Philo: Live & On-Demand TV Reviews

by Panzu91

I love the accessibility to my favorite shows, but I am constantly reinstalling Philo hoping to solve the constant issues I have with the streaming service. It went from crashing every episode, to now glitching on ads and replaying 2 second portions of the ads over and over even when I restart Philo . It’s bad enough there are ridiculously excessive ads every 2 minutes despite paying for a subscription, but now I can’t even make it through a single episode without it glitching and getting stuck replaying ads at least several times. Really disappointing. I hope these issues finally get actually addressed or I will be discontinuing my service.

by Unhappy Guy0000001

How can you justify putting eight minutes of commercials multiple times throughout one movie? What a joke! They take a two hour movie and make it four hours long with all the commercials like it’s a free app or something. Paying for a monthly subscription you would think the commercials would be limited to two minutes at the most but not this app seems like every ten minutes or less your gonna have to watch five to eight minutes worth of crappy commercials by that time you’ve already lost interest in what it was you were watching. What a joke this will definatly be the last month of this garbage I pay for! Thanks for ruining tv you money hungry turds!!!

by Badinkadunka

I do enjoy using this app, it is well made, and easy to use... As well as bolstering a wide arrange of channels (of course not everything you’d really want) but that’s just how services of this category go! I can’t really complain about the problems mentioned above, because those are things you really should research before paying into their service.
HOWEVER; I find it absolutely ridiculous that you can not project anything on Philo to a TV- or anything else for that matter. Especially since they do not have much coverage past Philo Store and Roku... Definitely consider a different service for your TV for now :) this app is still going in a great direction and I’ll be keeping my eyes open for when they figure things out better.

by Mayo4078

Philo has gotten progressively worse over the last couple of weeks or so. Philo keeps crashing & going back to the main Apple TV screen. It buffers every so often and lately I’ve had it freeze up on me where all I could do was shut my Apple TV off and turn it back on again. And yes I am up to date with software updates on both my Apple TV and this app itself. Tonight was the straw that broke the camels back…the time will not simply keep up with the guide. I’m trying to watch a show that is on at 9pm and the guide will simply not refresh to show the correct time/show and is stuck on 7pm. This is so frustrating to say the least. I will NOT be renewing my subscription that’s for sure!! Not worth $25 a month. this app…get it together or you’re gonna lose a lot of subscribers!

by Bbghytdfgv

I am quite fond of your service. I think you offer an amazing value with a lot of variety. I stream your service on my television and my phone. The problem I have is, the service is terrible on my brand new iPad Air.
I’ve reached out to your customer service numerous times only to be told to stream online Wi-Fi. Well, that doesn’t solve the problem and I don’t always have Wi-Fi and I shouldn’t have to use my Wi-Fi to use your service when I’m paying for unlimited cellular data.
I’ve used your live chat, I’ve use email and I recently sent an email a little over a week ago and I still am not hearing back from anyone.. I keep Philo updated regularly and I still have a grainy choppy service. I would love it if someone would help me but I can’t seem to get anyone to help

by Samj777

Alot of people have mentioned the same thing over and over again, yet changes do not seem apparent even after “improving advertisements”.

The content is great, the ads are just out of control. Even when you go to another channel and come back to the one you were watching the ads are still there. You can try to go live but the ads are still there! It seems you are forced to watch the ads no matter what. I won’t even comment about the lenght of the ads sessions, plenty people have mentioned the same thing.

I will be looking elsewhere for service thats $20-30 more a month. At least I won’t be frustrated, neither should you.

by Big Snap-Daddy

this app works great on my iPhone 8+; however, I ‘be found my 70+ year old eyes get tired watching that small screen. So, presently (with AT&T TV NOW service) I connect my iPhone to my TV via Lightening Adaptor and HDMI cable. Unfortunately, this app doesn’t support this configuration. When connected, the sound plays on the TV, however, the video does not. The only screens in this app app seen on the TV are Philo screens and program control screen (pause-play controls)... but no program streaming video.
Phili, Is it a possibility to incorporate the use of using iPhone with Lightening Adaptor & HDMI cable to TV in the future?

by YouSeeWhatISay

I was hoping you had a version that I wouldn’t have to listen to commercials. If I wanted to watch them, I could watch regular TV; but when I’m paying for the service, the commercials are simply an annoyance that makes me want to cancel the service.

I absolutely hate commercials! I can deal with them by turning them down, but it would be better if you could either opt out of them altogether, or after watching 4 or 5 minutes of the ridiculous stuff they would simply disappear.

This is one distinguishing characteristics of your competition - Netflix…no commercials…EVER!!!

by CuzTara

I have no complaints about the service or channels of this app, but I get frustrated when I update Philo and lose features I love. For example, I would love it if you could bring back the checkmark icon that showed up after you watched a movie. I relied on this heavily to know if I had already watched a movie but had forgotten to unsave it after I watched it. I’m also frustrated that I can no longer see the date a movie aired on my iPhone. I can see the information when I use my Roku, but I’d like to see it on my Apple devices as well. Know when the show aired helps me figure out when one of my shows is expiring.

by Garonnnnn

Philo is okay, and there are definitely shows I like that are on there. The only problem is it is very buggy. If I ever exit out of Philo with the show still playing when I go back into it I am unable to pause/rewind/fast forward etc. i also cannot go back to the main menu unless I close Philo out completely and restart it. It’s not a big deal just gets annoying sometimes if I want to continue a show on the part I left off on and cannot even fast forward without restarting Philo . Happy with the selection of shows though. Philo used to not have these problems so idk what happened recently.

by ANIME IS LIFE(⌒▽⌒)☆

Philo is so good because it has a lot of channels and shows that I love to watch but it’s lacking in some ways. For example you should be able to watch show that have previously aired just in case you missed an episode or want to watch a movie, I don’t know why this app allows a certain amount of channels to let you watch previously aired shows or movies, plus it dosent even tell you when you are allowed to watch it when it airs on live tv. And another concern I had was that there is no Cartoon Network channel on this app. Why? You guys have add ons for starz and epix but why no Cartoon Network or showtime? Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And the last thing I wanted to add is why do some channels not have all the seasons? For example jersey shore only has season 3 and 4, and black ink crew only has season 8 and 9, dosen’t really make sense. But overall I like Philo and all the good shows it had but it needs a lot of improvements. I’m not gonna pay $25 a month just for a couple of channels when half of them you cant even watch what previously aired, some of the seasons are not even available and some channels that most people enjoy aren’t even there… i’d rather just stick to sling unless this app changes their game.

by Jynrose24

Philo has some really good shows on here ! My only problem is when I’m watching a show I can’t push the pause button, it’s like it locks and you can’t push anything until you just close the whole app and reopen it again. Sometime when I open Philo I can’t even find the show I was just watching and if I do find my show it wont even play where I left off and I have to fast forward it which is also a problem, usually it will play an episode I’ve already watched. Trying to fast forward on a show you can’t even see where you are fast forwarding too unless you remember the episode and time where you left off.

by Youll Be Surprised

I think Philo is great there’s a few channels like adult swim and other news channels I wish were associated with the account. I think the biggest deal with Philo is that I can’t downgrade the screen so I can do other things on the phone while commercials play. You are forced to watch the commercials even though they mean nothing to you. I would prefer to do other things for the four or five minutes that they make you watch commercials to continue the program. I’m still on my trial version at at this point I’m probably going to cancel before it’s over because it doesn’t have an news And doesn’t let me shrink the screen down so I can still do other things on my phone while listening or paying attention to Philo .

by USAA Used To Be Great

I tried this app due to a promotion from TMobile, decided to drop Sling because this app offered all the channels I care about without an upgrade.👍 Not to compare too much, because I love the price, but if you can make your setup like Sling, or cable TV, as far as not having to favorite shows to watch newest recordings… I don’t want to record every single episode ever, I just want to log in and see what’s new without any confusion. (My recordings). Also, I love fast-forwarding through commercials. this app makes that easy, but skipping through, or no commercials whatsoever, would be great. Fast forwarding is distracting from the show. Also, 10 second rewind, 30 second fast forward would be ideal.
But regardless for the price, this app is great, just maybe change the setup a little. And thanks for getting your recordings right, unlike Sling. I’ve been able to watch stuff on TLC they have misnamed and recorded incorrectly.

by Meatburgular

Overall I like Philo and service.
Two things I hope improve in the future.
1. When going through the guide it would be good if the channel you are/were currently watching plays in the background while searching for something else to watch.
2. There needs to be a refresh button on the guide section. Sometimes when I open Philo (Apple TV) it goes straight to the guide as that was the last place I was when closing Philo out. Upon returning the next day, it goes to the guide section but shows what was going to be coming on for the time frame it was when I left instead of updating to what’s currently coming on now.

by Mubs5

I’ve been using this app for years now I’ve tried multiple competitor apps all of them are either overpriced with less channels, don’t have very many network channel, don’t have all the channels I want in the same package you’ll have to buy multiple packages this app is the most reasonable priced(I’m almost certain it’s the most affordable) with the most network channels (most importantly they have all the channels I wanted available for one low monthly rate)than any app of its kind you can’t go wrong with this app

by Libby B12

this app has the most or in most cases all the episodes ,of the shows that you want to watch,Great app, I pay every month in my iCloud acc, using an Apple Card,this save me money’s every month, I’ve tryed other apps, costing more money’s, and the shows I called up had every limitedEpisodes,And I had to pay extra for less commercials, and you can’t fast forward or rewind during commercials, you can do all this and more with this app worth the money’s, user for life!!!

by Ilpjp

I picked this app after taking a good look at what I actually watched on cable. I discovered that there were only a few channels that I actually watched. I was totally wasting my money plus cable was always raising my costs every month. It was a little stressful cutting out cable. I researched the ruku idea and found subscriptions that I could add that had a channel for every program we watched. The only one was this app. I’m adjusting to missing my favorite news channels but this app is great. I could not be happier with the hundreds of dollars it saves me. And I mean hundreds. I’m sorry that I’ve wasted so much money all of these years. Thank you Ruko and this app.

by Kee527

My husband and I finished the three seasons of Yellowstone on Paramount+ and decided we couldn’t stop there, so we subscribed to this app. I’m so excited to watch all the Hallmark movies and Alaska PD. The amount of media and the option to record and skip through the ads is great. I haven’t used it yet, but I will in the future. Great deal for what you’re paying, in my opinion.

Also, their customer service is great. I’m having issues with Chromecasting, and their service team helped me as much as possible. I was even disconnected, and the sales rep emailed me with extra steps I could follow. They didn’t work, but I think it just might be a glitch. It’s the thought that counts!

by DD_1

I don’t leave reviews very often, but thought this might come in handy for someone (perhaps fellow apes) that research as much as I do. I could not recommend this app any higher!! The user interface is seamless across every platform. Whether streaming on my smart TV, laptop, or phone, there are absolutely no hiccups between stopping on one device and resuming at the same point on a new one. In terms of navigation, it’s so simple that even apes love using it. I was nervous about cancelling my cable and only having this app, but as soon as I made the change, my reservations were gone. this app is a game changer! It’s been able to help me budget better while not sacrificing what I love, which is TV shows! And crayons.. and tendies. I like Philo .

by Chincha83

I have this app on my Roku TV. I love the channels available but i don’t like at all how your app works. When I stop watching it and go to another app and them return to this app, the “continue watching” never ever has the last show I was watching. Thank God I saved the names of my shows. Before I figured this out, I’d have to go through the search process to find it the show again and try to figure out what season and episode I was watching. The “ keep watching it” needs to work a lot better. You need to have a favorite button. Somewhere where people list their favorite shows so people can go back to them right away. Your saved button doesn’t help, all it does is just save the actual shoe and not season and episode. This is necessary since many of the streaming available is TV shows with many seasons
It also crushes constantly. When I tried to forward, and not eve during commercials, it locks and goes back to their home screen. You need to invest a lot more time and money to your app. It needs to be 100% user friendly. It’s is a screaming up and should work every time

by Nchsusmc33

Philo gives the illusion of being a vast collection of seasons and episodes of all your favorite shows. That is a wild exaggeration on their behalf. For example, they have the Dr. Phil show on Philo . As of this writing there have been 2191 episodes made over the course of 17 seasons. How many of those episodes does Philo have you ask? 2100? 1750? 1500? 1000? No, no,no, and no. Three. There are three episodes available. No, that’s not a typo. They have 3 episodes out of 2191. That’s 0.136%. If that wasn’t bad enough the interface and stability of Philo are less reliable than your everyday run of the mill crack head. Don’t get Philo , if you do decide to get it don’t pay for it. Save that money and stare at a blank wall because it will have more and better quality content.

by Amber611

I rarely write reviews with being very ill, and bedridden with very bad breathing difficulties. First off I do love this app’s quality streaming and it’s an Awesome price too, especially with so many channels!!! Philo though REALLY needs work with the channel guides!!!! I don’t have a TV right now so I only use Philo ! To record/DVR things ahead of time I have to scroll to the time/day, and then tap on the movie/tv show. Then it goes to the movie/show’s own page, and you can record or read about it. I would LOVE to be able to record/DVR just by tapping or double tapping the movie/show, or clicking a + or some button please on the main channel page!!! Not to mention the worst part is after setting the movie/show to record or just reading about the show/movie summary, you have to go back to the channel page, and then BOOM (with no choice!) you are no longer at the future schedule/time/day!!!!! You are sent back to the current time/day, making you have to scroll ALL THE WAY BACK FORWARD again to where you were, if you want to record multiple things ahead of time!!!! This is not only annoying but Extremely Frustrating, especially since the extra constant scrolling over and over again, really aggravates my already bad breathing issues!!!!! :( Definitely not user friendly for me, and I’d only guess annoying for everyone else!!!! PLEASE try to fix this, or I’ll sadly have to go to another streaming service! Thank you.

by IDKhow2ACK

I just downloaded Philo a few hours ago and started my free trial and I gotta say, I’m loving it! Even the monthly fee is doable for anyone, coming from someone who hasn’t had cable in over a year. The only suggestion for improvement I have is to give Philo a guide. There are soooo many shows Philo covers but you have to manually look for them. The current shows that are broadcasting live are pretty much what I want to watch but a guide will make it easier to see what’s on, on all channels at once. I’ve just found myself bouncing from one show to the next trying to keep up with what’s on and after a while I gave up but I think a guide would make Philo 5 star worthy without doubt! Absolutely a great app to look into

by W4MIC

Ran a trial and purchased my first month; I'm happy with the service and channels offered, but they need to include a more user-friendly "Live TV" Channel Guide.

Additionally, unless you have the "latest and greatest" version of hardware and OS, Philo most likely won't work for you. The developers took the idea of legacy support and threw it away. This means that Philo will not launch on devices such as my iPod Mini (iOS 9.4) or cast (share) to my AppleTV 3.

When I asked this app about these issues on the support chat page, I was rather rudely informed that I "needed to update my hardware."

This is presumptuous, rude, and a bad programming practice. Not everyone updates as soon as the next software release comes out, guys! (And some hardware just simply cannot be updated any higher...)

For now, I use a laptop and iPhone 6.
I refuse to pay apple's exorbitantly high prices for new devices to simply use an app.

Future use will be determined by the owner's actions. If things don't improve, I'll most likely look elsewhere.... And I don't want to do that, because otherwise it's a great app!

by Mikeg585

Great streaming quality and loaded pretty quick from across my house. The price point is great but the channel line up leaves a little to be desired, although the reason I tried it was because they do have MTV. I wish they had an upgraded package where it was $40 and had sports like redzone and mlb network. It’s hard trying to find an aio streaming app though that has everything an while this one checks off the better part of what we watch I’d hate to use this AND another service for things like sports and movie channels like FX etc...... other than that if your looking to cut the cost of cable at your house this is a viable option especially if MTV is a must. Honestly Recommend for casual watching

by Iicaptain563

Love this app. Switched from expensive, worthless cable to another streaming service and supplement it with this app for Hallmark, ID, and channels with my husbands “car shows”🙄. Quality is outstanding with no glitches and easy access. The only complaint I have is that it’s *not* available on our smart TVs. The primary reason we have smart TVs is to watch tv so....not having access to this app on those and only on our Roku-connected tvs is kind of annoying. If it would become available on smart TVs it would be a 10-star service easily.

by AAD0131

So I rarely write reviews, but I was hoping this one could stand out to the developers as a suggestion. Upon installing Philo I loved the fact that they had such a great channel lineup. They also have Vh1, which most streaming services don’t have. (I lovvveeee Vh1 lol).

The only issue I have is that they don’t have a standard guide. I’d like to go to my guide and see all the channels, but also ALL of the shows and times there as well. With Philo you must follow a long process “Live>Select The Channel You Want with *>More on this channel” and you must do this for each individual channel you want to look at. When just surfing channels or looking to find something new or upcoming , an easy platform would be better.

Otherwise, Philo is great, affordable and I finally get my favorite channel!!! Highly recommended.

by Apple2011g

Philo is amazing! I just got Philo I tried it out it’s so easy to use very user-friendly. It’s much cheaper than dish and I get all the channels that I really wanted. Philo is worth every dollar. My contract with dish expires in October. I can’t wait to cancel them. I love Philo and I am so happy that I found Philo. The picture quality is superb with no glitches or loading. Philo is easy to use on both the phone and on Roku. I don’t think there is anything that I don’t like about this app. I can see myself being a long time Subscriber to their service. If you want to save money and can live without the sports channels then this is the perfect solution for you. What I did for local channels was I bought an over the air antenna. I’m connecting that to Clearstream and I can access those channels from the Clearstream app on Roku. That’s my solution to the rip off artists who work in the cable companies. Thank you this app for providing this amazing solution keep up the good work.

by Bkbro

I rarely take the time to write reviews. However, this app deserves one - all for good reasons. We have tried all of the currently available streaming services and this app is the cream of the crop. It has a simple and clean UI, an intuitive user experience, great features - all at a great price.

Having said that, what really puts this app over the top is it’s steaming quality. We have been using the service since the day it launched and we have yet to experience a streaming issue - no stuttering, no pixelation, no freezing - no nothing. Every other service we have tried has these issues (to some extent) even though they have been on the market for months or even years. The designers, architects and engineers behind this service deserve a huge pat on the back!

If this app offers the channels you want, I can not recommend this service more highly!

by Izzabella143

I’m so impressed with Philo, at first I had a few issues but I contacted their support team an they helped me figure out what was going on an also since I was dealing with it since I got it they had given me 2 free months due to the issues I had an I thought that was amazing an they truly understood where I was coming from when I said I didn’t want to pay for something that wasn’t working properly. Now it works great!! I’m extremely impressed with Philo itself an the amazing customer service! Thanks so much this app!! I officially don’t have to pay an outrageous cable bill anymore lol an they have all the best channels!! The ID channel which is the only one I watch! Plus some of the apps on roku that you need cable for some of them use this app as a cable provider like... THE ID APP LOL so I love it!!

by Rhoopz

I have to say, this app, for me is a breath of fresh air! We have been paying $35 a month for a different streaming service, that most of the time we can’t use from skipping, connectivity issues and dropped signal ALL THE TIME and I’ve been so frustrated until an ad for this app popped up, so I checked it out. I’ve had it for only 1 day, and already I love it so much more! Not once has it stuttered or had any sort of dropped signal or connectivity issues. We are currently in the free trail stage, but we plan on switching to this app full time after it’s up! I recommend it to anyone, definitely! My only complaint is that I wish it had Disney, Cartoon Network and freedom, but I know they can only do so much and 16-20 dollars is still a steal for all the channels they offer, so I can live with it for now! Thanks this app!!!!

by 4321pmb.

this app is outstanding. It has all the channels that I need. For the price I can afford. Thank You! FINALLY! A streaming service that doesn’t add all sorts of channels you don’t watch for an affordable price. BUT I was wondering if you will ever have a NEWS package? My husband needs FOX business and FOX news. Will it ever happen? I would pay the extra 5 dollars for that package just to make him happy.

AND what happened to the guide on ipad? I had one when I did the free trial. Now I can't find one now that I downloaded new app.

About the news channels that I mentioned I was just thinking of adding them as an ADD-ON feature. Like other streaming companies offer. A News Package as they call it. So there is no extra cost to your customers except for the ones that want that package. Like a sports package which I could care less about but others might like it. So those people pay extra for a sports package and the rest of us don’t have too.

This is the reason I signed with you. I am tired of paying for other peoples stuff. When I don’t watch sports or HBO or music ETC. THANKS FOR YOUR HARD WORK! So far I am very happy with the service.

Regarding this new update : So far I really like it! Thank You for all that you are doing.

by Judson000000

Love the idea. Like that I can watch tv channels I actually like. Only downfall with Philo is that I can’t browse and see what all stations I have. I can search to my hearts content. But I don’t always remember what channels or stations I have to look at. I’ve looked everywhere on Philo to find a list of channels. Can’t find a thing. So I mainly watch travel, history, and hallmark. Now Philo on the Roku gives the option to view the channels I have paid for. But not the phone app. Disappointed. Other then that I love it! I can watch tv whenever And where ever I want!
Thanks so much for the reply! It was very helpful now I can browse channels! Thanks!!!

by MovieFan1!

It’s cool and price is fine but I cancelled trial because streaming from a mobile hotspot is expensive (Sling tv has 4 picture quality settings) and I could watch many days before needing to buy more mobile hotspot. I have WiFi now and am enjoying the trial again! Thanks this app!!! The bad reviews are completely ridiculous. The guide and channels are easy breezy on a Roku. After my trial it’s either this service or Sling Tv. I like this one but wish it had a few news channels as well. Anyway I changed my review because the service and quality of streaming is great now with my WiFi!