Is TVOS broken?

By Voracious P. Brain, 7 January, 2025

Forum
tvOS and Apple TV Apps

I noticed on another thread that Paul or someone else noted that TVOS 18 was "broken," a one-word review reminiscent of the classic Spinal Tap album review of Shark Sandwich, which simply read "shit sandwich." My old Apple TV 4 (not 4k) is on version 17.x, and I can't imagine it being any more broken unless it set itself on fire. Before I update, can anyone report on the state of the latest version? I use it strictly for Apple Music playback, plus as an airplay destination. I noticed that Tubey has become somewhat usable, so I might start using it for that and Comedy Central as well.
Thanks.

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Comments

By Oliver on Tuesday, January 7, 2025 - 23:21

It's fine. All of them are. I think they have some idiosyncrasies but I use mine all the time. there are a couple of settings to play with in the remote settings, I turn off the touch sensitive aspect of the controller, as well as turning the turning audio ducking off and turning the voice down to about 20 %.

I think it's pretty solid, for a TV os anyway.

By Missy Hoppe on Wednesday, January 8, 2025 - 23:21

TV OS 18.2 is working great here. Do you have any more specific info on what's "broken?" There are a few things that are mildly quirky, but at least sometimes, I attribute that to user error on my part. I have no issue navigating the things that are important to me on the apple tv.

By Justin Harris on Wednesday, January 8, 2025 - 23:21

I have two Apple TVs, one in the living room, one in the bedroom, and both work fine. I use them for Youtube TV, good old regular youtube, a few other apps and of course Airplay. You will get the ocasional app that doesn't work well, but everything on the OS level as well as most apps work just fine.
One bug I will let you know about is the mute button not working while Voiceover is turned on. Turn Voiceover off, and mute works fine. But as long as it is on, mute does not work.

By Voracious P. Brain on Wednesday, January 8, 2025 - 23:21

Thanks all. 18.2 seems to run a lot smoother than 17.4 did, so I'm glad I asked. Although, in the Music app, once I'm focused on the track progress control, I can't navigate, because swiping left/right goes to next/prev track. I suppose I can live with that, since I have that and play/pause with the remote.
I think folks here are increasingly using "broken" as a synonym for frustratingly different than previous versions, in addition to using it to mean inaccessible. The explore mode allows access to previously-unreadable and unnavigable areas of the screen, but my fat fingers can only perform the gesture successfully 20% of the time. Maybe more recent models have a larger trackpad.
Thanks again.