I don’t like the update. There are a lot of niceties about the previous version of the app that are no longer available.

• No user-selectable app icons.
• No classic interface mode, which means when you’ve scrolled vertically from the Home screen or an individual library’s Recommended view, you can’t see any content above the current row. You have no idea if you’re at the top of the interface or somewhere in the middle.
• The sidebar doesn’t highlight the icon of the library you’re viewing, so it’s hard to tell where you are in the app.
• Plex’s live TV channels and your own over-the-air channels are no longer intermingled in one interface.
• You can’t hide the “My Lists” sidebar entry.
• The old, legacy video player is no longer an option. I have some videos in my library that buffer every 5–10 seconds with the new player, but played smoothly with the old player. I’m assuming because of a funky audio track. But regardless of the cause, if I want to watch those videos in the new app, I’ll have to re-encode them.
• It now uses its own video player interface instead of Apple’s tvOS player interface. That means it’s more cumbersome to access AirPlay controls, technical details, and more.

I doubt all of my complaints will be fixed, but hopefully at least some of them will be. I could use Infuse or some other third-party Plex client, but I have complaints about all of their implementations, too.

➝ Source: forums.plex.tv

The Pocket Casts design and development team has been working on an Apple TV version for months. They’ve done an excellent job with this release. The app is slick and I’m so happy that the team is finally ready to share it.

I wrote the public facing documentation for this release. If you notice anything is amiss, have questions, comments, or what have you, please reach out to support.

In short, it’s Pocket Casts on the Apple TV. It connects with your account to keep your podcasts, playlists, playback position, and more in sync with Pocket Casts on all of your other devices. It’s great for throwing on an episode while you clean the house, play a board game with the kids, or just about any other scenario.

And while it’s a great audio podcast player, it really shines with video episodes. Here are some podcasts that publish video episodes that I’ve been watching lately:

• Retro Game Corps on Odysee
• IGN.com – Daily Fix
• Daily Tech News Show
• The Culinary Institute of America
• TechHut on Odysee

I’m sure there are many more that I’m missing. If you have any recommendations of video podcasts that publish using an open RSS feed, I’d love to hear about them.

There are some features that are missing in this initial launch compared to Pocket Casts on other platforms. The one I’m hoping to see added in the future is Files support. I frequently add video files to Pocket Casts using this feature and while I can AirPlay from the mobile app, it would be clutch if I could play them right from within the app on tvOS.

Chapters is another feature that has become an important part of my podcast app experience and is missing in this first release. But I’m hopeful that additional features like this will come in time now that the core feature set is out the door.

I think there’s a bright future ahead for podcasting and I love that I get to be a part of it through documentation and support for Pocket Casts. The team has been shipping some excellent features recently — highlighted transcripts, the tasteful Liquid Glass design refresh, and Dynamic Type support to name a few. Pocket Casts is better than it’s ever been and improving with every release.

Speaking more broadly about the podcasting ecosystem, though, helping to build and maintain that is what keeps me excited about work. Podcasting is a free, open distribution mechanism for media that anyone can utilize.

You don’t have to rely on a single vendor to host and distribute your show. You can pick from a myriad of dedicated podcast hosting companies or host it yourself. As long as you can serve an RSS feed and a media file, you can publish a podcast.

And your listeners aren’t forced to obtain your show from a specific vendor either. They can use Pocket Casts, Castro, Overcast, or choose from hundreds of other clients.

Podcasters get a more direct relationship with their audience and so many people get to build their livelihoods creating software, building hosting companies, and more. It’s a beautiful thing.

I fully switched to Immich as our photo backup system last year, but didn’t learn about this client app until a few days ago. It works well and will be installed on every Apple TV in our house soon.

➝ Source: github.com

From the documentation:

RetroArch Cloud Sync is available in recent RetroArch Nighties and enables a seamless synchronization of the most important system configuration and save data to a dedicated private webdav server, from where these data can be synchronized across Apple devices. The current functionality is limited to Apple devices (MacOS, iOS, tvOS) because it was developed here. It can be deployed to other RetroArch operating systems, if a developer is interested in this work.

This is pretty rad. I just set it up on my iPhone and plan to do so on our Apple TVs later today. It’ll be nice to have all of my saves synced between devices so I can pick up and play from where I left off regardless of the device I’m using.

➝ Source: docs.libretro.com

It has become an annual tradition to share my device home screens around the new year. This serves as a snapshot of what I’m using, which I can use to see the evolution over time.

I’ve add my Nintendo 2DS to the list, which I recently acquired. I’m still playing games on my iPhone using the Backbone One, but i purchased a 2DS to play Nintendo DS and 3DS titles. Emulation for these systems isn’t great on the iPhone. The dual screen of the systems doesn’t make for a great emulation experience and existing iPhones just aren’t powerful enough for smooth 3DS emulation.

iPhone 15 Pro

iPad Pro, 11-inch

Framework 13, running Ubuntu 24.04

Nintendo 2DS

I have dozens of 3DS games installed, but most recently I’ve been playing Super Mario 3D Land, Mega Man X2 in Snes9x, and Plants vs. Zombies through TWiLight Menu++.

Apple TV 4K

I’ve enabled Display Zoom for larger icons on the Home Screen. This can be done in Settings > General > Appearance by setting Display Zoom to “Large”. I’m glad they introduced this as an option because I never liked the move to smaller icons that came with tvOS 17.

Apple Watch Series 5

Last year I published my home screens at the beginning of January and declared that it will be an annual tradition. Following up that this year with my home screens below.

It’s worth noting that I had a dedicated gaming handheld last year, but that is no longer the case. Instead I’m using my iPhone as my gaming handheld, paired with the Backbone one to play games in Steam Link, PPSSPP, and RetroArch.

iPhone 15 Pro

iPad Pro, 11-inch

13-inch MacBook Air with M2

This is actually a screenshot of a virtual machine running Ubuntu 22.04. The MacBook is primarily a work machine and I had previously setup a separate user account on it for personal stuff. This year I decided to move that to a virtual machine instead, which makes it easier to switch back and forth for quick breaks throughout my work day.

Apple TV 4K

Apple Watch Series 5

Juli clover, writing for MacRumors:

In the iTunes Store app on the iPhone and iPad, and the separate iTunes TV Shows and iTunes Movies apps on the ‌Apple TV‌, there were options to add TV shows and movies to a dedicated wishlist when browsing, which consumers used to save the content for later and watch for sales.

The wishlists did not transfer over to the ‌Apple TV‌ app with these updates, so some customers who had compiled long watch lists are unable to access those curated lists or copy them over to a new location. Some users are able to open up the iTunes Store app on iOS devices and tap on the hamburger button in the upper right corner to see their wishlists, but this does not appear to be working for everyone. Those who compiled lists on the ‌Apple TV‌ appear to have no way to access them.

I’ve also noticed that there is no option to view a preview of TV show episodes in the TV app either, which was available in the dedicated iTunes TV Shows app.

A warning on this would have been nice, but I hate that they’re doing it regardless. If I want to browse TV shows or movies to purchase on my Apple TV, all the iTunes Store content is commingled with media that’s only available on streaming. Even if you stick to the “Store” section, you’ll see plenty of movies and shows that require Apple TV+ or another streaming app and subscription to view.

➝ Source: macrumors.com

Benjamin Mayo, writing for 9 to 5 Mac:

As first reported in October, Apple will discontinue the standalone iTunes Movies and iTunes TV Shows apps on the Apple TV box, starting with tvOS 17.2 The warning message seen above has started appearing in the release candidate version of tvOS 17.2 beta, released yesterday.

Apple directs users to the TV app instead to manage their purchases, and buy and rent from the store. At least as far as Apple’s video content is concerned, the iTunes brand is on the way out.

I strip the DRM from every movie and TV show I purchase through iTunes. This lets me watch it in my preferred player — Plex. And I never have to worry about losing access because of some irritating rights issues.

But because of this, it’s not often that I use the TV Shows, Movies, or Apple TV apps. On the rare occasion when I want to watch purchased content before I have a chance to process it, though, I always use the TV Shows and Movies apps. It’s just a much nicer experience without having to trudge through all of the Apple TV+ promotion.

➝ Source: 9to5mac.com