Apple TV+'s Unfulfilled Promises: Vital Features Absent After Five Years

Apple TV+’s Unfulfilled Promises: Vital Features Absent After Five Years

Key Takeaways

Apple TV+ has excellent original programming but lacks key features compared to competitors.
Family Sharing requires an Apple device and an Apple account for each user, which is inconvenient.
The lack of an Android app, separate watchlist, and decent search functionality hinder the experience.

Apple TV+ is one of my favorite streaming services. I’ve been a subscriber since it launched in 2019 because of its excellent original programming like Dickinson, Severance, and The Morning Show.

However, Apple TV+ falters when it comes to functionality. I don’t want it bloated with gimmicks or multiple membership plans, but there are core features missing that competitors like Netflix and Prime Video nailed years ago.

You can share your Apple TV+ subscription with up to five other people, thanks to the Family Sharing functionality. It means that everyone can watch whatever they want on their own device. This works even if those people live outside your household, which is one way Apple TV+ is better than Netflix .

The trouble is, the subscription owner needs an Apple device like an iPhone or Mac to set up Family Sharing. If you only use Apple TV+ on your smart TV, for example, you can’t share the subscription.

Apple

Another wrinkle is that everyone you invite to Family Sharing needs to create an Apple account. It’s free to do that, but it’s still an annoying hurdle—especially compared to the likes of Disney+ and Netflix, where you can create extra profiles within seconds from any device.

An Android App for Phones and Tablets

Apple is known for its walled garden. Typically, if you want to use an Apple service, you need to own an Apple product. But when every other major streaming service is platform-agnostic, it’s baffling that Apple TV+ still doesn’t have an app for Android phones and tablets.

Apple is always going to prioritize the iPhone and iPad, but it’s a disservice to the millions of Apple TV+ subscribers who use a handheld Android device. Besides, there is an Apple TV app for Android TV, plus Apple Music supports Android, so there’s precedent.

You’re not entirely locked out as an Android user, mind. You can stream Apple TV+ in a web browser on mobile, but it’s not as smooth as a native app would be—you may encounter plentiful buffering, for instance, and there’s no support for features like offline viewing .

Separate Your Watchlist From Up Next

When you’re partway through a show or movie on Apple TV+, it adds it to your “Up Next” row. This persistently appears on the home screen, so it’s quick to jump back into what you’re watching. So far, so good.

The issue comes when you want to mark something you’re interested in so you can easily find it later. There’s no separate watchlist, like there is on Netflix or Prime Video. Instead, you can only add it to your Up Next, which means that list quickly becomes a mess of things you’re currently watching and what you want to watch.

Having at least two lists, one to track current viewing and another for things to watch later, would solve this.

A Robust and Reliable Search

Apple TV+ doesn’t have as much to watch as many other services, so it makes sense that its discovery functionality isn’t great—it helps mask the limited catalog. Regardless, it needs to be better than it is.

You can browse by a handful of categories, like “Drama Series” and “Feature Films”, but there’s no way to pair these with more specific filters (like if you only want 90-minute movies).

The search functionality itself is also unreliable. A search for “kids” includes the likes of adult-orientated The Tragedy of Macbeth. You’ll also get different results depending on whether you search “kids” and then select “Movies”, or just search “kids movies”.

On top of all this, some versions of the Apple TV+ app don’t separate the search results between content that comes with your Apple TV+ subscription and that which you have to purchase separately.

I’m not going to stop subscribing to Apple TV+ because it doesn’t have these features. The most important factor of a streaming service will always be the shows and movies it provides. Nevertheless, I do wish Apple would implement these ideas because it would make the experience that much better—and streamers can’t afford to rest on their laurels in a crowded marketplace.

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