Apple Intelligence
Latest Review
Photo of the back of the iPhone 16 Pro Max in its box
September 27, 2024
Latest App Update
App icon for wwriteLite
December 15, 2024

Apple's tvOS Software Bugs

Screenshot of the incorrect movie poster for the movie

If you have ever built any sort of software, you are well aware that no software is every bug free, but it is common to try and eliminate as many bugs as possible. Apple has a large number of operating systems, including, audioOS (HomePod), iOS, iPadOS, macOS, visionOS, watchOS, and even tvOS.

Over the last 15 years Apple has made tremendous strides in eliminating the larger bugs, like crashing devices, kernel panics, and even app crashes. That is not to say that they cannot happen, of course they can, but their frequency is significantly less than in previous years. However, it seems like there are still some operating systems that do not get nearly as much attention.

One of the areas where I see a number of a bugs is with tvOS. My "favorite" bug occurs within the Library section. There are actually two issues.


Not Always Showing Group

The first issue that I have is that sometimes when switching to eithe the "Movies" or "TV Show" tab, the actual data might not change to show the proper data. The selected group changes, but the actual data does not.

This is easily fixable by just choosing another item and then going back. This is not an issue, since there is a fix, but it is still irritating when you want to watch something.


Incorrect Movie Posters

The more annoying bug that I have is with movie posters that are shown. As an example, I have a movie called "Tomorrow When the War Began". The actual poster that is shown is in Spanish, even though I do not own the Spanish version. What is more irritating is that this has happened on several titles previously, but this is the current one.

Movie Poster for 'Tomorrow, When the War Began' in spanish

The more egregious example though, is for the movie "Whiteout". The movie poster for this is COMPLETELY wrong. It shows the movie poster for "Dracula III: Legacy". There is no reason why this should be the case. I am sure this is a caching issue, but the strange part is that it does not happen on all devices.

Incorrect movie poster for 'Whiteout

On my iPhone, it is the right movie poster, the same on my iPad. However, on my MacBook Pro, Apple TV 4K, MacBook Pro, and Mac Studio, it is in the correct movie poster. Even on Apple's "Marketing Tools" site, it shows the incorrect movie poster.

Correct movie poster for 'Whiteout

Unfortunately, there is no way for me to fix the caching issues. I have reported it to Apple using their Feedback mechanism (FB16415600), but I will likely never hear back.


Closing Thoughts

While Apple has significantly improved the underlying software, they still have a long way to go with their operating systems that are not that important, like Apple TV. I get that there is only so much time that Apple is willing to spend on a platform that is ancillary, but it would be nice to see it actually get some attention.

Tags: