samcrut
Channel Surfer
Joined 12 years ago
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Re: Howdy App?
If Howdy is so great, why are the force feeding it down people's throats? Roku didn't achieve their level of success by tricking customers and imposing their will on the people. They got there by building a great interface that's now being overgrown by weeds. If you build a great streaming app that people want to watch, people will find it. If you put out an app that has a middle of the road content that has no tent pole movies or series to draw the people in, then that fruit is going to die on the vine. A lot of us don't mind ads as long as they use broadcast audio mixing standards for levels. Make Howdy great and people will download it. Force it on me and I'll cut the TV's data connection so they get nothing and they can't force anything on me anymore. The Roku UI is good, but it's not worth all this new disrespect.31Views0likes1CommentRe: "Top Picks for Me" over the channel guide needs to go!
I think the worst offense is that when you pull up the TV guide/channel list, the cursor is ON AN AD! If you pull up the TV guide and just press OK, you're heading into a purchasing situation. It's Roku's default option when you view the programming list. That is unacceptable. Imagine if every web page you went to moved your pointing onto the banner ad every time you pulled up a web page. That's straight up evil.20Views0likes0Comments"Top Picks for Me" over the channel guide needs to go!
I know you can't turn it off and Roku is trying to make money from advertising subscriptions, but I'm getting really sick of the quantity of ads creeping up. Forcing me to watch an ad banner on a TV that I paid for just to view the channel guide is more than I'm willing to put up with. The side bar on the home page is fine. That doesn't interfere with the normal operation like that heinous banner over the guide does. If I'm on 5 and want to see what's on 4, I should be able to pulll the menu up and hit up to go to 4. Now hitting up does nothing. I keep hitting up and nothing happens, thinking the remote isn't working, until I remember I have to hit DOWN first to go up. It's terrible interface design and UI used to be what drew many of us to the platform. Now the garden has weeds. I will be phasing out my Roku products asap. The banner shows 3.3 shows and 2.3 of them are paid sponsors. That means I will absolutely not use that feature and every single time I see it it will continue to make me mad at the Roku brand on a daily basis until I replace the TV. Way to shoot yourself in the foot guys. You're off of the recommendation list. I don't begrudge a company making money, but the way you're doing it is disrespectful to your customers and your brand will suffer as a result.35Views0likes1CommentPlease don't kill Vol +/-/mute on remote in Headset Mode
I do enjoy using headset mode in the Roku app to listen privately late at night, but one simple feature would really make this better. Don't disengage the volume and mute buttons on the normal remote when engaged! Currently, when you go into headset mode, the remote's volume buttons and mute just display the headset icon on the screen and then do nothing. I can't imagine it would be too difficult for the remote to pick up the button signals on the TV and then relay them to the app where they press the corresponding vol +/-/mute buttons in the app. Sure, you can press the buttons in the app, but then I have to unlock the phone, flooding my face with light, and press virtual buttons. I'd much rather press buttons in the dark without looking like I do when not using headphones. Or at the least, make it a user choice to disable vol/mute. I can see value in turning them off if someone would mess with the volume while you're watching, blowing your ears out trying to figure out why they can't hear anything, but for my viewing, I would want the remote buttons on at all times.Solved210Views0likes1Comment