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I personally have not found the UX of HBO's streaming offerings (I use HBO GO, primarily through an iPad and a PS4) to be appreciably worse than Netflix's. The
by smacktoward 8y ago
I personally have not found the UX of HBO's streaming offerings (I use HBO GO, primarily through an iPad and a PS4) to be appreciably worse than Netflix's. The apps load and are straightforward to find my way around in, I can always find the content I'm looking for, I've never had any technical issues prevent me from streaming that content.
In some regards, I would even say their UX is better than Netflix's -- scrolling through a list of items in the HBO apps doesn't trigger a parade of loud auto-playing videos, and HBO doesn't visually privilege their own original content over stuff they've licensed by giving it huge icons and putting it at the top of every list.
The article mentions that HBO couldn't handle the streaming demand for Game of Thrones in 2014, which is pretty bad, but which was also five years ago. It doesn't mention them having problems like that anymore, so it seems reasonable to assume they learned something from the experience.
If anything, I would say HBO's biggest failure is in marketing/branding: naming their offering for cable subscribers "HBO GO" and the one for cord-cutters "HBO NOW" is an invitation for confusion, and the logos/icons for the apps are so similar anyone could be forgiven for downloading the wrong one. They need to distinguish these services better, and provide some incentive to use HBO Now to attract people like me who are getting HBO through their cable company to jump to having a direct relationship with them instead.
- pronoiac 8y agoThere's also the DirecTV Now app, which gets bundled with some AT&T mobile plans, and the UX there is much worse than in HBO Now. I don’t think you can make watchlists, and it won’t pick up from the same time if you get interrupted.
- negativez 8y agoCompletely agree - HBO's app is as good as any of them. I'll add that Netflix is the only video app I've used that mismanages the chromecast control ui. Basically every other time I cast Netflix the app loses track of the cast stream, reverts to the browsing ui or other failure mode and I can't pause the stream from my phone. No other app does this.
- mcculley 8y agoI subscribe to HBO Now on an Apple TV. I really wish it could remember that I have enabled closed captions (I have a hearing impairment). Netflix does not seem to have trouble with persisting settings.
- Dirlewanger 8y agoA couple years ago, HBO GO was horrible in FireFox, so much so that I downloaded Chrome specifically to use HBO GO. Not sure if it's still the case. HBO is still lacking certain basic features; their dearth of different watcher profiles is appalling, especially when Netfix has had it for years. It's personally a pet peeve of mine when I share an account, the other person watches something I was in the middle of, and I lose my place. Basic UX shit like this is inexcusable. I wonder if they've unified HBO GO/NOW. I remember reading when NOW launched that it and GO were separate Java applications maintained by separate teams.