Apple tvOS

I first started using Trakt a long time ago (maybe 10 years), but in recent years have actively used it very little. This was primarily because it didn’t fit my workflow well - Apple TV centric.

It linked with Infuse, for my own content, but when WatchAid stopped being supported (and only ever tracked movies), I moved to JustWatch for tracking my streaming activity. The Apple TV JustWatch was always buggy though, and I finally gave up on that when Justwatch support notified me (in response to bugs that I’d been chasing a fix for, for nearly a year) that they were no longer developing / supporting Justwatch TV apps!

I thought the answer might be Plex when they added streaming service tracking, but it’s also really buggy, cumbersome and not fully integrated (understandably maybe, as this is not Plex’s primary purpose).

I was therefore for delighted when I discovered that a Trakt tvOS app had been launched. I’ve only been using it for a week, and it’s really promising. Now I realise that it’s the first release, and only been out for 2 months, but have some observations (maybe misunderstandings - and a lot is related to customisation/configuration in the tvOS app, which doesn’t seem to exist) :

  • Lists do not appear to allow a sort order choice. I thought it might use the default order selected when creating the list, but whatever you choose as default, it never changes the order (I think it’s always using Rank)
  • I don’t like having my Movies and Series mixed up in one list, so rather than using Watchlist, I’ve created custom lists e.g. Movies and Series. Doing this results in a number of needs - I’d like to choose to ‘hide’ the Watchlist list in the displayed lists (as it’s always empty for me); I’d like to be able to add a movie/series to my chosen list when browsing (ie not only have add to Watchlist as an option)
  • I’d like an option to have Favourites not displayed
  • I’d like to have ‘some’ choice over what options ate shown on the tvOS top tab bar (the same as you can choose the 6 to be displayed on the iPad iOS app tab bar)
  • In general I’d like to see more of the configuration options available in the iOS app also available with the tvOS app (I’d assumed that the tvOS app might inherit some configuration from the iOS app, but it doesn’t seem to)
  • On the tvOS app for Up Next, Schedule, etc the episode name is the more prominent display, and the series name a subtext? This is same as the Webapp, but the opposite to the iOS app. I’d prefer the Series name to be the more prominent text (or configurable)
  • When you have completed viewing something, I’d like it to automatically tag it was watched (or pop up a choice), as JustWatch does.
  • For lists it would be nice to have an option not have movie / series shown if either it’s not available on one of your selected streaming services or if a date’s not yet available e.g. waiting for new season to have dates (this just removes clutter if you track a lot of items in a list)

Sorry for the long post, and I hope it’s helpful. The tvOS app is amazing - I’m just hoping for a little more flexibility in future releases. :slight_smile:

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