Xfinity Steam Beta App, just switched from Youtube TV and we are not thrilled with the move. Here's a random assortment of feedback:
The data is not well organized, often you are looking at title of a show that is cropped and it's not clear what the name of the show is.
When you click on a show to watch it, rather than beginning the stream, another window shows up with details, and then you click "watch" - this isn't a great workflow, it should assume you want to watch the show, and provide an alternative method to display additional information instead.
You can't browse the schedule with a show running in the background. This is annoying because sometimes you just want to check something but it requires completely killing the show you are currently watching.
It displays every possible channel, including mostly the same channels at different resolutions. This bloats out the results drastically, with a lot of the same but subtly different. Standard def or widescreen. It's often seen the same show in multiple places. This is not good. It's still not clear to me why I get 4:3 ratio ever particularly for a movie that is showing at 16:9 on another identical channel with the same exact time code.
The guide itself doesn't utilize Pictures and splash art so it's trying to show us entertainment with boring bank style text.
The highlighted channel doesn't change in size on focus, which is a good feature to add so you can clearly see what it is you are looking at.
The Time indicated on the app is not correct, making it confusing as to what you are actually searching for. On this note, it doesn't clearly show what the current time is, which further introduces confusion to the end user.
The back ground art for the main page appears to be some monotone sci fi landscape - it doesn't make anysense. Likewise on this page it doesn't visually pop while trying to display information about the entertainment business.
It doesn't curate popular shows that are currently on the air. For example if the super bowl was on, it wouldn't tell you about it. Actually the main page is extremely non-reactive, and seldom changes based on viewing habits or really ever shows anything useful.
The Music stations are largely unwanted, it would be better to treat those unique stations in a different list so they also do not contribute to the unnecessary bloated channel listings.
And finally, to get the real talk here, this is the entertainment business, We pay money to be entertained. Period. There's countless alternatives to this app that take this aspect significantly more seriously than what is demostrated in the current Xfinity Steam Beta App. To put this in perspective, while I am saving a considerable amount of money switching to Xfinity Stream Beta app, in fact I think it only costs $3 and change/month, it is still not worth it to me. It doesn't assist me in searching for shows, so it takes my time. I'd rather pay a premium for a service that delivers the goods understands my viewing habits, and intelligently curate the shows I like and the shows that are on air.
It's a big mystery to me, the content is here and it's the same - the experience however is not. Sorry I don't mean to be rude, I'm geniuely shocked at the poor quality of the craftsmanship on this app.
