Rollback the FireTV App to V9
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!!!

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DaxOfNine commented
I really hate the fact that when the streamer I am watching raids someone and I get a "This stream has ended" message instead of it switching to the raided channel. Instead of leaving twitch on in the background while I am doing things I find myself switching to YouTube instead. At least YouTube keeps playing videos..
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GoreGyal commented
Thank you thank you thank you bananimus3!
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bananimus3 commented
And reesej, if anyone likes the split chat like I do, it's resizeable. Def enough features it takes getting used to. Shiny though!
ily twitch.
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reesej commented
Yes! bananimus3 I was able to backload the app onto my fire tv THANK YOU. the S0undTV app makes twitch do what twitch should be able to do itself!
not just that but things the twitch app could never do, like view the chat in a tinier window when watching a vod instead of doing a split screen like it did when it existed before the update.
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Mylifetogive commented
Bananimus3 you are so ****. Soundtv is sick thanks for bringing it up. I use it with a shieldtv and its perfect.
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bananimus3 commented
While we wait for something official from the hard working folks at twitch, discovered something else for all the good noodles out there... S0undTV.
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Mylifetogive commented
Can we get some feedback from twitch on this? I really miss seeing chat in vods which is most of what I watch.
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afrostitcher commented
Streamers have been telling me twitch is blaming reduced viewer numbers on the end of covid but they don’t talk about how one upgrade of the fire tv app rendered the app inoperable. I can’t even tell you one benefit of the new app -maybe the giant unfollow button when I watch streamers?
I can’t raid, I can’t chat (but there’s a huge chat button on the app because trolling app users is fun) I can’t find offline content from people I follow.
I basically got fire tv for twitch and it’s broken now. A roll back to previous version gives me back most of the functionality -
bananimus3 commented
I opened a support ticket also.
1) Can't easily get to non-live content.
2) Where's my list of followed channels?
3) Latency on live video is awful. Old app used to be the only way to watch that was near instantaneous. Now it often starts 5-7 seconds behind and gets progressively worse. Awful experience trying to interact with live streams.
4) Not all chat activity shows in chat.
5) No more auto forwarding on raids. Need to wait forever for the option to even come up, and still have to click a few buttons first. Miss the spontaneity of raids.
6) Tries to make sure chat names are visible on dark background, but it's not tuned properly. Practically black names don't appear in chat, and bright names get turned white?
7) No chat replay on VODs anymore? Who is my streamer talking to? What's happening?Just to name a few. Agree with sentiment that there's a perverse attention to directing to live content only, which just feels wrong when it completely cuts us off from our subscribed, offline content.
I'd give anything to get the old version back. Total downgrade.
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fatuousjeffrey commented
I primarily watch content from my followed channels, and most of that is VOD. With the new app, there is really no reason to even log in as none of my preferences or follows are respected or displayed.
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hollie512 commented
As someone who watches streamers mostly in a different timezone, 99% of my Twitch watching is VODs. If I cannot see the chat, I cannot see what is being referred to by the streamer. I literally will not use the app anymore if this doesn't come back.
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TheRealAppy commented
Glad I'm not the only one who noticed the search results seem to prioritize suggested live content over the ACTUAL search results, even in the case of searching for the exact channel name.
I cannot fathom the decision making that went into that design choice. I can only assume Twitch makes more profit on live content vs VOD content, and so they are attempting to prioritize it over others. And while I can appreciate the profit motive there as a capitalist myself, THAT'S NOT HOW YOU DO IT.
Provide us with a better product than you did previously, and a superior product compared to your substitutions and you will have customers... Don't inhibit access to our preferred content and oppressively nudge us into your more profitable offerings when we've clearly indicated we want something else. That's a really Really REALLY good way to destroy your customer base.
This new app is such a pain to deal with, and whether I'm correct about the motives that drove these changes or not, it makes me feel like Twitch lacks respect for me a customer. So thanks for the continued motivation to watch less Twitch and more YouTube and other content platforms.
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Ash_Meadow commented
With the most recent update, twitch has become entirely unusable. Once I log in and try to watch a stream, it crashes my entire firestick, to the point I have to unplug it from the power and reboot it to make it start functioning again. This new update is complete trash.
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TheEdRobinson commented
I've had so many of these same problems. I'm glad I'm not alone. Latency issues, resolution drops, sudden stops and warnings that connectivity has been lost when everything else in my house is working fine, and the WORST thing IMO is the loss of my Followed Channels from the main page. And when I do search for my followed channels, using their full names, they're not even the first thing that pops up! Instead I get vaguely-related live channels or whatever sponsored **** paid for my attention that day.
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senpaiofweebs_ commented
I close at my work, so I rely on vods most of the time when I get off work. This new version of the app is completely unusable. I have to search for the streamers I follow, there's no "Continue Watching" tab for the streamers that I have to pause on, and worst of all, the app is just plain laggy! Please, Please, Please revert back to V9!
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uncle_grandfather commented
please please, this version is unusable. i can't watch vods with chat anymore. i cant chat in live channels anymore. please please please fix this
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geoffbonneau commented
I immensely dislike having to search for my followed channels. Please put them back on the landing page.
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meagstew commented
Raids are completely busted. I used to go from raid to raid to raid and watch all day while on WFH. Now it doesn’t raid and just says ‘this stream has ended’. I’ve been turning the app off and doing something else, watching the news or a show on a streaming service.
You’ve literally tanked the number of hours I spend watching now because you borked the raids.
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TheRealAppy commented
Just to again quickly and easily summarize all the feedback from this post and it's comments, two words:
Feature Parity.
I understand true feature parity can't be maintained, and is a poor design principle to blindly adhere to, but there is no possible way that Twitch even remotely came close to any sort of 80/20 rule-esque approximation of the functionality available in V9 vs the mess that is V10.
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patternmatch commented
And yet ANOTHER another thing. Raids are broken.
I typically have the Fire TV app and a browser window (with video paused) going at the same time so I can easily chat on my browser while having the stream on my TV. When a streamer raids another channel, the browser connects to the new channel, but the app simply says "This stream has ended."
Really? Raids just don't work? A core feature of your platform is broken in your app, and you released it like this?