Learned After Building 3 TV Apps Coming from Mobile(dinkomarinac.dev)
dinkomarinac.dev
What I Learned After Building 3 TV Apps Coming from Mobile
https://dinkomarinac.dev/blog/what-i-learned-after-building-3-tv-apps-coming-from-mobile/
48 comments
I'd be curious why Amazon's Prime app has such horrible performance compared to literally every other streaming service, on WebOS at least (on a relatively recent LG OLED). They're all doing more or less the same thing, as far as I can tell as a user at least, yet just moving the focus around in Amazon's streaming app takes 0.5 second while it's instant in other apps. The bandwidth for actual streaming seems the same as the others, so videos start streaming much faster, but the UI is seemingly doing something very wrong, and I don't understand how they could have gotten it so wrong.
Amazon are bad at consumer software, with the exception perhaps of the kindle. Emphasis on consumer, because they have fantastic enterprise/cloud engineers.
They have, frankly, some of the worst UI/UX design of any company in the same spaces that they exist in. Look at even their store listings, it’s a complete mess of information sprawled over the pages.
They do not optimize for performance or have a culture of squashing UI bugs unless it’s measurably stopping conversion for them.
Hell there’s even been times I’ve reported html issues to their teams and been asked to provide the CSS fixes to them to integrate in.
They have, frankly, some of the worst UI/UX design of any company in the same spaces that they exist in. Look at even their store listings, it’s a complete mess of information sprawled over the pages.
They do not optimize for performance or have a culture of squashing UI bugs unless it’s measurably stopping conversion for them.
Hell there’s even been times I’ve reported html issues to their teams and been asked to provide the CSS fixes to them to integrate in.
Never understood this about Amazon. Alexa is a perfect example. When the Echo devices came out around 10 years ago they blew people away with voice UI, and yet the Alexa app was and is a poorly made web wrapper with car infotainment levels of menu-driven UX.
Any chance they had of making Alexa a real consumer product died with that piss poor app and the clumsy way they implemented Skills.
>Amazon are bad at consumer software, with the exception perhaps of the kindle
The Kindle has the worst software of any e-ink device on the market.
The Kindle has the worst software of any e-ink device on the market.
As someone dealing with AWS daily, I wouldn't say their UI/UX is better on their cloud services. It's certainly the worst of the big three* (with Azure second and Google Cloud best)
* in English speaking markets, don't know about the Chinese providers.
* in English speaking markets, don't know about the Chinese providers.
I've noticed this as well. My best guess is either low hardware or just a bad solution.
If they planned to use a unified codebase for Prime app, they likely went with something HTML/CSS-based, which would explain the performance issues. I could be wrong, but it's just a hunch I have.
If they planned to use a unified codebase for Prime app, they likely went with something HTML/CSS-based, which would explain the performance issues. I could be wrong, but it's just a hunch I have.
> My best guess is either low hardware
If there was other apps we use that had the same issue, I'd chalk it up to hardware too, but maybe they simply don't test it on representative hardware? That might explain it.
> they likely went with something HTML/CSS-based, which would explain the performance issues
Not sure, the web browser in the TV seems to handle things just fine, and much faster than Amazon's app, so I don't think HTML/CSS is to blame here. Probably shit architecture/software design, as usual.
If there was other apps we use that had the same issue, I'd chalk it up to hardware too, but maybe they simply don't test it on representative hardware? That might explain it.
> they likely went with something HTML/CSS-based, which would explain the performance issues
Not sure, the web browser in the TV seems to handle things just fine, and much faster than Amazon's app, so I don't think HTML/CSS is to blame here. Probably shit architecture/software design, as usual.
> they likely went with something HTML/CSS-based, which would explain the performance issues.
This is the case with a lot of apps that still manage to be performant. So it's quite possible Amazon are writing bad HTML/CSS but that's possible in other languages too.
This is the case with a lot of apps that still manage to be performant. So it's quite possible Amazon are writing bad HTML/CSS but that's possible in other languages too.
Indeed, YouTube uses some sort of stripped-down Chromium (Cobalt I think it's called) with the client UI authored in HTML (and friends) for all of their clients and it's not deficient in performance compared to others. The Prime client is notoriously janky, even on Apple TVs, IME.
I would assume they hire competent engineers, so it’s probably something intentional, like an invasion of privacy/user telemetry. At least it doesn’t have AWS’s UX.
> like an invasion of privacy/user telemetry
Could be. Interesting anecdote on that, we're using the Vodafone TV app on the very same TV, and that app you can toggle "send analytics to Vodafone" on or off in the settings, which of course defaults to on.
At one point I toggled it to off, and suddenly the whole app became as fast as all the others, while when the toggle is on, the application is as slow and laggy as the Amazon one. So that might actually very well be the reason.
Could be. Interesting anecdote on that, we're using the Vodafone TV app on the very same TV, and that app you can toggle "send analytics to Vodafone" on or off in the settings, which of course defaults to on.
At one point I toggled it to off, and suddenly the whole app became as fast as all the others, while when the toggle is on, the application is as slow and laggy as the Amazon one. So that might actually very well be the reason.
One other thing that the Amazon Prime app does on LG TVs(and I apologize if you haven't noticed this earlier) - if you are using optical audio output, there's a horrible delay between audio and video, which doesn't really exist in any other app. It's been reported for years, and Amazon isn't willing to address it in any way.
I'm still astonished how poorly optimized the YouTube app is/has always been on Apple TV. It's fucking wild how slow they can make it move about a bunch of rectangular icons, the same unit that can run honest to goodness videogames (if simple ones).
Though I suppose my XBox Series X can run Halo Infinite at 4K/60hz (with a ton of asterisks) and still chokes on the main menu which is also coincidentally a bunch of rectangles.
Maybe rectangles are just really hard to draw.
Though I suppose my XBox Series X can run Halo Infinite at 4K/60hz (with a ton of asterisks) and still chokes on the main menu which is also coincidentally a bunch of rectangles.
Maybe rectangles are just really hard to draw.
Huh, that's strange, the YouTube TV app is for us one of the more performant ones, although the UX leaves a lot to be desired. But at least when you move right/down/left/up it does so within 50-100ms, whereas with Amazon's app it sometimes take almost a whole second for the focus on actually move around.
I don't think I've ever noticed any problems with the YouTube app on our Apple TV?
Really it's the only Apple TV app that I regularly have issues with! Sometimes it opens to just a blank gray screen, sometimes you start a video and sits there waiting to start endlessly and doesn't play anything, sometimes it won't send the audio to connected Homepods for mysterious reasons, and even when it works it is so unbelievably slow.
The Nebula app also isn't great, but at least it functions, even if it too is slower that molasses in January.
The Nebula app also isn't great, but at least it functions, even if it too is slower that molasses in January.
I think I've once had it freeze and I had to restart the device - but when it is working it is quite snappy. I don't even think its the device - we upgraded from quite an old Apple TV model to a new one and it was equally usable on both.
As someone that used to work on a TV app I wasn't surprised when focus issues were the first thing mentioned. It sounds trivial but it takes a surprising amount of testing and bug fixing to get it right.
I remember one time there was a random Philips TV that just kept crashing when the user tried to do "right" on the last item in a horizontal menu. The client kept testing on this TV, and we spent 3 weeks because my team lead at the time wouldn't trust me that I needed the TV to solve it.
They finally agreed to send us the TV. Solved the issue in 10mins.
They finally agreed to send us the TV. Solved the issue in 10mins.
Who do I send my TV to to figure out why launching the DR app (Danish public broadcaster) on my Philips TV will power on the PlayStation and then crash?
Normally I'd just use the AppleTV, but the kid stole the AppleTV to watch cartoons in the guest bedroom. I continuously surprised that a 10 year old AppleTV still a better option than using the apps that comes with the TV.
Normally I'd just use the AppleTV, but the kid stole the AppleTV to watch cartoons in the guest bedroom. I continuously surprised that a 10 year old AppleTV still a better option than using the apps that comes with the TV.
> Who do I send my TV to to figure out why launching the DR app (Danish public broadcaster) on my Philips TV will power on the PlayStation and then crash?
Bit me recently when I got a PS5 too, apparently there is a "new" thing called HDMI CEC, which for some stupid reason defaulted to "turn on TV turns on connected device" and vice-versa when first installed. I'm guessing the DR app somehow cares/sends CEC messages (not sure if that's the right terminology, but whatever) to the PS and turns it on.
Maybe forcing CEC off on both the TV and the PS can fix the issue, unless you actually use CEC for it's intended purpose.
Bit me recently when I got a PS5 too, apparently there is a "new" thing called HDMI CEC, which for some stupid reason defaulted to "turn on TV turns on connected device" and vice-versa when first installed. I'm guessing the DR app somehow cares/sends CEC messages (not sure if that's the right terminology, but whatever) to the PS and turns it on.
Maybe forcing CEC off on both the TV and the PS can fix the issue, unless you actually use CEC for it's intended purpose.
Did you try and look it up, or do any debugging? Does it crash with the HDMI unplugged from the Playstation? Playstation power unplugged?
Below is what 18 seconds of web searching led me to.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PS4/comments/8u6hrm/why_does_turnin...
Below is what 18 seconds of web searching led me to.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PS4/comments/8u6hrm/why_does_turnin...
Honestly I haven't look into it much, I just thought it was funny that this one app would boot the PlayStation... and then crash. None of the other apps does this. To me it's just a funny interaction that should even be possible in my mind. In the end I hooked the AppleTV up again so I don't have care.
> Focus would get lost
An engineer from Netflix wrote a blog post in 2017 explaining how they handle LRUD input and focus: https://netflixtechblog.com/pass-the-remote-user-input-on-tv...
An engineer from Netflix wrote a blog post in 2017 explaining how they handle LRUD input and focus: https://netflixtechblog.com/pass-the-remote-user-input-on-tv...
I am at a point where I just installed Bazzite on a mini-itx PC and bought a gyroscope mouse (also called a flymouse) and use steam big picture mode.
Access to a proper browser (with adblock) and a proper keyboard more than makes up for the UX problems.
I just wish modern browsers had the (old pre-chromium) Opera browser style of spatial navigation, gyroscope mouses work well enough but spatial navigation is the main feature I miss since I switched off old Opera
https://blog.codinghorror.com/spatial-navigation-and-opera/
I just wish modern browsers had the (old pre-chromium) Opera browser style of spatial navigation, gyroscope mouses work well enough but spatial navigation is the main feature I miss since I switched off old Opera
https://blog.codinghorror.com/spatial-navigation-and-opera/
The "low powered hardware" is why I always buy an external streaming device. I started with the original Apple TV, then a bunch of Roku variants, when Roku got unreliable, I went back to modern Apple TVs. They just work better. I've had sales guys in stores get really pushy with me about "you dont need that", one time I finally had to say to one of them "I get it, I don't care that its already in the TV, I'm buying the external box, either from you or from another store so stop arguing and just sell it to me".
As an outsider, the fact that cross-device stuff just works in apple's ecosystem is probably the biggest thing I'm jealous of. It's crazy that something as simple as screen casting is still hit or miss when it comes to (android / linux) <-> (web os / chromecast / fire stick)
I just bought binding of Isaac on Apple Arcade for my iPad, a very good surprise was not that the purchase is valid for my Apple TV and iPhone, but that the saves are synced, even in mid session!
Absolutely. I do the same. IMO it's either Apple TV or Nvidia Shield. Everything else is hit or miss (likely miss).
From a developer's perspective, it's a nightmare to deal with such hardware.
From a developer's perspective, it's a nightmare to deal with such hardware.
I'm sorry Dinko, but this ain't it.
> On TV, input works very differently. Users navigate with a remote. Movement is discrete. Every interaction requires intention. Each action is one step in a sequence. That difference changes everything.
I just don't want to read articles that are written by LLMs. If there was something you earnestly learned that you think other engineers could benefit from, use your own words to tell us. It's lazy and disrespectful to hand an audience a massive sloppy blob which reeks of GPT 5 and frame it as something you "learned".
> On TV, input works very differently. Users navigate with a remote. Movement is discrete. Every interaction requires intention. Each action is one step in a sequence. That difference changes everything.
I just don't want to read articles that are written by LLMs. If there was something you earnestly learned that you think other engineers could benefit from, use your own words to tell us. It's lazy and disrespectful to hand an audience a massive sloppy blob which reeks of GPT 5 and frame it as something you "learned".
I write all my articles by hand for the first draft and the final polish. I do use LLMs in between to try to get a clearer message (to what I find appropriate).
I understand if you don't want to read it, but there is nothing dishonest about this article. I've lived through what I wrote with those 3 apps. Take it as you wish and have a good day.
I understand if you don't want to read it, but there is nothing dishonest about this article. I've lived through what I wrote with those 3 apps. Take it as you wish and have a good day.
I think even if you only use LLMs for “getting a clearer message” you’ll find that it contaminates your writing.
Can't speak for everyone but personally, I'd much rather read a slightly-imperfect human writing than an LLM that has a very artificial tone. Trust yourself!
You can ask the LLM to "mention a few places where I can improve", rather than having it re writing everything, if you really want to.
You can ask the LLM to "mention a few places where I can improve", rather than having it re writing everything, if you really want to.
Yes this is a waste of time. It’s actually a hard engineering problem! There are very few engineers who build for TV compared to desktop or mobile. The challenges are totally different. There are still some good human-written articles out there.
I'm against slop just as much as the next person, but this wasn't bad. Why does he need to use his own words when the message is right there in cleartext? It's not wrong, sloppy, nor an incorrect hallucinated lesson.
"On TV, input works very differently. Users navigate with a remote. Movement is discrete. Every interaction requires intention. Each action is one step in a sequence. That difference changes everything"
"On TV, input works very differently. Users navigate with a remote. Movement is discrete. Every interaction requires intention. Each action is one step in a sequence. That difference changes everything"
I always found most tv apps have some performance issues. I've seen netflix, prime, even youtube crash, lag, or have some issues now and then that just made me think that maybe tvs are just not powerful. Don't even want to talk about Disney+, HBO, or Hulu.
Then I got an appletv+ subscription, and was pleasantly surprised it performed far better, on an android tv even. I wonder if it's beyond just the company standards for performance, and that the lower compatibility for porting between swift and the android sdks compared to idk react components or flutter, forced them to start from scratch for performance on android tvs.
Then I got an appletv+ subscription, and was pleasantly surprised it performed far better, on an android tv even. I wonder if it's beyond just the company standards for performance, and that the lower compatibility for porting between swift and the android sdks compared to idk react components or flutter, forced them to start from scratch for performance on android tvs.
TVs are NOT powerful. It’s like writing software for the Lunar rover.
Even the slower ones are more like a Wii U, which is perfectly capable of everything a set-top box needs to do. Really, the hardware acceleration does all of the heavy lifting, and the processor only needs to render text and coordinate what to composite.
It's the bloat of the software layer on top that's slowing things down.
A 1st-generation Chromecast only has 512 MB pf RAM and a dual-core 1.2 GHz processor, and it can handle video streaming just fine. Building an interface on top of that doesn't take a lot of resources, if the underlying layers aren't bloated. With current Android/iOS development, they very much are.
It's the bloat of the software layer on top that's slowing things down.
A 1st-generation Chromecast only has 512 MB pf RAM and a dual-core 1.2 GHz processor, and it can handle video streaming just fine. Building an interface on top of that doesn't take a lot of resources, if the underlying layers aren't bloated. With current Android/iOS development, they very much are.
My 2 cents: if you are big enough and the competition isn't as strong, users will give you a pass on some performance issues as long as they get the content they want.
TV's are optimized around decoding video, At least they can generally do this at full speed, this is coupled with the cheapest cpu the manufacturer can find. Even this would be manageable, There have been great UI's on weaker hardware. But then they want to program everything in html/javascript/css 7 layer lasagna stacks, this is where things start to get bad. Then the marketing team gets their slimy hands in and proceed to stuff the telemetry in until full. It is still "technically" usable, but nobody is enjoying the experiance. Package it up and sell it to some rube as a "Smart" TV.
> But then they want to program everything in html/javascript/css 7 layer lasagna stacks, this is where things start to get bad.
The alternative is that every TV SoC has its own SDK and most of them don't get [your preferred streaming app]. Those apps that get ported would probably perform better, but most TV makers don't want to take the risk of missing out on an app that will lead customers to someone else. LG and Samsung do stand apart with WebOS and Tizen, but those aren't exactly high performing UXes either.
At the end of the day, I'm not sure if 'UX is not so bad' is a marketable feature for a TV, much as I'd like it to be.
My personal journey has led me to stand alone Rokus, but I'd love to find something that can do "everything": I want to play blu-ray 4k discs from the network, without transcoding and with the full hdr10+ (when available) and bitstreamed atmos and the silly menus, regular blu-ray and dvd too; I would like a selection of top teir streaming apps to work properly (at least Netflix and Amazon, one of the heavily ad supported one that has a lot of 80s tail content too would be nice); it needs to have a spouse acceptable interface; shouldn't cost more than $100.
Roku + optical player works pretty well. My living room tv has that; I'm running out of patience for apps running on the projector in the theater, and it'd be nice if I could get a new box that replaces apps and the optical player so I could move the 4k optical player to the living room.
People say Apple TV or NVidia Shield, but they're both pricy and I'm not sure either really does 4k BluRay with menus?
The alternative is that every TV SoC has its own SDK and most of them don't get [your preferred streaming app]. Those apps that get ported would probably perform better, but most TV makers don't want to take the risk of missing out on an app that will lead customers to someone else. LG and Samsung do stand apart with WebOS and Tizen, but those aren't exactly high performing UXes either.
At the end of the day, I'm not sure if 'UX is not so bad' is a marketable feature for a TV, much as I'd like it to be.
My personal journey has led me to stand alone Rokus, but I'd love to find something that can do "everything": I want to play blu-ray 4k discs from the network, without transcoding and with the full hdr10+ (when available) and bitstreamed atmos and the silly menus, regular blu-ray and dvd too; I would like a selection of top teir streaming apps to work properly (at least Netflix and Amazon, one of the heavily ad supported one that has a lot of 80s tail content too would be nice); it needs to have a spouse acceptable interface; shouldn't cost more than $100.
Roku + optical player works pretty well. My living room tv has that; I'm running out of patience for apps running on the projector in the theater, and it'd be nice if I could get a new box that replaces apps and the optical player so I could move the 4k optical player to the living room.
People say Apple TV or NVidia Shield, but they're both pricy and I'm not sure either really does 4k BluRay with menus?
This blog reads like it was written by ChatGPT.
Does anyone have experience with professional Brightscript dev? I'm fascinated by it as a web developer looking to find a new niche, but it's like impossible to get into. Seems like every major streaming platform is going to need some experts for the foreseeable future given the install base of Roku at this point, and LLMs are horrible at it.
I enjoy how the website has overridden my browsers scroll bar to use it's own, significantly lower contrast and less visible one, making it much harder to tell where in the article I am. My browser already has a good dark mode scroll bar...
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This should have started by defining what a TV app is, what hardware, what SDK etc etc.
Without that, it’s just general information.
Without that, it’s just general information.
Another thing is lead time. I built an app (https://signagesync.app/) to "multi-chromecast" websites and videos to Android TV, macOS, Windows and hopefully Samsung TV as well.
"Hopefully", because it took me literally 2 months waiting for the reviewer to test my app after it's submitted (to be fair, they did say "expect 6-8 weeks" upfront). They found some issues (crashes), so it was rejected, but I lost interest in resubmitting.
"Hopefully", because it took me literally 2 months waiting for the reviewer to test my app after it's submitted (to be fair, they did say "expect 6-8 weeks" upfront). They found some issues (crashes), so it was rejected, but I lost interest in resubmitting.
Interesting, explains why there are so few good TV apps like YouTube eg Spotify TV app is appalling. Strange that X has not created a decent TV App for long form video. YouTube could do with some competition, great UI but their suggestion algorithm and woke censorship sucks.