Tv OS11 removed watched/unwatched video sorting

This is my most used feature and enough for me to change my mind about getting another Apple TV (was planning on buying 4K for my 4K TV). The new browsing is beautiful but useless compared to the simple list of TV shows, then seasons, then episodes... much less usable. The loss of unwatched listings is a deal breaker for me! I can't even figure out a way to mark an episode watched/unwatched on tvOS 11... used to just hold down on trackpad, but it's gone too. I was going to make a playlist as a workaround, but I can't find a way to make a smart playlist that uses the watched/unwatched status... can only filter based on number of plays being less than 1, which isn't the same thing with multiple users in the house. I wish I could go back to tvOS 10 and I'll be looking for a way to do just that because this is a TERRIBLE UPDATE!

I assume there are no new 'view' settings in the Settings sub-menus - not updated yet.

Another post mentions failure to update viewed/played counts - it could be they've removed this feature from latest tvOS if they're no longer listing watched/unwatched.

Send feedback:

Feedback - Apple TV - Apple

A couple questions if you don't mind:

1. Can you view by release date again? Date added doesn't mean it was last night's show.
2. Can you view by unwatched or is there some indicator? It kills me that if you look at "recently added" you have no indicator as to what you've already watched.
3. If you view a list have they fixed the display to present the show name and episode name? Currently it shows the episode and and below that the number? Meaningless to read an episode name like "Nuke kids on the block" yet have no idea that is from the show "Scorpion".

I'm not sure whether or not to update yet, but for me that might not be a bad thing as that annoying remote always seemed to interpret imperfect vertical scrolls through lists (i.e. slight diagonal swipe) in a manner that it kept switching categories and confusing me.

I noticed this today as well. Utterly annoying and was one of the main features I liked. With a large library it's too difficult to keep track of ones I haven't watched without it.

I hope Apple will bring it back

If you imagine that omissions like this one are unintentional, you don't understand capitalism.

The last thing in the world Apple wants to sell you is a device which is useful in managing a library of digital media that you *own*. This is why they removed, for instance, the genre/artist sort for music long ago. They want to sell (or preferably, rent) you movies, not help you manage a library of media that you own.

If you want to manage a library of your own media, there are options, Plex e.g. But don't waste any time hoping that an update will "fix" this.

This update is HORRIBLE on the "computer" homesharing side which i use a ton of with a huge library as well. Most of the "improvements" arent even noticeable but the things they changed drastically are worse and were not broken in the first place... My biggest disappointment is that this thread has been up for 4 days and APPLE has said nothing, not responded.... Hoping for a quick fix is not going to happen, ill be doing the downgrade through a laptop to TV OS10 i guess because homesharing in TV OS11 is horrible, not marking "watched vs unwatched" no play count update syncs etc, the sorting is horrible and why am i forced into thumbnail view, its cumbersome and slow, give us a choice.

I always avoid updates as I never know what get's broken until after they do it!

So are you saying that for Home Sharing we can no longer view alphabetical lists of TV Shows/Movies?

It took them ages to reimplement Seasons for TV Shows which was present on ATV 1 - there was a long period when every Season was listed separately which was very annoying as it meant something with many seasons (eg Dr Who) might have pages and pages to scroll past.

BTW - Apple rarely ever directly respond here - they are primarily user to user discussions.

I just filed feedback with Apple, but I can't imagine this was intentional. I mean, what manager didn't ask, I don't know, at least three other people on how they manage their media library? Why would someone approve a UI that makes it harder to find the content you want to see?

We have a huge library of movies and TV shows, purchased through iTunes and residing on a Mac mini that sits upstairs. The "Computer" app is now an unnavigable mess of old shows and movies, with no way of easily finding something to watch.

We're die-hard Apple fans (Macs, iPhones, iPads, AppleTV) and have been for decades. We've always been impressed with Apple's design and seamless integration, but this latest change makes AppleTV look like amateur hour...

Yes, this is a terrible omission. I used the feature all the time.

One workaround, that's OK for movies, is to create a Smart Playlist in iTunes. Have it select movies where "Players" equals zero.

The list will not be sorted in any logical manner but it gives a list of unwatched movies.

This doesn't work well for TV shows as the list returned is not grouped. All episodes from all shows are in one giant list.

How is this, the most basic use of an Apple TV, not at the very top of the QA test plan?

1. Sit down to watch TV

2. Pick from a list of unwatched TV shows

It's literally not possible without a bunch of extra submenu navigation on the world's most awkward remote control. And even then, they fluffed up the show list with icons and truncated the text labels. It's like they were offended by how easy, efficient, and readable tvOS used to be.

I wish I had seen the tvOS 11 update before buying any season passes. I'm actually tempted to go back to the old AppleTV model if I find that they left the UI alone.

Hey Jwblocal701,

I feel your pain, I've done a search online for really old post about creating playlists and I've actually stumbled upon one that actually worked for me. I found it here: https://www.macworld.com/article/1060827/dec07playlist.html

And I've referring to the: 6. Apple TV Strategy Section

Create a New Smart Playlist with these Rules:

Playlist Is Selected TV

Play Count Is 0

Then view the Playlist on your Apple TV, It works for me.

Making playlists works same as before but keep in mind that new playlist is pretty much useless because it has no indicator for episode/season number and it does not show whether the episode is watched/unwatched. You just get list of episode names.

Yup, I completely agree, It doesn't show all the relevant episode details like Episode# or Date. Its basically Episode Name and Show Name BUT at least this is still a way to filter out Episodes that haven't been watched. I also agree that its not a perfect solution but its a solution that solves half the problem.