It's been just over two weeks since YouTube updated its Apple TV app with a major redesign, essentially bringing the app in line with YouTube on other products like Android TV, smart TVs, PS4, and Xbox One. While the original YouTube Apple TV app was never widely favored, the new update was met with even more blowback from some users, who referenced laggy controls, poorer playback UI, illogical changes to the subscription tab's channel list, and more.
This week, YouTube pushed out version 1.01.04 of the app for Apple TV 4th and 5th generation devices, and it addresses a few of these user concerns. The major update is a "modified" subscriptions tab that nixes the long horizontal list of subscribed YouTube channels -- which made it take much longer to get to channels at the bottom of the alphabetized list -- and reverts back to a grid layout akin to the original app. YouTube said this was done for "easier channel selection."
Although it's not mentioned in the update notes, one user on Reddit said that there have also been a few tweaks to video scrubbing, so users can "go through the video with the touchpad again instead of slowly rewinding/fast forwarding." When doing this, thumbnail previews of the video pop up to give you an idea of where to land as you jump through the video, but YouTube still doesn't use Apple's systemwide playback UI and there isn't any support for quick 10-second jumps forward and backward.
Otherwise, YouTube said that the update fixed an issue with the search keyboard when people were using "non-Siri TV remotes," and it includes the usual bug fixes and stability improvements.
Wednesday January 14, 2026 10:18 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Verizon is experiencing a major outage across the U.S. today, with hundreds of thousands of customers reporting issues with the network on the website Downdetector. There are also complaints across Reddit and other social media platforms.
iPhone users and others with Verizon service are generally unable to make phone calls, send text messages, or use data over 5G or LTE due to the outage....
Tuesday January 13, 2026 6:11 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple today introduced a new Apple Creator Studio bundle that offers access to six creative apps, as well as exclusive AI features and content, as part of a single subscription. In the U.S., pricing is set at $12.99 per month or $129 per year.
Here are the six apps included with an Apple Creator Studio subscription:Final Cut Pro on the Mac and iPad
Logic Pro on the Mac and iPad
Pixelmator...
Monday January 12, 2026 1:15 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple today seeded the second beta of iOS 26.3, nearly a month after the first beta. So far, the update includes a couple of new features for iPhones.
iOS 15.3 through iOS 18.3 were all released in late January over the years, so it is thereby likely that iOS 26.3 will be released towards the end of this month as well. The update is compatible with the iPhone 11 series and newer.
Below,...
Monday January 12, 2026 7:38 am PST by Joe Rossignol
In a statement shared with CNBC today, Apple confirmed that Google Gemini will power the next-generation version of Siri that is slated to launch later this year.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
"After careful evaluation, we determined that Google's technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models and we're excited about the innovative...
Wednesday January 14, 2026 7:09 am PST by Joe Rossignol
While the iPhone 18 Pro models are still around eight months away, a leaker has shared some alleged details about the devices.
In a post on Chinese social media platform Weibo this week, the account Digital Chat Station said the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max will have the same 6.3-inch and 6.9-inch display sizes as the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max.
Consistent with previous...
Why does YouTube insist on using its own player code rather than the excellent built in video player API? That's my only complaint about the new app. Apple's API works well and is consistent across all of TVOS. There's no reason not to use it.
The real issue isn't the layout or feature set. It's the fact they appeared to have replaced the old native app by a web view that performs poorly, and where touch inputs are inaccurate.
The whole app is choppy rather than the smooth 60fps we're used to. Touch inputs don't feel native, you constantly skip over the elements you want to select while navigating. Navigating the app is unpredictable, you don't know how it'll respond to your input, and the animations don't always have the same speed for some reason. It's like the app can't keep a steady framerate, and animation length are based on the number of frames drawn rather than duration in seconds.
It's a super frustrating experience all around. Hoping a dev can make a native 3rd-party app. I don't care if it's really basic feature wise, I just can't stand this kind of poor input quality and UI performance.
youtube's new app on the apple tv is a garbage fire. the old one wasn't great but at least it felt like an apple product as opposed to this new abomination. whoever made this decision should be fired and never work in tech again. are you listening youtube?
