Apple TV’s new update is long overdue, and I can’t believe it took so long

I have an Apple TV 4K in my living room, so I know quite a bit about how the Apple TV app works. While it’s nice to have everything in a one-stop-shop of sorts, the app left a lot to be desired in terms of discovery. It didn’t help that I was mostly shown things from Apple TV+, but with the app having a lot more than that, it felt like I was being let down.

The Apple TV app integrates with most major streamers (with the glaring exception of Netflix), so if you subscribe to a service like Max, you can find that movie on Apple TV and start streaming it without having to navigate through the Max app itself. It’s a nice feature, but the only time I really used it was by searching for something by name instead of stumbling on it naturally. This is a problem that plagues many streaming services, and it’s part of why I’ve started using a

third-party app for my watch lists
. Thanks to some timely updates, Apple is winning me back, and it’s a long-overdue change if you ask me.

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Apple is making big steps in the right direction

What took so long?

I’ve been very outspoken about how the Apple TV 4K is my favorite streaming device, and you can take it from somebody who has a Roku Ultra and Fire TV Stick plugged into other devices too. Despite having just about everything on the market, the Apple TV 4K has reigned supreme, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t without its issues.

Discovery was just one of the many problems, but Apple is taking many steps to make sure that’s a thing of the past. If you update your app, you’ll notice a much more streamlined experience. Everything’s separated nicely into rows that include sports, Apple TV+ content, and, most importantly, personalized recommendations. I’ve been waiting so long to get my hands on something like this, so it’s nice to finally see Apple deliver. With streamers getting more and more into sports, it’s good to have a separate category so that those who are interested can easily find it, and alternatively, anybody uninterested can avoid it.

To their credit, Netflix has done a good job of recommending things to me based on my personal tastes, and I’ve always wished other streamers could keep up in that area. Apple has certainly taken the right steps here, but there’s still work that has to be done. A problem I run into across all platforms is how the live content is handled. For example, if I want to tune into a live episode of AEW Dynamite on Max, more times than not I have to manually type AEW in the search bar to get to it. Having it available in its own row would save a lot of time for me. Sometimes it’s front and center for me and sometimes it isn’t. Whether it’s down to user error or something else, Apple’s new approach is a much better fit for me and others need to take notes. Another underrated change is the carousel of new shows at the top of the app. These are all Apple TV+ originals, but it’s nice to rotate through the hit shows instead of having to track them down myself.

As of tvOS 18.4, there’s a lot to like here. It’s easy to find out what a show is all about by clicking the big “i” icon, and you can also learn its release schedule just by looking at the show’s icon. This is similar to how Netflix and Max already treat their shows, so it’s matching them more than blazing a new trail, but these are still big changes.

I don’t think Apple is going to do anything about it at this point, but it’d be nice to see the Apple TV+ content get spun off into its own app at some point because the Apple TV app still feels like it’s mostly an advertisement for Apple TV+ despite it having access to plenty of other content. It’s a nitpick and something that’s to be expected, I suppose, but I think it’d go a long way toward cleaning up some of the bloat I feel when opening up the app. It sort of works that way on Android devices, surprisingly, because that version of the app only gives me the Apple TV+ content and nothing else.

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Streaming keeps changing, but the services aren’t keeping up

An ever-changing world

As of 2025, your favorite streaming service likely airs live TV of some sort. Whether it’s sports, wrestling, reality TV, or even airing local channels, streaming has a wide selection of viewing content on display. For every one of these services, I think there needs to be a lot of work done for how easily the live shows are found. Some apps do it better than others, and with Apple’s latest update, I think that’s the leader of the pack.

Either I haven’t been paying too much attention, or streaming services haven’t greatly changed their user interfaces in a while. Max changes its colors and name every now and then, but the app received its biggest change when it retired the old split menus in favor of the clean design. Now, everything can be found on the left side of the screen, so there’s no need for me to scroll across the side or top anymore.

That’s a nice change from Max, and now Apple has made it easier to find content. For me, the biggest thing missing from streaming is accessibility. For example, Netflix has a wide range of things to watch, but it’s not always easy to find everything. There are so many sections to rotate through, and I know a lot of people just go and do something else before finding something.

The biggest game-changer that’s still to come for Apple TV is full Netflix integration. Apple TV is an app that lets me connect most streaming services, so everything’s in one place barring the biggest streamer out there. If Netflix integrated, as it did accidentally earlier this year, then I wouldn’t have to open the Netflix app ever again. I would only have to rely on the clean and improved Apple TV app, and that’s a big win for me. As it stands, Netflix is on its own island, but I would love for it to finally give in and join Apple TV. I’ll keep my fingers crossed and hope that mistake from this year becomes a reality.

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