HBO Max: Stream TV & Movies for PC and Mac

Software Reviews and Criticism

• By Goldentoast01

  Good content, bad User interface

  Sorry HBO I really love your shows, but here are the things I have issues with your App and your Xbox One version of the app (it seems like others are having a problem with this too, like Ps4) My List- this is always a great function in a streaming service. When it’s accessible... My List does not always appear in HBO Max. Additionally doesn’t not list all the things you’ve added to it when it does. This is frustrating for people who are trying to watch something they have added, only to have to search for it again. Big no no. Episode Selection- watching a show sometimes you miss something, wether you got busy around the house or fell asleep, I know I can find the episodes.. if I search for it again. But unlike other apps I can’t select another episode from the episode I’m in. For example. Netflix on the Xbox, or PlayStation. While watching an episode you can hit (X on Xbox) (square on PS) to view the episode list. Why do I need to search it again. All in all I respect the Swift Roll-Out for HBO Max, and switching the subscriptions from HBO to HBO Max. But the Max App for Console and Phone is MISSING vital features to a streaming service. I highly suggest fixing these issues because I don’t want to see your app use slow down or disappear all together. Even after a boost in advertisements, not having these functions could end the popularity of your service. Please consider these thoughts and I hope to look forward to these changes.

  
  
• By Krissyb77260514

  Love HBO, but frustrating app

  I’ve been a subscriber of HBO for years and I love HBO. I love the overall content, but since the new HBO Max app has rolled out, it has been one of my worst streaming experiences ever. I am a subscriber to multiple media streaming services and none of them do what HBO Max does. I use Chromecast to stream and after about 15 minutes into a movie or show I’ll get the “circle of death” as I like to call it. The app is trying to buffer, but instead of doing it once or twice, it continues to buffer for about every five minutes after that until the movie or show is complete. At first I just thought maybe it was my Internet or Chromecast but it’s been doing this for weeks now. It is definitely a fault or bug within the app and it is by far one of the most frustrating things to experience as a customer. Every time an update comes out for the app, my phone automatically pushes the update through and the non-stop buffering still continues to happen. I have no idea what to do but I know for a fact, if it continues to keep happening, I’m going to no longer be an HBO subscriber because it’s just not worth the frustration. With all the technology experts out there and all the money/resources that Warner has, I’m really surprised that this bug has not been resolved. I’ve read through other app reviews and it seems like I’m not the only person that’s experiencing this. Please fix this so you don’t lose anymore loyal customers.

  
  
• By inuchan

  Download function is broken and has been for months.

  I love HBO’s content, and I was very excited when it was announced that the app would allow downloads for offline viewing. However, I was very disappointed to discover that while you can download videos, if you try to watch them in airplane mode (say when, I don’t know, flying on an airplane), the app will let you watch for a while then suddenly freak out and become trapped in an endless loop of error messages as it repeatedly tries and fails to contact the server. This problem has been present for months and it appears no effort has been made to fix it. Additionally, the app does not keep accurate track of how many videos you currently have downloaded. There is a global limit for the account of 30 downloaded videos, and if you want to download beyond that you are prompted to delete unwanted videos to stay below the limit. However, when you delete a few videos, the app continues to give you the same error message saying you can’t download more than 30 videos, and does not permit you to download. The content on HBO is really great, but I primarily only have time to consume it on flights. It is frustrating beyond belief that this app gets so close to the desired feature a d then totally falls flat on its face in the execution.

  
  
• By DavidL88

  Excellent content, broken app

  How are the HBO Max apps so uniformly terrible on every platform? Surely there exists a template for a functional streaming app. HBO has occasionally done it themselves on their previous apps. This app is just so slow. It constantly freezes, it constantly crashes. It’s more jittery than any of the other major streaming apps. There are delayed responses to my inputs, so my repeated attempts to make something happen result in the app registering a bunch of delayed inputs. I would accept a much simpler app with less features and a plain UI if it would just work. It could be the blandest thing in the world and if it ran smoothly it would be a major improvement and less of a stain on the HBO brand. Please clean this mess up so I don’t have to cancel my HBO Max subscription. It is as slow now as when it was first released, and that has been the case across both new and old devices and on both old and up-to-date operating systems. It is broken on wi-fi, it is broken on cell data. It’s broken on my tv, my desktop, and on all the different kinds of mobile devices in my household. Usually, even when streaming services are performing poorly on my tv, I can count on it being a better experience on iOS. With HBO Max it is even worse. What a waste of an excellent and massive library of content.

  
  
• By Bertie'sBurgerBarn

  Edit: Issue Resolved - Microsoft TV Version Broken

  After the most recent update the standard Microsoft TV scrubbing has been replaced with a version that is nearly unusable. Clicking the far right or left of the remote’s touchpad no longer skips forward/back, tapping no longer brings up the time bar, and swiping on the touchpad scrubs without the need for pausing and at a speed that makes it nearly impossible to move to an accurate time (it seems that now the width of the touch pad relates to the entire time bar so that, starting from the beginning of an episode, one swipe from left to right will take you to the end of the episode/movie). The last point causes problems because you need to swipe on the touch pad to bring up the time bar, and I’ve accidentally skipped most of the way through what I’m watching when only trying to see how much is left. This along with the removal of support for 15s skips (which is standard for any streaming service) makes it very difficult to move forward or back a short amount of time. Additionally, the Play Next Episode function is somewhat broken on both Microsoft TV and iOS. On Microsoft TV it isn’t possible to swipe to the button, and attempting to click on it seems to both pause whatever’s playing and move to the next episode, almost as if the two fields were selected at this same time. This makes it impossible to pause at the end of an episode once Next Episode has appeared, and equally impossible to move away from the next episode button.

  
  

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