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!!!

Dear twitch,

“gamestreams” is a great app for LG smart tvs (webOS) that allows one to watch twitch streams directly on the tv without the need of using some other casting devices. Unfortunately after the API V3+5 change/shutdown the app suddenly stopped working. I’m sure there are lots of people watching twitch on LG tvs and we’d like to able to do so in the future. After reaching out to the developer of the gamestreams app i got the following answer from Reemet Paabo:

“Yes Twitch.tv is closing down the V3 and V5 API endpoints that we are using and therefor we will have to rewrite the whole Application.
Now, I had started to rewrite the whole application and it was going well, until I hit a brick wall with the Twitch Embed player that I have to use.
It has that Maturity check on it, " Content is rated mature” and you have to press “Start watching” button to continue, unfortunatly there is no way to bypass that and its only clickable, which LG does not allow. You have to be able to use the button with OK key aswell. I’ve tried all kinds of solutions but always end up with cross-origin-policy error ( since the player is “cloning” another website, you can not execute code within it ). For now I’ve given up because there’s no way around cross-origin-policy and sadly twitch developers will not help us eather."

As far as i can tell the developer is willing to adopt to your new API, but is also limited by LG and webOS features. It would be awesome if you could support Reemet in any way or extend your new API so that keyboard events can be used and help to keep the gamestreams app - with that twitch - on LG tv alive.

kind regards,
Michael

P.S: I’m just a sad consumer and not affiliated with gamestreams, LG or twitch in any way

Using the unofficial Twitch apps that existed previously on tvOS, it was extremely easy to navigate stream recordings that are often 5-6 hours long. Since the official Twitch app debuted, all the third-party apps have ceased development, so we're stuck with the bad video controls of the official app. This could be solved by using the standard tvOS video control APIs that almost every other app uses. Examples:

1. While watching a long Overwatch stream, when the streamer was queuing for a match, I could easily tap the right edge of the trackpad to jump forward in small increments, until I could see on screen that a match had started. Then I could tap the left edge of the trackpad once to jump back to the start of the match. Now, I have to navigate to the fast-forward button, hit it multiple times to get to a fast speed, then navigate back to the play button, see if a match has started, and repeat multiple times. Then once I see a match is in progress, I have to repeat the process in reverse. It's a significantly higher number of button presses and time.

2. If I'm watching a stream while doing something else and miss something important, I used to be able to just tap the left edge of the touchpad and I was instantly back x number of seconds to see what I missed. Now I have to navigate to the rewind button, and choose to either wait for a slow rewind speed, or tap a few times for a fast rewind speed and usually overshoot and rewind way more than I meant to.

3. If I want to skip to the second half of the stream, I used to be able to just choose precisely with a swipe and tap where I wanted to play. Now I have to bring up the menu, go to the fast forward icon, and fast forward at 2048x, usually overshooting where I wanted to go and having to rewind.

All in all, the Twitch app's video navigation is like using a VCR in 2020. I don't understand why it was implemented this way when no other app does it this way, and I'm guessing it took more work to create this custom UX than it would've to use the built-in tvOS API.

Creative and IRL categories have been available, in some form, on Twitch for nearly 3 years now, ever since the Bob Ross series was marathoned. Yet, despite the existence of these categories, people are woefully unaware of the existence of any of them, except the biggest two: Just chatting, and Music and performing arts. The latter of which is usually overrun by 24/7 radio channels, while Just chatting is still a "catch-all" category for even content that should be categorized under the specific ones (eg. Travel and outdoors, etc).

It's not uncommon for people to comment along the lines of "wow, I didn't know people were streaming this on Twitch" when a Creative channel is raided by a Gaming channel, or when a musician is raided by a Gaming channel. "Actual talent on Twitch" is a bit of a meme now, which I've heard so often myself.

My suggestion:
https://www.twitch.tv/directory needs to change. Instead of mixing in the non-gaming categories with the gaming one, and sorting them by viewership, pin the non-gaming categories to the very top regardless of viewership counts. These categories desperately need the exposure, and have some of the most unique content on Twitch (and most of Twitch is still unaware of their existence). This will not impact the gaming channels, as people already know that Twitch is a platform that started off as a game streaming platform. The gaming categories can follow below the non-gaming ones, and will still be sorted by viewership.

People need to know that these categories exist, so that more people will explore them, and discover the unique streamers. Streamers who have so much creativity to share with the rest of Twitch.