I think everyone bringing up that Apple TV doesn't do anything other than point out that a competitor does it. The internal infrastructures for the two systems are different, and probably, as with the iPhone, Apple has more control over theirs by being more restrictive in what their partners can do; the two systems of course have different application programming interfaces (APIs) and without doing a deep dive, technologically, I'm betting that Roku channel developers have more freedom than Apple's - which means that right now that the ways of keeping track of what you watched on any particular channel on Roku may be different, making such a tracking application way more difficult. Maybe this discussion would be more productive if we focused on exactly what we want such an application to do, which would then inform what needs to be in the RokuOS to enable such a thing, and in turn inform all of the channel developers of the way to do it.
I thought it was made clear what we need the app to do but perhaps I can elaborate.
We watch streaming series on services such as Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+, and keep going. Perhaps we watch 3 or 4 series on each service. Further there are series we plan to watch in the future.
Each service tracks where you are at in a series you watch on a service. So IF you recall each and every series you are in the middle of watching, and you know what service a series is on, and IF you recall correctly and you find the series in last watched, you can pickup where you left off. Unless you choose it from an ad banner and then it may not know you are in the middle of watching...
But what if you aren't sure what series you want to watch tonight? You have to pop in and out of each service to see what you want to watch. And then figure out if a new episode is out
Movies...there are movies you have watched or WANT to watch in future. Movies bounce in and out of services. Rokus search helps a bit but still no central place to choose from.
There are people keeping spreadsheets to track what service their series or movies are on!
And how about looking at what someone watches across ALL services to figure out a viewers interest and suggest series or movies to warch.
I hope that helps. If you pull up TVtime app on Android that is what would work. Track what you have watched, what series you are in the middle of watching. Then use your interests ACROSS services to suggest what to watch. Not just the series or movies you might watch on that one series.
The roku favorites or whatever that is called just is supposed to tell you when next episode of something is out and it does not work well.
Hope that helps.
BJB
From a technical standpoint, what you are asking for is:
1) Every series you decide to watch gets reported back to some Roku central server with service name and series name
2) Every episode is reported with Service name, series name, and episode number
3) When you mark something as 'interested in watching this'
A) if it is a series, it is put on a list with service name and series name
B) if it is a movie, put it on a list by the name of the movie
4) All of that information is stored in your Roku account
5) Some Roku-supplied app provides you with an overview of all that, including (to borrow from way Hulu does it) letting you know if you are 'All Caught Up' or what episode you watched last (or need to watch next)
6) Some recommendation algorithm examines that data from time to time and creates a recommendation list under that account
Does that sum it up?
Tim_Hare ,
Yes, that about does it. Fully understanding the complications of various apps sharing that data with Roku. But it would be a differentiator for them.
Basically TV Time running on Roku and automatically updated.
BJBBJB
Does the 'My Feed' thing help at all?
https://support.roku.com/article/208756898#!
