Netflix Wrecked Their tvOS Video Player

Amanda Kondolojy, writing for Pocket-lint:

Though the Netflix app is largely the same on most platforms, over the weekend several Apple TV users on the unofficial Apple TV Reddit noticed some small changes to the tvOS version of the app that are making the app harder to use in subtle but very frustrating ways.

According to user iamonreddit, the most recent Netflix app update has made it slightly more difficult to use the fast-forward and rewind functions. Instead of clicking the back or forward button on the remote wheel to advance or return ten seconds, this button press now pauses the screen and brings up a frame selector. In order to actually go forward or go back, users then have to click the same button again. So essentially, what once required a single button press, now needs two.

These changes aren’t small, aren’t subtle, and don’t make fast-forwarding and rewinding merely “slightly” more difficult. The video playback interface in a streaming app is the most essential thing a streaming app does, and now Netflix’s tvOS player looks terrible and works wrong. The original report Kondolojy cites, from Reddit user “iamonreddit” (yes, you are), describes it as it is:

Did Netflix mess up the app? There are two extra clicks for a simple 10s rewind or fast forward. Instead of it going back 10s in one click, now it pauses and brings up the frame selector, and then you have to click again. Did they not do any research or usability testing before releasing this?

It’s also not smooth at all, it keeps spinning for a while and I have 1gig fiber optic internet. What a big downgrade!

They have some of the top paid employees in the world and this is what they come up with. Unless this was the result of some restrictions introduced by Apple.

Looks like they messed it up big time. Netflix used to set benchmarks for others. And here we are now. I’ve never had a single problem with their app so far, for over a decade of use.

Netflix’s gratuitously ugly new custom video player commits various crimes against accessibility. Two years ago I wrote about tvOS’s system accessibility shortcut that lets you assign triple-clicking the Back (“\<”) button to toggle captions, and the fact that Netflix didn’t support it. This cursed new player, you will be unsurprised to learn, doesn’t support it either. It also does not support the wonderful standard platform convention of temporarily turning on captions when you rewind 10 or 20 seconds, for a “What did they just say?” moment.

This regression dropping the same week that Netflix announced price hikes makes me so angry that I’m giving even more thought to downgrading my family’s Netflix account from the $27/month Premium plan to the $20/month Standard plan. Sending Netflix only $240 per year instead of $324 will show them.

★ Saturday, 28 March 2026