HDHomeRun 4+

This review is for the Apple TV app the iOS App doesn’t have these issues.

I’m aware it’s just been released but they should have tested this in the real world first. It’s very buggy using the Live Guide sometimes crash’s the App, the time bar is incorrect during playback, FF and REW are terrible there is no timeline so you have no idea where you are in the program and it only skips it doesn’t fast forward. You can’t record anything only play what been recorded via another App. There are too many other issues to list.

I can see this has a lot of potential but it has a long way to go.

My HDHomeRun Connect is still going after what must be nearly a decade. In the early days, I think the choice was this app or pay for Channels.

Back then, I think the ‘Connect’ was the first product line, so I understood that a new company making a new application on a new platform (i/PadOS vs TV) needed to ship something functional before working on platform-specific integration and interface. I remember seeing release notes or similar declaring they had patented the user interface, which I took to be a developer with a sense of humour about how bad it was.

Revisiting this app today, I fear they have employed a clueless developer whose only Apple device is his mate’s Xcode simulator, with no clue what they’re like to use, no clue that Apple publishes idiot-proof user interface guidelines… and I’m left with no clue what device he’s testing this on such that the experience approaches intuition.

Channels is now free for mobile devices. Plex, EyeTV, Jellyfin etc. all provide applications that were made for the platform they run on for little or no cost, so I recommend users choose one of those (patently) superior options.

I’ve used this app for years, and always been disappointed by it, mainly because of its obscure, inconsistent and unreliable UI Finally I have had enough, and I have given up on it for good. Why? Because the authors have utterly failed to address its shortcomings, and because I have discovered the Channels app - which is everything that this app should have been, and more.

The HDHomeRun device is absolutely brilliant, but let down by its app. My advice? Don’t waste your time and energies on this sub-standard and under-supported mess, but rather, once you've received your HDHomeRun device, go straight to the Channels app and save yourself some grief!