Daring Fireball
Apple Should Set and Enforce Some Basic Standards for Custom Video Players on tvOS
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2026/03/28/apple-should-set-and-enforce-some-basic-standards-for-custom-video-players-on-tvos
Apple Should Set and Enforce Some Basic Standards for Custom Video Players on tvOS

Link to: https://daringfireball.net/2024/03/quickly_toggling_closed_captions_on_apple_tv

Daring Fireball
Mar 28 at 11:31pmDF Tootbot
Show threadruffin4d ago

@daringfireball “must support the platform conventions for fast-forwarding and rewinding using the Apple TV remote control”

Please heavens yes. 🙏

And temporary captions on -10s.

Show threadBob Peterson4d ago
@daringfireball Britbox @BritBox_US ignores AirPods pause/play. And while you’re busy adhering to standards, implement downloading for offline play too, Britbox.
Show threadNeal Pozner4d ago
@daringfireball They absolutely should. I'm afraid the argument against it is that then App Store Review would have to test it, and they don't want the burden of doing so.
Show threadBen Sargent4d ago
@daringfireball While we’re at it, the horizontal “scroll lock” style content navigation is awful too.
Show threadKarl Swanson4d ago

@daringfireball I don’t get how YouTube gets away shipping an app without PLAY/PAUSE button working. Need to push the middle button to resume.

Peacock is the worse. I’ll pause a video, go off to do something and hear my movie resume 10 minutes later from across the house.

Show threadBhavyang Pau4d ago
@daringfireball tvOS should have been like CarPlay. You’re literally messing up with people’s safety in terms of CarPlay. tvOS custom players could be a primary reason for many divorces! 😛
Show threadLeon Cowle4d ago
@daringfireball Also of note is that Siri’s “subtitles on/off” doesn’t work anymore on Netflix either on the AppleTV. A fucking annoying regression.
Show threadAndrew Herron4d ago

@daringfireball the latest crap update from Kayo (an Australian sports service) finally switched to something resembling the system player, but when paused it shows an ad after a couple of seconds.

So fast forward and rewind now work, but when I try to use the “rest finger on the circle to seek” remote gesture it covers that with the ad - dismissing the ad is done with the play button, so it resumes to wherever the seek finished underneath the ad.

Show threadEduardo Pontes3d ago
Reminds me of one of the main benefits of adopting native HTML 5 video instead of Flash: native, standardized UI provided by the OS. I was working on a video platform during the iPad launch and it was so good not to have to design every single aspect and state of a video player, and have something that performs super nicely, crafted by true experts.
Show threadmrpommer22h ago
@daringfireball I just noticed that Disney+ has a similar problem. Not sure when it started, but I just tried to skip back to catch some dialogue, and it popped up a timeine instead of just rewinding 10s. Grr. @gruber
Show threadmrpommer21h ago

@daringfireball @gruber Oh! It’s also helpfully adding subtitles (turned off) over (and duplicating) titles on screen. (The Bourne Supremacy, fwiw)

Who is designing the UIs?