With the latest app update (on or around 3/30/22), when a channel loads on the FireTV app, the UI loads in front of it.

The screen is obscured by a somewhat opaque black layer, which covers or hides the content. The channel name and information about the channel as well as action buttons (settings, show chat window, report) appear as part of this interruption.

BUT YOU CAN’T CLOSE THE UI IMMEDIATELY, to get to the content faster. This is incredibly frustrating.

In the previous version it was awkward, but at least doable, either by pressing up or down while on that menu (one or the other, depending on unknown factors).

Here’s the thing: I didn’t select the channel to see your UI - I selected the channel to see the content the channel provides. Your UI interrupts that, obnoxiously.

It was just as obscured in the previous release, but I figured a work-around to get out of it - pressing up or down while one of the buttons was selected, immediately after the channel loads.

But now I can’t even do that.

Honestly, it hinders my experience on every channel now, right when I land on the channel. And I am not patient enough to wait - I’d imagine most of your user base is the same (i.e. impatient, want to see the content as quickly as possible).

Solution: when I select a channel on the FireTV app, and the channel loads, DON’T show the overlapping UI by default. Only show it if I hit up, or left, or down, or right, or OK. That way you can leave the Back button for what it’s meant for, give users access to the UI buttons when needed and stop irritating me by covering the content I want to see immediately.

Seriously, it’s like trying to see over a tall guy’s head in a movie theater. And every time I get situated but then happen to press a remote key accidentally, the obstruction pops up again and can’t be immediately dismissed. It makes Twitch look like laggy, outdated fecal matter.

There may be an even better way to solve the issue, but the problem is the same: don’t obscure any of the content or hinder me from consuming it, at all, until I deem it necessary and need to do something else (like open the chat).

This is frustrating me enough to just go watch Netflix, or YouTube, or some other form of entertainment instead, and especially to stop paying for a no-ads Twitch subscription. I consume content to feel good as quickly as possible; and this bug gives me a bad taste in my mouth immediately, on every channel I load.

Please fix this quickly.

I have several suggestions for the app:

1. They should show more followed users who are online broadcasting, since only 10 or 15 appear and the other online users with fewer viewers are not shown, only those with the most appear, the rest have to be searched manually.

2. Allow replays and clips to be viewed from channels and save progress.

3. That the order in which the lists appear down can be modified or that after showing those followed online, the next one shows the categories.

4. That the framerate for streams that have 60fps be fixed, at least to fix the image quality a bit on 4k TVs

The loss of functionality of V10 when compared to V9 is baffling. The redesigned UI is nigh incapable of assisting the user with finding non-live content, since the home, bowse, and category pages now only present live channels to the user.

In the prior app version, all followed channels were listed in a dedicated row about 2 rows below the top/live followed channels row. By removing this and all other non-live content, V10 of the FireTV app delivers an experience that is order of magnitudes more cumbersome to navigate compared to the prior version.

In the updated version users are required to search for individual channels (followed channels included) if they're looking for ANY non-live content, even content they've started watching but had to pause and return to later. Why on Earth should we have to go to the search section and search for any of that content in V10 when V9 gave it to us in a clean and concise manner. Moreover, if we want to know what our followed streamers have recently streamed, we have to search each one individually. And once we've made a decision on who to watch, we get to search them a second time in the same session. It's ridiculous and wasn't so cumbersome in V9.

I could give this a pass if the UI presented the most recent broadcast for each followed channel along side all the live followed channels at the top of the home screen. While still not ideal, at least then I'd only have to waste at most a little time passing through a vod I may not be interested in to get to their profile and find the content I'm ultimately looking for. But I can't even do that, and am instead shoehorned into searching for streamers I already follow.

And to top it all off... The chat history has been completely removed from the vods, and you can no longer send chat messages in the FireTV app.

You also can't force the playback overlay to hide in V10, and instead have to wait 5 seconds for it to disappear on its own. Before, in V9, you could hide it without delay by pressing down

Why has so much functionality been removed and the user experience worsened so tremendously?? Keep V10 and give us back V9!!!