Why doesn’t video scrubbing work on Disney+ and other select apps with the new new Apple TV 4K Siri Remote? Because certain video services, like Disney+ or HBO Max, use a custom player instead of Apple’s tvOS API.
Mike Peterson for AppleInsider:
The new Siri Remote has a feature that allows users to scrub through content by using the touch-sensitive control pad as a “scroll wheel.” However, some users recently noticed that the feature stopped working on HBO Max after the service ditched Apple’s tvOS API.
On Friday, Disney+, which also caught flak for not supporting the new Siri Remote capability, confirmed to The Verge that the scrubbing feature isn’t available at all on its own service. That’s because, like HBO Max, Disney+ uses its own custom video player.
Scroll wheel scrubbing is only available to apps that use Apple’s native media player, and it isn’t clear if such features will be made available to third-party player platforms.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple TV app developers should just use Apple’s tvOS APIs to deliver a uniform experience to users – especially for something so basic as video scrubbing. If it ain’t broke, don’t “fix” it. And, if these custom players are delivering some useful metrics to the developer that doesn’t infringe on user privacy, Apple should add those to their API(s) ASAP in order to get everyone on the same page.