New IOS 10.2 TV app breaks Home Sharing for Home Videos

Hi,

Executive Summary:

The news IOS 10.2 TV.APP which replaces Videos App can’t access the iTunes Home Videos library on iPhones 5S, iPhone 6S plus, and iPad retina. It’s either excruciatingly slow on my iPad and iphone (almost 2 minutes for the Home Videos window to show up; or it doesn’t work at all in other cases. Read on for details. Please let me know if you have this problem too.

Detailed report:

I have over 2700 videos that are a combination of Lectures, Projects, Entertainment and home videos. These are shared via “Home Sharing” using iTunes (ver. 12.5.4.42) directly from my macbook pro. All files are sanctioned MP4 videos that worked perfectly 48 hours ago that we accumulated over the years. This is how I’ve used my MacBook for years and it’s always worked perfectly until before the 10.2 upgrade. I used to watch them either on my Apple TV via the “Computers” Icon, or on my ipad/iphone via the Videos app. As I said it all worked perfectly until yesterday before TV.app and IOS 10.2.

After I upgraded to IOS 10.2. It removed the Videos App on my iPhone and iPad and replaced it with TV.app. TV.app is great on my Apple TV 64, but aweful on my iPad and iPhones. My 2700+ home videos, lectures, and video projects just became unusable as of yesterday unless I’m sitting in front of my Apple TV in the living room. I can still access them on my Apple TV via the computers icon; Thank you for not removing that functionality, but my iphones and iPads became a lot less useful since yesterday.

The devices I’m having problems with are all my current devices:

-iPad Retina 4th Gen. Model MD513LL/A. IOS 10.2

-iPhone 5S. Model NE297LL/A. IOS 10.2

-iPhone 6S plus unlocked 64 gig model.

-Everything is done locally via WIFI on my intranet.

-Router didn’t change from yesterday. It’s still my apple airport extreme.

First the iPhone 6S plus:

It Doesn't work at all. My mother used to be able to access the Home Videos by entering my Apple ID that we use for home sharing. It’s different from her apple id. Entering my Apple ID into her Home Sharing setup of TV.APP in settings does absolutely nothing. None of the home videos are available at all. She sees nothing. No shared library. No Home videos tab. Nothing.

iPad retina:

It’s already setup with my Apple ID. Clicking on TV.APP opens TV.APP. Clicking on the “Library” menu on the top left hand side opens a menu after a couple of seconds:

I get:

-Recently Added

-TV Shows

-UserName’s Library

I Choose UserName’s Library and A FULL 30 Seconds Later and then all I get is:

-Recently added

-Tv Shows

-Home Videos

-Someone’s iPad

I choose Home Videos and a FULL 83 seconds (That’s one minute and 23 seconds later):

- At the top I get a grey tab that says “Showing only content on UserName’s Library”

I get a window with the home videos.

Everything lags and is slow. If I click on an item there is a noticeable lag. Sometimes I have to tap on an item several times. When the Lecture video starts playing it’s laggy and jittery at times. It wasn't like this yesterday before the update. Everything was smooth.

So lets recap. It now takes 113 seconds or about 2 minutes to look at a list of my home vidoes. It's the case every time I tested several times to see if it will improve with caching. This process took less than 10 seconds yesterday before the update. So now it’s low 1000% slower, less efficient, less optimized. Did apple do any functional tests at all? Any limits testing? Black box testing? How big was the shared library if you tested at all? Anyone who’s had apple products for a long period of time would have more than a few token videos, right? How could this be allowed to pass QA? Who was in charge?

Iphone 5S:

It’s already setup with my Apple ID. Clicking on TV.APP opens a window with two choices:

-TV Shows

-UserName’s Library

I immediately choose UserName’s Library and 28 seconds later I get:

- At the top I get a grey tab that says “Showing only content on UserName’s Library”

-TV Shows:

-Home Videos:

I immediately click on Home Videos and 33 seconds later I get a list of Home Videos.

-Clicking on an item is more responsive than the iPad retina; but, slow than on the legacy Videos app.

So lets recap. It now takes 62 seconds to do something that used to take about 5 to 6 seconds. Again, this is about a 1000% slower. I am not sure what’s going on. This is a huge let down. Please fix this. As an interim fix maybe re-release the “Videos” app that you removed? Videos was not perfect. For example it had no search function for home videos (By the way neither does the new app) but I didn’t have to wait up to two minutes to start looking for a video! How could this pass QA?

Please fix this. I get the new TV.APP. I used it yesterday. It’s nice on my apple tv; but, I really need the functionality of being able to see my Home Videos on my iPad and iphones. It’s not just for entertainment. I also use it for my classes. I need this to work. A1000% worse performance is not something that I can reasonably overlook. I’m aghast that this was clearly not tested but it was pushed via a live update with no warning. Someone clearly doesn't understand the concept of QA and functional testing.

Happy Holidays.

BB