[HN Gopher] Roku releases IDK to allow consumers to develop appl...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Roku releases IDK to allow consumers to develop applications for
       their Roku
        
       Author : kaladin-jasnah
       Score  : 176 points
       Date   : 2021-10-30 02:28 UTC (20 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (blog.roku.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (blog.roku.com)
        
       | donohoe wrote:
       | I'm skeptical this will amount to much.
       | 
       | Their current developer platform is just awful to work with. I
       | don't have faith this will be adopted.
        
       | mickjagger wrote:
       | Who would want to do this? Is it aimed at people who own rokus?
       | 
       | I'm finding it hard to understand why I'd write something for
       | this instead of well anything else really.
        
       | darepublic wrote:
       | Curious about making an app that plays shows on a schedule just
       | the way old tv worked. And my kids can watch their shows but not
       | on demand
        
       | 8eye wrote:
       | roku, go all in on it, show them your teeth. but seriously, when
       | the brand came out, it actually become a huge part of my family
       | right away, everyone was talking about it. this was like the
       | first year, fond memories
        
       | kingosticks wrote:
       | Do these community supported SDK/APIs ever work? In my experience
       | (Strava and Spotify APIs) it's an excuse for the company to
       | release a load of half-baked crap and then wash their hands of
       | supporting it. Allowing them to tick the box that they offer a
       | public API and make themselves look better. Despite members of
       | the public donating their time to help each other, without
       | participation from the company itself it's all trial and error
       | development with everyone running into the same bugs that never
       | get fixed.
       | 
       | It's great that some companies have finally recognised the value
       | in providing public SDK/APIs but they should be investing in
       | supporting them also.
        
       | schoolornot wrote:
       | Roku will ban you from installing custom apps if your device has
       | ever installed an app that's been removed for TOS violations. My
       | account was permanently blocked from side loading because I had
       | downloaded & tried a M3U player.
       | 
       | The demise of this company is long overdue.
        
         | freedomben wrote:
         | Thanks for sharing. I'm not a regular Roku user but I do have
         | one and I was thinking about hacking on it. Knowing that Roku
         | can ban you from installing custom apps on the device I
         | purchased is enough to make me spend my time elsewhere.
         | 
         | I'm really glad that companies like pine64, frame.work, and
         | purism, etc are starting to emerge. The Roku, Apple, John Deere
         | etc user-hostile approach of "you don't own it, we do. You're
         | renting it from us and we will tell you what is permitted"
         | needs to be defeated.
        
         | lvass wrote:
         | Which makes "your device" a misnomer here. Roku clearly still
         | owns it.
        
           | pixelatedindex wrote:
           | Generally if you pay for a device then it really should be
           | "your device". Nobody goes around saying the owner of an
           | iPhone is Apple (colloquially).
        
             | freedomben wrote:
             | That may be a reflection of your circle. I say that all the
             | time, and many of the people I talk to about it agree
             | completely :-)
        
       | paulv wrote:
       | > IDK applications cannot be run on Roku TVs, Roku streambars, or
       | updatable/legacy streaming player models.
       | 
       | This is unfortunate. I was only interested in the IDK because
       | roku is built in to my tv.
        
         | throwanem wrote:
         | At least some of them do appear to support sideloading, for
         | example my TCL 43" from 2019. I haven't tried loading anything
         | yet, but following the "Enable Developer Mode" process
         | described in the Roku docs [1] does yield the option to enable
         | the dev server, and I don't know that there's any reason to
         | suspect IDK apps won't run if loaded. (Might need to update the
         | OS, though; I haven't done that in a while.)
         | 
         | [1] https://blog.roku.com/developer/developer-setup-guide
        
           | ghostly_s wrote:
           | What is the model # of your TV? I tried searching several of
           | the TV model #s listed in their matrix and nothing came up.
        
         | ghostly_s wrote:
         | The IDK docs list several supported Roku TB models (not mine,
         | though)...
        
           | throwanem wrote:
           | All apparently first-party by the product names, though,
           | which mine isn't.
           | 
           | I'm going to try building and sideloading one of the IDK
           | sample apps today. If it works, I'll update with details
           | including the TV make, model, and OS version; if not,
           | I'll...just update with that, I guess.
        
             | throwanem wrote:
             | 0 for 2. The first-party stick with OS 10.5 gives an "IDK
             | applications are not supported on this device" dialog; the
             | TCL TV, with OS 10.0 and no update available, just black-
             | screens and stays that way till I hit Home.
             | 
             | I'm not really sure what the point is here, if I'm honest.
             | Why even bother releasing an SDK with such limited device
             | support, especially pitched at hobbyists who can be assumed
             | to have (and want to support) the widest device range of
             | any developer segment? It's not as if I'm going to buy new
             | hardware just to look at my calendars and other day-
             | planning info over coffee on my kitchen TV rather than my
             | phone...
        
       | IIAOPSW wrote:
       | With all the complaints I'm seeing here about lack of
       | documentation, calling it an "IDK" feels like some sort of meta
       | joke.
        
         | jagged-chisel wrote:
         | tbf, 'D' is 'developer', not 'documentation'
        
       | smoldesu wrote:
       | I'm guessing this is in response to the fact that Google won't
       | maintain an official YouTube app for them anymore? It's a shame
       | that companies are only interested in releasing SDKs when they
       | can eke out a petty win (not to mention their hardware is
       | basically irrelevant by now) but it's nice to have nonetheless, I
       | suppose.
        
         | twobitshifter wrote:
         | Someone else mentioned it but under the surface there are
         | killing the ability to add private channels via codes. Those
         | channels were not in the Roku store and could have allowed
         | Google to work around the ban.
         | 
         | https://www.azukisystems.com/blog/roku-private-channels/
         | 
         | In this post there is a unofficial twitch app and an unofficial
         | iTunes podcast app. That type of thing would not be allowed in
         | the Roku channel Store.
        
         | akira2501 wrote:
         | It's not a surprise that companies won't compete unless they
         | are forced to. I'm glad they choose to make a more open
         | platform their competitive strategy.
        
           | ladyanita22 wrote:
           | I'd say Android TV is far more open than Roku.
        
         | kaladin-jasnah wrote:
         | I feel like it'd be compelling to some enthusiasts because of
         | the low barrier (well, minus learning the IDK) to developing
         | something they'd like for a Roku.
         | 
         | Although if you're going to... develop something for a Roku, I
         | feel like a Raspberry Pi might be easier.
        
           | nirav72 wrote:
           | But Roku already has some things already built in. Including
           | a very functional remote. Sure all of that can be created on
           | a raspberry pi - but is it really worth the effort? Plus cost
           | wise, Roku would be cheaper than a raspberry pi by the time
           | you add up the cost of all the individual components.
        
             | lazyasciiart wrote:
             | Plus, a lot of people already own a Roku and not a
             | Raspberry Pi.
        
               | ghostly_s wrote:
               | +it's quite nice not to have to fiddle with your TV
               | inputs.
        
               | hhh wrote:
               | CEC can help you here :)
        
             | somehnguy wrote:
             | Yeah, I've gone the raspberry pi route for a tv connected
             | home media center, I'm much happier with a bunch of Rokus &
             | a remote Plex server. It's 100x more polished than even the
             | best open source projects, and it is no effort on my part
             | to keep them up to date and functional. Just one less thing
             | to think about, making room for other fun projects.
             | 
             | I'm excited about this being released.
        
       | webkike wrote:
       | I hate Roku. I bought a Roku tv and it started putting
       | advertisements on the Home Screen.
        
         | pixelatedindex wrote:
         | When I had bought my Samsung TV in 2017, I too got
         | advertisements in the home bar. I got livid and disconnected it
         | from the internet, and connected my Chromecast and Apple TV to
         | it. Never looked back since.
        
       | runjake wrote:
       | The Roku interface is great and I would much prefer it over the
       | likes of Apple TV.
       | 
       | However, Roku collects your viewing data (including by taking
       | screenshots) and anything else it can about you (eg. the TCL Roku
       | TVs have mics) and sell it to its valued partners.
       | 
       | This is all in the EULA.
        
         | enragedcacti wrote:
         | From [1]:
         | 
         | > On Roku-powered smart TVs, you can turn off ACR by going to
         | Settings > scroll down and select Privacy > Smart TV
         | Experience.
         | 
         | > Next, uncheck "Use Information for TV Inputs" to disable ACR.
         | Although this will stop your Roku TV from identifying your
         | content on the pixel level, Roku can still collect data about
         | the Roku TV streaming channels you've installed and use.
         | 
         | > To prevent personalized ads on your Roku profile, go to
         | Settings > Privacy > Advertising, then check "Limit ad
         | tracking." Note: This setting is also available on Roku
         | streaming gadgets.
         | 
         | ---
         | 
         | > (eg. the TCL Roku TVs have mics)
         | 
         | Is there any evidence that they transmit anything from the
         | mics?
         | 
         | [1] https://www.komando.com/tech-tips/stop-smart-tv-
         | tracking/544...
        
       | LocalH wrote:
       | Something I haven't really seen discussed anywhere since I first
       | saw this earlier:
       | 
       | >Sunsetting non-certified channels
       | 
       | >With the release of the IDK and beta channels, Roku will remove
       | non-certified channels from the platform by March 2022. The Roku
       | IDK and beta channel feature will facilitate broader innovation,
       | improve beta testing, and offer a better development experience
       | and a more standardized development process across streaming
       | platforms.
       | 
       | So basically, channels via code seems like it's going away. I
       | hope they have a suitable replacement in mind with the IDK
        
         | krackers wrote:
         | Wait does this mean unlisted/private channels are going away?
         | That effectively kills sideloading
        
           | kaladin-jasnah wrote:
           | https://developer.roku.com/docs/developer-program/idk/idk-
           | ge...
           | 
           | > IDK applications are for personal use only; they can only
           | be run after being sideloaded on an IDK-supported Roku
           | streaming player running Roku OS 10.5 (or later).
           | 
           | So IIUC the IDK explicitly allows consumers to sideload apps.
        
             | ghostly_s wrote:
             | But it seems to be an all-new API, so existing sideloadable
             | apps are not trivially migratable?
        
               | netr0ute wrote:
               | If you can convert BrightScript to C++, then that's half
               | the battle already.
        
       | ZoomerCretin wrote:
       | It's amazing to me that Roku has the plurality of the US
       | streaming market (37%), yet its development ecosystem is so
       | terrible. For those who don't know:
       | 
       | 1. The only public development API requires the use of their
       | proprietary language BrightScript which is poorly documented, and
       | for which no official compiler, interpreter, or runtime
       | environment is available. Enthusiasts had to create an
       | interpreter for it (https://github.com/sjbarag/brs) to speed up
       | development time. Previously you had to push your app to a Roku
       | to run it before you could learn of any syntax errors.
       | 
       | 2. They do have a C/C++ API, but they limit access to big orgs
       | and require an NDA to use it.
       | 
       | There are plenty of cool projects, like a Prince of Persia port
       | (https://github.com/lvcabral/Prince-of-Persia-Roku).
       | 
       | That they are finally shoring up their poor developer ecosystem
       | with C/C++ and JavaScript APIs is great, but it's unfortunate
       | that they aren't allowing these apps to be distributed through
       | their official store.
        
         | sjbarag wrote:
         | > Enthusiasts had to create an interpreter for it
         | (https://github.com/sjbarag/brs) to speed up development time.
         | 
         | Author of that interpreter here - didn't expect to wake up to
         | that repo appearing in a top HN comment! That started as a side
         | project and was maintained with a few coworkers during spare
         | work hours (thanks, Hulu!) for the past 3 years, along with a
         | unit testing framework that runs in it
         | (https://github.com/hulu/roca).
         | 
         | I'm happy to answer any "developing for Roku" questions that
         | come up :)
        
         | ForHackernews wrote:
         | That's disappointing for sure, but it's worth remembering how
         | TINY Roku is compared to its competitors:
         | 
         | Amazon: about 1,300,000 employees
         | 
         | Google: about 135,000 employees
         | 
         | Roku: about 2,000 employees
         | 
         | Maybe they just don't have the resources to support a rich
         | third-party dev ecosystem
        
           | IshKebab wrote:
           | 2000 employees is pretty huge for a company that just makes a
           | streaming box isn't it? Amazon and Google do way way more
           | things.
        
           | DannyBee wrote:
           | Roku has a market cap of >40billion, and >1.7billion in
           | revenue. They have the resources to do whatever they want.
           | 
           | These are also not reasonable comparisons since the vast
           | majority of the numbers in the other two companies are not on
           | the software/hardware development side.
           | 
           | I would actually guess if you compared "the size of the team
           | working on Google TV/Amazon Fire TV/etc", Roku is probably
           | bigger (or the sizes were very close).
           | 
           | I would be shocked if it was "tiny" in comparison.
        
           | Moosdijk wrote:
           | How many of those amazon/Google employees are working on
           | their respective roku alternatives? Your numbers don't really
           | mean anything. For instance, Google could just as well only
           | allocate 10 people to the chrome cast project, turning your
           | statement around.
        
             | ForHackernews wrote:
             | The point is that Roku are tiny underdogs competing against
             | giants. If Google has only 10 people working on Chromecast,
             | that's a choice they've made, not a resource constraint.
        
               | DannyBee wrote:
               | No they aren't, though they like to try to make people
               | feel this way.
               | 
               | Again, I'm not sure how you can consider a company with a
               | market cap of over 40 billion, and making 1.7 billion in
               | revenue, some sort of "underdog competing against
               | giants".
               | 
               | In their space, it's more like giants bumping each other
               | around.
        
               | netr0ute wrote:
               | > a company with a market cap of over 40 billion, and
               | making 1.7 billion in revenue
               | 
               | That's basically the definition of an underdog if you
               | have a fraction of the number of resources (employees).
        
               | d3nj4l wrote:
               | It doesn't matter if it's a choice they've made if they
               | still beat Roku's dev ecosystem hands down. If Google can
               | make a stellar dev experience out of Chromecast/Android
               | TV with 10 engineers but Roku can't with 100 then it's
               | entirely on Roku. The result matters more than whatever
               | happens behind the scenes.
        
           | arcturus17 wrote:
           | Which perhaps reinforces the idea that they should have
           | leaned on open-source instead of proprietary tech?
        
             | dubcanada wrote:
             | Roku was a sign company, they made digital sign software.
             | They just converted their existing setup to TV video
             | streaming.
             | 
             | Why redo everything?
        
             | capableweb wrote:
             | If anything, their track record seems to reinforce the
             | opposite idea. Their company is tiny but has a 37% market
             | share according to previous comment, all while having a
             | shitty and closed down developer ecosystem.
             | 
             | I'm generally pro-open source, so this is not coming from a
             | place of shooting down open source, I'm just reading the
             | context in this thread.
        
               | thefreeman wrote:
               | It's just because they had a massive head start and
               | targeted an older generation. Also if that 37% includes
               | smart tv's with "roku" built in that is artificially
               | inflating the number.
        
               | anyfactor wrote:
               | To me Roku seems like they are trying to modernize the TV
               | cable industry rather than revolutionize it. They are
               | following a different business model than most modern
               | tech companies.
        
               | xattt wrote:
               | Wikipedia has a history of carriage disputes between the
               | company and other companies. Sure, the recent Google spat
               | could have been a one-off thing, but they seem to have an
               | issue with a lot of folks.
               | 
               | My personal experience is that when one individual has a
               | bunch of problems with a number of others, it is probably
               | the one individual that's the problem.
        
               | spinax wrote:
               | I find your presentation of this argument disingenuous
               | and in bad faith.
               | 
               | > they seem to have an issue with a lot of folks
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roku#Carriage_disputes
               | 
               | 4. They have 4 listed disputes in Wikipedia:
               | NBC/Universal, HBO, Spectrum, and Google; the first three
               | were resolved (the first one the same day as the
               | grievance).
               | 
               | https://channelstore.roku.com
               | 
               | There are hundreds (if not hundreds upon hundreds) of
               | services provided over the Roku hardware/service
               | including it's direct competitors (Amazon Prime TV / Fire
               | stick), more than I can sit here and count without
               | wasting my life.
               | 
               | You would have readers believe that Roku is out there
               | pissing everyone off, being the bad kid on the block,
               | making demands and being a troublemaker. They have had 4
               | disputes. 4. Out of hundreds of partners. 4.
        
               | mwexler wrote:
               | You don't mention the current disputes with YouTube and
               | Amazon. If we look at top streaming players Roku has had
               | a dispute with, they've almost collected the whole set!
               | 
               | And do consumers benefit from access to 300 "screen
               | savers" but no HBO Max or other service they've paid for
               | but cannot access on Roku? (Note: the HBO dispute was
               | resolved and is now fully supported on Roku, but during
               | its launch, was not available on Roku) Roku wants us to
               | think so, but my family simply says "Let's just get a
               | Google or Fire stick".
               | 
               | The partner count is specious. The real question is
               | whether Roku provides access to the partners each person
               | wants. Removing, or threatening to remove, top players
               | for whatever intention does not engender trust.
               | 
               | Every TV in my house had a Roku a year ago. Post covid,
               | we now have just one. All those tiny partners and apps on
               | the Roku catalog couldn't offset the fact that what the
               | family wanted to see either wasn't on Roku, or was on
               | some corporate gamesmanship countdown.
               | 
               | And it's so disappointing. They were the player without a
               | bias, providing open access to the TV screen to any tiny
               | niche media player. But they changed. Can't blame them,
               | but it feels like this short term money grab of making
               | media and forcing higher fees for access is the first
               | step on the path to being the next Tivo or WebTV.
        
           | resonious wrote:
           | Not enough resources to support third party dev, but plenty
           | enough to invest in their own programming language seems like
           | odd priorities to me.
           | 
           | But it does seem like they are fairly successful regardless.
        
         | josteink wrote:
         | > It's amazing to me that Roku has the plurality of the US
         | streaming market (37%), yet its development ecosystem is so
         | terrible.
         | 
         | Step 1: be a cheap (the cheapest?) option in the early phase of
         | a market. This way you build up a sizeable customer-base using
         | a market-segment with low/no expectations.
         | 
         | Step 2: app-developers will be forced to support your platform,
         | despite low-quality platform, ecosystem or SDK if they want to
         | be "everywhere".
         | 
         | Step 3: With better/more popular apps supporting your platform
         | you can start making more expensive devices or even sell/rent
         | your platform to other players needing a checkbox to check
         | before they can launch (ie smart-TVs).
         | 
         | Roku is really crap to use, but by playing by this book they've
         | seemingly done well (as a business) so far.
        
           | spinax wrote:
           | > Roku is really crap to use
           | 
           | I disagree, I find the Roku experience to be quite easy to
           | use and it does what I want with no surprises in the UX.
        
             | derefr wrote:
             | "Easy" and "enjoyable" are different things. The Roku UI is
             | extremely slow/jittery (even on the fastest models) and the
             | layout of their software keyboard, in combination with the
             | design of their remote (and/or smart TV remotes), makes
             | entering text take an eternity as well. (And their voice
             | support isn't good enough to rely on in place of it.)
             | 
             | When a Roku is just sitting there doing its thing, it's
             | fine; but when you have to get it to do something else,
             | it's like a line at the DMV.
        
               | aksss wrote:
               | I think the software keyboard is a per app design, which
               | is either a ding or a bonus (dev flexibility).
               | Regardless, if you have to spend time typing/searching,
               | using remote on phone is best, where you can use the
               | phone's keyboard.
        
             | jinto36 wrote:
             | I think they might have meant "crap to develop for"?
        
           | mattmcknight wrote:
           | I think the Roku Ultra is a great product, can't speak to the
           | other levels, but it works really well in comparison to
           | google's parade of stuff, amazon fire stick, apple tv, and
           | smart tv apps on Samsung, LG, and Sony TVs. Also the remote
           | finder is quite handy.
           | 
           | For me, the best aspect of it was their openness. All of the
           | other competing products had their own streaming services,
           | which meant problems with the other providers- why they spun
           | this off from Netflix in the first place. This means the
           | search will go across the different services to answer the
           | pressing question of the day- which service is this content
           | on and at what price? I was considering starting a company to
           | offer this service until Roku met my need there.
           | 
           | Now though, the battle with Google over YouTube has me
           | suspicious of this status. The temptation to chase recurring
           | revenue streams is quite high.
        
           | LightG wrote:
           | I have Roku spread across our entire renovated house
           | including an outbuilding. Rock solid. 4 devices. Teamed up
           | with Plex, and has been a fantastic experience so far (1 year
           | and counting).
           | 
           | Simple. Solid. Works.
           | 
           | Nothing but praise from my side.
           | 
           | Literally, thank Gawd, as native TV smart apps are an
           | absolute waste of time (they might as well retire them all
           | now) and I don't want to get sucked into the other
           | ecosystems.
        
           | tssva wrote:
           | "Roku is really crap to use"
           | 
           | I have used Google TV, Fire TV, Apple TV and Roku. I have
           | used Roku both as a separate device and built into a TV. Out
           | of them all I prefer to use the Roku. I even sold an Apple TV
           | which was given to me and used part of the sale to replace it
           | with a Roku Premiere+ which I found to be a much better
           | experience.
        
             | lighthazard wrote:
             | Apple TV's touch remote is a travesty. Their UI is equally
             | annoying when you realize they advertise the Apple stuff
             | first, and you have to click Home again to get to your main
             | apps. Compare any of them to Roku, and Roku is a barebones,
             | works as expected, channel choosing device.
        
               | afavour wrote:
               | > touch remote is a travesty
               | 
               | > you have to click Home again to get to your main apps
               | 
               | Both of these are changeable via settings (if you're
               | talking about the current generation remote, if the old
               | one an Apple TV can be trained to use any other remote).
               | I have a bunch of Roku devices and an Apple TV and
               | typically prefer the Apple TV: the apps are of higher
               | quality, Airplay is a great added feature and most
               | importantly: no ads. Roku used to have barely any but
               | they're adding more and more and it's getting obnoxious.
        
               | tssva wrote:
               | My experience with Apple TV was that Apple advertised
               | their own apps regularly. Also most Roku devices released
               | in the last couple of years including Roku TVs support
               | Airplay.
        
               | afavour wrote:
               | Where did you see these ads? I see no ads at all on my
               | Apple TV so I'm curious.
        
               | CharlesW wrote:
               | I'm confused by this too, and prefer Apple TV _because_
               | it doesn 't display ads. In my experience Roku _does_
               | continue to display  "special" ads, even if you turn off
               | all user-controllable options.
               | 
               | I think parent commenters are referring to how the Apple
               | TV app -- which is great, but can be avoided by using the
               | Home screen -- aggregates all available content, and has
               | a dedicated Apple TV+ tab. In other words, the Apple TV
               | app is also the Apple TV+ app.
        
               | fishtacos wrote:
               | My experience reflects OP's as well. It's not "ads", but
               | things like searching using the SEARCH button inside a
               | non-Apple app returns results from the Apple store.
               | 
               | If one uses it in a search box inside the app, it works
               | in the local context. Imagine having to teach one's
               | elderly parents what the difference is when the remote
               | only has something like 5 buttons and one of them doesn't
               | work how it's supposed to in a consistent manner. Local
               | context vs. global context in searches is an absurd
               | concept in the purview of the average consumer. Hell - I
               | can't understand it half the time because it's so
               | counterintuitive.
               | 
               | That's shady behavior and prioritizes Apple's own
               | services over EVERY competitor.
               | 
               | Besides its terrible remote (the gen I have, at least),
               | the usability constraints are insulting.
               | 
               | Roku has other severe limitations, but they don't
               | outright manipulate their UI and their user experience in
               | such an underhanded manner.
        
               | Larrikin wrote:
               | Roku has had airplay for a while now.
               | 
               | Also there's no software configuration to change that
               | terrible touch remote into something usable. Rewinding to
               | catch a missed line is always "I hope it works" moment.
        
               | afavour wrote:
               | I won't defend that remote but the good news is that
               | Apple TV doesn't ship with it any more. It's back to a
               | much more normal one.
        
               | CharlesW wrote:
               | > _Apple TV 's touch remote is a travesty._
               | 
               | The old one was justifiably maligned, but the current one
               | is great.
        
             | only_as_i_fall wrote:
             | I've used an old roku express, a roku TV and a new 4k roku
             | (forget what the model was but it was made in 2020) and
             | they all have the same app problems
             | 
             | Disney plus crashes more often than not in any given
             | watching session.
             | 
             | Hbo Max tends to crash on the menu about 50% of the time.
             | 
             | Netflix crashes fairly often but not as bad as those other
             | two.
             | 
             | I think it's still the best single solution for streaming
             | but they really do need some quality control on their apps.
             | 
             | Having to wait for your TV to restart in the middle of a
             | movie is never great.
        
               | tssva wrote:
               | I have used a Roku Express, Roku Premiere+ and now have 2
               | 4k TCL Roku TVs. I have never had an app crash and use
               | Netflix, Disney+ and HBO Max regularly.
        
               | TranquilMarmot wrote:
               | On my 4K TCL TV, I've had quite a few issues with the
               | Roku Netflix and Hulu appa... occasionally in Netflix it
               | will just show garbled data whenever you try and play
               | something, or on Hulu it will just refuse to actually
               | start a show (I've noticed this happens mostly with only
               | very specific series...) Solution is usually to restart
               | the TV. Never had any issues while it's actually in the
               | middle of playing anything though.
        
               | Wistar wrote:
               | This has been my experience as well, at least with my
               | TCLs. Never had a crash despite using Netflix, Disney+
               | and YouTube.
        
               | aksss wrote:
               | My second Roku from many years ago (first angry birds
               | one) will crash occasionally using Netflix, will crash
               | hard and reboot itself. Probably a thermal issue. Pretty
               | anemic performance too. I think the software now just
               | stresses the old hardware to the max. But to their
               | credit, it was still receiving updates and worked.
               | Finally retired it and replaced with new version and
               | haven't had it crash yet.
        
             | milkytron wrote:
             | I've used them all as well. I've found the best to be a
             | rooted android TV box. idk if they still make them like
             | they used to, but the Nexus player was by far the best TV
             | box I've used after installing Kodi, adblock, and rooting.
             | 
             | I would love a dumb TV with one of these lil boxes again,
             | but finding dumb TVs is hard and they're usually expensive
             | and for commercial use from what I've found
        
             | bobajeff wrote:
             | I've experienced the use of about three different Roku TV's
             | and they have a tendency to crash regularly with Netflix.
             | I'm guessing Netflix is sucking up all the limited ram
             | available on these TV's As the App is unbearably sluggish
             | to use.
        
               | mikeryan wrote:
               | It is a bit ironic that Roku, which started life as a
               | "Netflix Box" and developed this limited development
               | ecosystem in order to perform on cheap hardware (they
               | always wanted to keep the price under $100) now crashes
               | using Netflix on underpowered devices. Note: as stated
               | above Netflix uses non-public C APIs to run their own
               | engine.
        
       | mwexler wrote:
       | So, roku started out as a democratic middleman offering access to
       | multiple streaming players. But it's devolved into another turf
       | war, where it now continually threatens it's purchasers with loss
       | of access, today Youtube, tommorrow Amazon Prime Video.
       | 
       | From such heights, it's really becoming very disappointing.
        
         | joekrill wrote:
         | Actually Roku started as a "Netflix Box" meant to stream
         | Netflix content, and funded by Netflix.
        
       | anomie31 wrote:
       | This is a nice throwback to the time Roku has a public SDK for
       | their HD1000
       | https://web.archive.org/web/20040605002125/http://www.rokula...
        
       | waynesoftware wrote:
       | I'm waiting for flutter support for roku apps
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2021-10-30 23:02 UTC)