The new update is bad. I get what you were trying to do, but it is ruining what people already liked about the app in order to add something that MIGHT be nice.
Instead of removing the old and replacing it with the new, I would suggest instead keeping it how it was, and simply adding a new tab with the new discovery function.
Think of Instagram. You have your homepage/tab that (mostly) only shows you stuff by people you follow. Then there is a separate tab for discovering new stuff that the algorithm thinks you might like. Adopt that approach instead of replacing the old "home" tab with the new discovery thing and then only giving us a poor replacement in the form of the "following" list.
Looking at the current version of the twitch App, the "Home" tab should basically be what the previous version was, where it includes all the live streams you follow along with preview thumbnails and stream titles. Have tabs at the top that let you toggle between followed streams and followed categories (the new app doesn't even let you follow categories any more?). Then the "Browse" tab at the bottom can be what the current home screen is, where it pushes live streams that the algorithm thinks you might like, and then has tabs at the top that let you toggle between that and a search/category screen like whats currently there. You could even flip those, making the "home" the one with stuff that the algorithm thinks we might like if that's what you really want the users to see first, and then have a "followed" tab that is like I described above.
There's no reason we can't have the best of both worlds, what some (everyone?) liked about the old version, while integrating what you wanted to add to the new version.
Looking at the comments posted here, you must already be aware that at least a large portion of your user base doesn't like the change, but in case you missed it, here's a link to a much larger group of people on Reddit also talking about the problems with the new update. It's pretty clearly unpopular.
The new update is bad. I get what you were trying to do, but it is ruining what people already liked about the app in order to add something that MIGHT be nice.
Instead of removing the old and replacing it with the new, I would suggest instead keeping it how it was, and simply adding a new tab with the new discovery function.
Think of Instagram. You have your homepage/tab that (mostly) only shows you stuff by people you follow. Then there is a separate tab for discovering new stuff that the algorithm thinks you might like. Adopt that approach instead of replacing the old "home" tab with the new discovery thing and then only giving us a poor replacement in the form of the "following" list.
Looking at the current version of the twitch App, the "Home" tab should basically be what the previous version was, where it includes all the live streams you follow along with preview thumbnails and stream titles. Have tabs at the top that let you toggle between followed streams and followed categories (the new app doesn't even let you follow categories any more?). Then the "Browse" tab at the bottom can be what the current home screen is, where it pushes live streams that the algorithm thinks you might like, and then has tabs at the top that let you toggle between that and a search/category screen like whats currently there. You could even flip those, making the "home" the one with stuff that the algorithm thinks we might like if that's what you really want the users to see first, and then have a "followed" tab that is like I described above.
There's no reason we can't have the best of both worlds, what some (everyone?) liked about the old version, while integrating what you wanted to add to the new version.
Looking at the comments posted here, you must already be aware that at least a large portion of your user base doesn't like the change, but in case you missed it, here's a link to a much larger group of people on Reddit also talking about the problems with the new update. It's pretty clearly unpopular.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Twitch/comments/1eh2c8j/the_newest_twitch_update_megathread/