HBO Max: Stream TV & Movies Reviews

After the most recent update the standard Apple 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 Apple TV and iOS. On Apple 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.

Ok app overall at first but start to use heavy especially on iPhone 11 air playing to Apple TV - I have noticed a few bugs centered around airplaying that need to be addressed ASAP. First the buffering could be improved greatly especially at the first 5, 8, 15 or so minutes and around 37th- 45th minutes. If you watch series like DC Titans or others- the app hangs when switching to next episode - this happens quite often - app continually becomes unresponsive and has to be exited. I played around with security or screen lock to see if this affects but have yet definite conclusion as to the cause! Also each episode starts with the Audio description enabled. EACH time a new episode starts it resets the audio description to on! The only way I have found to turn it off is to toggle audio description on then to English or Spanish then back off. Gets old doing this each time. Also happens with some of the newer movies too. Regression test app with older Apple TV’s as it does this on earlier Gen Apple TV’s too. Does it on my older model A1469! In short refine and streamline the apps airplay abilities for a more enjoyable seamless streaming experience. Thxs in advance happy coding and regression testing :) 👍😎

EDIT: Freedom to watch content in preferred aspect ratio is restored! Pinch to zoom to full screen works again. Five stars restored; thanks for listening, HBO.

Original review:
There used to be a button in the bottom right corner that eliminated the black bars at the top and bottom, clipped the video, and made it full screen. This is the optimal viewing experience for me and I’ve enjoyed it that way before the update and even on HBO Go before that. It’s gone now and I’m livid. Without this feature, you do not have the freedom to choose your best viewing experience. You have no choice at all now; instead, you pay to have HBO decide for you. HBO makes you suffer without this feature because they want to foster a “consistent viewing experience across all devices”. So I guess not being able to watch content the way you prefer doesn’t qualify as a good “experience” anymore. My experience is derived from the freedom to watch the content how I like it, so to remove that freedom seems counterintuitive, foolish, and nonsensical. My friends, our preferences shouldn’t be dictated by HBO. I yearn for the day our freedom will be restored in an update because, only then, will we have the truly optimal experience we used to expect from the Home Box Office.

I love the amount of shows and movies HBO Max is. Totally worth spending money on, the problem I have is that it’s so slow and a nuisance when watching a movie or show and I get notification about streaming either with cellular data or WiFi. It’s so annoying having to go back and forth turning them on and off because of how it won’t stop changing it’s “mind” on my connection. Wish it was like Netflix more. Where it’s automatic on both ends. What’s also annoying is clicking in and out. I can’t exit HBOMax with it still playing the movie. Another complaint is that the episodes aren’t laid out, have to retype the title to see again what is next or reading the description. It’s just super slow and is nowhere near how amazing the Netflix app is built. I hope it develops new downloads where it doesn’t create such a hassle trying to watch my shows and movies because it’s not worth $10 a month if all it’s gonna do is create problems and not allow me to watch movies on a smooth run. Also last thing, I hate how it’s so slow when I try to replay back. This goes the same for the website as well. Like Netflix has never given me this problem (I’m not complaining that Netflix is better but in comparison between app navigation, it is top tier) I like rewinding to watch best comical scenes and whatnot but Everytime I do on HBO I have to remind self to try and not do it or it crashes into this slow time warp. Please fix this!!

Got a decent size iPhone? Good thing, cause this poorly designed app will waste about 30% of the screen by putting black bars on all four sides. They apparently took away full-screen mode at some point in the past year. Seems like it was intentional, since people have been complaining and they haven’t brought it back. I just rejoined, and the bad experience is making me think it will be a pay-for-a-month-and-out situation. Get your act together, HBO. Why throw all that money at making good content if your app dev team is going to chase away your subscribers?

Update: the Developer response only addresses my “feature request” for full screen. That is a “feature restore” after some bizarrely-bad decision to remove it. I’m not going to go fill out some form to get it back - this should be obvious.
Also, HBOMax is objectively bad in many ways: slow, laggy, locks up randomly, crashes, poorly laid-out, odd controls, and so much more. No amount of feedback can help a team that would release such a bad app in the first place. They need to just look at other apps that work correctly, and do that.
My review here is just to give fair warning to anyone considering watching HBO on their iPhone that it will be an annoying experience. The developer shouldn’t need to read the details here to know they’ve got a mess on their hands.

*Update* I was contacted by an HBO+ app developer to provide information regarding which streaming device I am using. However, the links I was given to provide a response direct me to inactive webpages…..so….I guess I will respond here. I’m using Roku and have confirmed that I am using the most current version. Despite current update, issues described below have not resolved.

The plus is that the content is pretty decent with new items being added weekly. The downside is that HBOMax is so buggy you can’t stream anything! Slow to start, significant delays when navigating the Home Screen, slow to load lists… HBOMax is beyond frustrating! Don’t even try to toggle between the different app features or fast forward/rewind a show or movie (if you’re lucky enough to get one to actually load). HBOMax frequently crashes when trying to search or stream any content. I’ve been trying to stream content for several days now and HBOMax crashes before the movie loads EVERY TIME!! I get so fed up that I end up moving on to a different streaming service. HBO announced an update 6 days ago that was supposed to resolve these issues but I have the most current version downloaded and still dealing with the same glitches. HBOMax is an embarrassment to HBO and their app developers. There is no point in paying for a service I can’t use. Until I’m convinced the bugs are fixed, I’m cancelling my subscription.

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. HBOMax 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 HBOMax and it is by far one of the most frustrating things to experience as a customer. Every time an update comes out for HBOMax , 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.

I really thought that with the amount of money hbo has made with their top notch programming, that their app developers would also be top notch. I was wildly disappointed. I really hate to say this but this must be the worst streaming app I have ever used! So glitchy to the point that I sometimes give up watching on the platform because I’m annoyed of how long it takes to load. And forget about trying to fast forward or rewind. Not only is it slower than MOLASSES on my tv, but on my iPad, it will just continue to rewind/fast forward unless you touch another part of the screen. You should be able to double tap the screen and ff/r. How isn’t that an option? The other day, I tried casting from my iPad to my tv and the audio would only play every other half second. Like what???? Also, why does my brand new tv not have an hbo max app, but my tv that is 4 YEARS older have it? And the only way for me to use HBOMax is through my shield device AND HBOMax DOESNT EVEN LOAD. Like I’m truly just baffled. I really really really love the content but HBOMax just makes me hate watching the shows because I get so frustrated trying to operate it. Please fix!

P.S. just discovered that watching hbo on my nvidia shield is even worse than on any other platform. Sound is only heard every other half second. Nvidia has even tried contacting hbo with no luck!!! I really can’t fathom the multitude of problems with a streaming service!!

First I will agree with almost all the other comments. The content is awesome. It’s a big catalog with a wide range of selections. That is why I’m giving it 2 stars instead of 1.

HBOMax is SUPER glitchy, buggy, inconsistent, etc. In my experience, no other streaming app takes this long to load. It’s not even close. Once it’s open and you select something be ready to not touch anything. Not sure what the developers were going for here, but if it was to create the movie theatre experience then maybe they aren’t as far off as I thought. If you want to pause it to use the bathroom or get snacks, want to scrub it back to replay something you missed, or stop the movie to watch something else, be prepared to spend extra time. HBOMax rarely, if ever, responds to the first touch of anything and if you try to press it again, it will either buffer or get stuck. I have read some of your responses, so before you respond and tell me it’s my router or internet connection, I’ve checked it and it’s working just fine. But I don’t want to complain too much since a ton of others have already said what I’m feeling.

I will go back to the positives and that I am able to watch content on here that me and my family enjoy. If it was a free service I would be leaving 5 stars and a big thank you. But until that happens this is the best I can do.

The content this streaming app has already and is coming up with is phenomenal in all levels, which makes the following all the more painful. HBOMax is slow, buggy, and glitchy. I can’t watch HBOMax on my Vizio tv because it’s always freezing, glitchy and the audio desynchronizes. All of this at random times. I wish it was just certain shows, but unfortunately I haven’t found a movie or show in which it doesn’t happen. I used to think it was my internet or my tv, but it’s the only streaming app that gives me these problems. I wish it was only happening in my tv, but it also happens in all my devices, although in my phone and iPad it happens less. I end up hailing to download the shows in my phone or iPad to then watch them. However, the download doesn’t always work either; sometimes downloads have unexpected errors and I have to try 5 times to get a show or movie downloaded. I have some feedback about the interface too, but there’s no point in focusing on that until all of these bugs are fixed. Actually, there is one interface note that I don’t think should wait until the bugs are fixed, the fact that when you’re done watching an episode or movie and want to rewatch it, instead of starting over (because you’ve finished it) it goes back to where you left off in the credits. Really?

We’ve used HBO Max for quite some time now with no issues. Seamless just like any other app and never had any complaints....until recently. One day we found ourselves unable to access any movies or shows on our TV with a prompt to “access HBO Max” but the button wasn’t clickable. Just completely unresponsive. After about an hour and a half of trying to troubleshoot(router reset, app reinstall, app update, signing into the mobile app, etc..) and going in circles with a useless customer service, we canceled the account under my girlfriends information and created a new one under mine. For some reason, this worked. Got charged twice in one month with this solution, but we were back in action. Here we are two weeks later and HBOMax is so glitchy we literally cannot get through 20 minutes of a movie or show. It’ll randomly start looping a 10 second clip and all the controls stop working. Resetting the TV resets HBOMax and it’s the only way to revert back. This was happening before when navigating the menu which was also super frustrating; but now I’m literally paying for a service that is unusable. Netflix and other steaming services work fine, but for some reason HBO can’t figure it out. Absolutely terrible service. They should fix these bugs and give their subscribers a month or two free of charge for the trouble, as I’m not the only one experiencing these issues.

Everyone loves HBO’s content. There’s no debating this. What I can’t figure out is why, for such a premier service, HBOMax (for iPhone specifically) is so terribly infuriating. My single main complaint is a big one, because it affects my experience almost every time I watch something. THE FAST FORWARD/REWIND BAR FUNCTIONS ARE THE VERY WORST OF ITS KIND. On literally every other streaming service out there(even the most obscure ones), if you tap the screen to bring up the playback options, the time bar can be used to seamlessly drag to wherever you want to continue watching from. It’s likely one of the very most commonly used features of any streaming app. On the HBO Max app, if you aren’t able to sit and watch every movie/show/episode uninterrupted from start to finish, forget about it. Attempting to move back/forward to any point in the show creates enough frustration that I’m convinced it has led to many broken phones. This MUST be fixed. And SOON. Based on the research I’ve done on this issue, many others are displeased with these functionalities(and others) of your apps. PLEASE get this issue resolved ASAP so I can get back to actually enjoying my experience while using one of my very favorite streaming services. I’ve just about reached my limit on how long I can deal with it. This is my final plea. HELP!

I love HBO’s content, and I was very excited when it was announced that HBOMax 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), HBOMax 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, HBOMax 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, HBOMax 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 HBOMax gets so close to the desired feature a d then totally falls flat on its face in the execution.

I really like the content on HBO Max. They have great original shows and movies as well as a lot of popular releases. My only grievance lies with HBOMax . Across all platforms (Xbox, iPhone/iPad, Samsung TV) I consistently receive messages saying the content cannot be played (often times while the show or movie continues to play). I do everything short of uninstalling and reinstalling HBOMax because that can be a massive inconvenience (not trying to do that while exercising, for example), and often I continue to get the error even after multiple restarts. Also, the UI is not the best - it takes some trial and error to figure out how to get to the point where you can choose a season of a show for example. There are also some other, more tolerable issues such as when l download things and try to play them it says I’m not connected to wifi (the whole reason I download is to watch off wifi as I assume is the case for most), long load/buffer times or just randomly logging me out. Again, highly recommend the content and this review would easily be 5 stars if HBOMax itself didn’t need as much work as it does.

Let me start by saying I haven’t had a major issue with HBO on my Apple TV (yet), which is the only reason this isn’t one star. Like many on here, my issue is not with HBO. They have great movies and shows, quality original content, and opening day streaming all for a very reasonable price. Easily should be given a five star review if it worked as intended. My issue is with HBOMax .

Constant buffering plagues every title I attempt to watch, unless I download it first. Unfortunately the download function is… underwhelming to say the least. If (and it’s a pretty big if in my experience) you can get a movie to download, it does it at speeds that my iPhone 4 would have scoffed at. It doesn’t seem to matter what my internet source is, it’s just slow. More often than not however the download seems to suffer an error and has to start over. It suffers an error if your screen turns off, if you leave HBOMax , if you have a minuscule data hiccup, if you switch screens on HBOMax instead of just watching the tick mark slowly fill up… and sometimes it’ll still have an error even if you diligently prayed to the data gods for every pixel that filled up with that purple molasses.

TLDR; Buffering issues if you stream and a download feature that doesn’t really work.

I am absolutely baffled at how terrible the HBO app behaves. Nearly every day, while trying to watch any show from one episode to the next, HBOMax glitches and kicks an error message that the title cannot be played. Trying to cast to a smart TV is just as cumbersome. In order to watch multiple episodes I have to kill HBOMax at the end of the episode and restart to watch the next. However, HBOMax does not reload where I left off, it restarts the previous episode. Not to mention HBOMax does not seem to save watched status across devices- I can watch episodes on my iPad and try to watch them later on my computer; pulling up the website on the computer also doesn’t recognize where I left off in an episode or movie. I have read several negative comments about attempting to scroll forward within the episode, and I can attest it does not work. While I can simply tap the screen along the timeline to select where I’d like the episode to resume... well, it isn’t helpful. Because I still have to kill HBOMax and reload it to go to the next episode. The transition from HBOGo to this app should have been seamless and user-friendly. For some reason they haven’t been able to correct the blunder with any subsequent update to HBOMax .

As with everyone else, content is great, but in 2021 you should be able to have the option to: 1. Expand the screen Yes, I get that HBO wants the experience to be consistent throughout all devices, but not all devices are the same size. Even for content that clearly does not fill out any sides of the screen you are not able to expand that. Easy fix and implementation, yet HBO is too stubborn to allow it. 2. Video speed control Let people consume the content how they want to. If keeping users on your app is the goal, then give users a customizable experience. I would like to spend more time on HBOMax, such as when I'm on my breaks at work, however given the lack of expanded full screen, I am unable to view the content as it's too small, so I don't stay on HBOMax

***edit 2/9/22***
HBO Max has recently added expanding the screen, which is a huge option for users. Consistency seems to have improved as well.
Big steps in the right direction, changing it from 1 star to 5 stars as I value adapting to customer responses.

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. HBOMax 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 HBOMax 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.

The selection of stuff on HBOMax is great. However, the download function is pretty much useless because if you try to watch something you’ve downloaded while offline, it gives you an error telling you to check your connection. This is garbage because that is the ENTIRE POINT OF DOWNLOADING SOMETHING TO WATCH OFFLINE... It also needs to be able to pickup where it left off downloading if it loses connection. Whether the reason for being offline a flight, or for the military folks I know that download things to watch when they have WiFi, this needs to be fixed.

Another issue, back to downloads, I downloaded the new Mortal Kombat movie last night. I tried to watch it and spent 2.5 plus hours with HBOMax crashing every time I tried to get it to play. I even attempted removing it and downloading it again and it still didn’t work. I tried it today, and it still didn’t work.

I don’t know if anyone will actually read this or not, because I read a lot of very angry threads last night. However, I truly hope that they are wrong and you do care about fixing this. You cannot understand how much of a moral boost it is for those military folks to be able to catch new movies, especially right now, when they can get WiFi. Please fix this.

The show catalogue is one of her greatest I have seen in almost every streaming service out there. There are great shows to binge and great shows to watch slowly.

Now the issues. HBOMax has plenty. It is very buggy. I have watched on multiple different devices and the same bugs persist. Every once and a while you will get an error message or a poor connection prompt. It’s annoying but an easy fix, I just restart the page or relaunch HBOMax . The biggest problem I have that I desperately hope gets fixed is the fast forwarding and rewinding function. Even the little 15 second rewinds are a pain to deal with. To rewind a minute took me two and a half minutes. I would press the rewind 15 seconds button and it would buffer and take me back 15 seconds then almost immediately return me to the time I rewinded from. I’d press it again and the error still persisted. I’d have to wait about 30 seconds between each time I pressed it to press it again which makes it impossible to go back and see something you missed. Please if some executive hears this, just fix this and your app will be amazing.

HBOMax is terribly designed only allowing a 10 second skip in any direction. Each video is proceeded by a 10 second preload screen to show you the rating followed by an ad. I try to skip ahead with the slider but it is so terrible it will just choose a random time and bit the time selected. The load times are terrible. I can load Netflix on the same device and it will start before the hbo app.
It linked to my iTunes account and I though great I can watch it on that app. No, it just wants to connect to it for information. You cannot watch any hbo videos except in the hbo app. I would love to discinnect it but U will have go online to fund out how.
Now lets talk about continue watching and adding a shiw to your watch list. Well it does not work. Sure you can add Fame if Thrones to your watch list, and it will always go to whatever episode you were watching and not the series. So yoy have to search your show, find the correct season, and then find the correct episode. Continue watching? It only saves the episode you were watching that did not play to the expected end time. I do not have the next episode waiting for mr buy a list of all the shoes I stopped watching before the credits.
In short, it is overpriced, full of ads, low on content, hard to navigate and not designed to help with viewing pleasure.

I have had HBOMax for years. I have put up with the constant crashes/freezing, especially when trying to watch via Google Chrome, (sometimes it does happen on my iPhone or iPad app). I have put up with the complete lack of decent and exciting movies to watch. I have put up with this because of 2 things: 1. Game of Thrones (which ended up being a complete disappointment after 9 years) and 2: Westworld.

I will admit HBO does have some movies that are good...some. But they also keep some absolute C-list and D-list movies on here for years at a time. HBO needs to be updating HBOMax /site with more exciting movies, more often; and they need to get rid of the ones they’ve had on the list for years. I’m tired of scrolling past the same movies I’ve seen on the list year after year, just to (maybe) find the ones they may or may not have recently added. I’m at my end. Either drop the price or I’m out. And from reading other reviews I’m obviously not the only one who is highly disappointed with HBO. Disney+ and Netflix will be the end of HBO if you don’t act and take these reviews seriously.

I’ve had little nagging issues with HBOMax from the start. First one not super bad but annoying none the less. For several weeks the streaming bar at the bottom wouldn’t leave the screen. The other issue I’ve recently been having is more aggravating though. The last few weeks I’ve been unable to stream a new episode live. I have to wait 24 hours to have access to it. The only help you get from tech support is a yawning bored rep who just tells you to update your app, and or try on other devices. After explaining that was the first thing I did before calling he recommended the same thing again. When I asked if I could be transferred to another department that may be better able to help he said “they’ll say the same thing.” When the Watchmen season wraps up I’m cancelling HBOMax . I cut the ties to cable a long time ago but seems like if you’re an app only person you’re a second rate customer

Used to love HBOMax, but lately every time I attempt to watch a show from my phone, the “Start watching by connecting HBO Now” notification window pops up on the screen asking me to connect to Apple TV. I select “Don’t Allow” because 1) I don’t have Apple TV and 2) I need to watch from my phone. Then a confirmation window pops up, and I click “OK” to exit back to my show. Video resumes.

Between 5 seconds and 1 minute later, the SAME screens pop up and I have to go through the process again (...and again...and again...). As I write this review, I’m 18 minutes into my show and have had this happen at least 20 times.

Yes, I have restarted my phone (iPhone 7+ running iOS 12.4). I have also deleted and re-installed the HBO Now app and deleted the Apple TV app (which I have no use for). I don’t have notifications turned on for HBO Now or Apple TV. What gives? Fix your app.

I have HBO, Showtime, Cinemax and stars on my cable package . I used to be able to watch these apps for Free as I am already paying for them on my TV from my cable provider. I get all the sports channels as well , college bal and pro. If there’s a game and a camera , I can get it. and even adult channels. They really are boring but the py come with the highest package on my cable. I am not going to Pay when I can watch all of the thins on here and more. Plus I have an app in my 92 inch LED smart TV and the 56 inch in my bedroom that lets me watch any shoos Korea’s movie I want at any time. I think you can get HBO and the other channels cheeper if you buy them as part of your cable package. I also get the Smithsonian channel which has Everything. Like I said, I used to be able to use HBOMax for free as I was paying for this channel but I guessed that’s changed? I will obviously be deleting HBOMax. I hope I don’t get charged for anything?!

Not impressed with HBO Now series not revealing when new episodes will be available. Totally left in the dark online. Maybe it is a marketing thing in attempts to keep me logging back on. Whatever the reason, it feels like there is always a carrot dangling. I have started a couple of series and have no clue when future episodes will air without doing a bunch of research. I am being left in the dark. To the marketing team, it is not working. Makes me want to cancel my subscription and find another streaming service with more transparency. People anxiously anticipate new episodes. By not knowing I feel I should cancel my subscription and check back in a year, if I remember. Not interested in hanging on and starting a new series.... Feels like it will lead to more of the same.

You know the positives of HBO: the content. Minus the last season of a recently ended popular series, the content is great. However this isn’t a review of the content, but of HBOMax .

My main complaint is that recently HBOMax goes just black when I open it. Nothing fixes it aside from deleting and reinstalling HBOMax . I’ve tried force quitting HBOMax and restarting the iPad, but only a reinstall fixes it. In the 10+ years I’ve been using iOS, never have I had an app I have to keep reinstalling to keep it working.

My second complaint isn’t so much a bug but rather the incessant advertisements for THEIR OWN SERVICE. I already bought your services HBO, why are you torturing me with ads for something I already have before every episode? It’s unnecessary and very customer-unfriendly.

I’ve been using the HBO Now app now for several weeks (had to dive into GoT!), and have enjoyed it thoroughly. Then all of the sudden, on my iPhone and iPad, I can’t start any episodes of any show?? I’ve updated all iOS, uninstalled and reinstalled HBOMax on all devices, shut off and restarted all devices, but to no avail. Funny enough though, if I start an episode on my smart TV on the HBO Now app, THEN, I can continue it on any of my mobile devices. So frustrating. HBO, please fix this before I lose my mind!

I give it two stars in a concession to content, but the user interface is still awkward and frustrating.
If you are trying to find a show such as Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, where to look? Comedy seems to have just stand up shows. It’s a series, but not usually found there. Search is tedious, given the Apple TV remote. Every other streaming service remembers what you last watched, especially in a series. HBONow only tracks shows you were watching but didn’t finish, so if you finished last week’s episode, that queue is empty. Here’s the kicker: if you save it to your favorites list to pick it up next time, it only saves THAT EPISODE that you already watched. It doesn’t understand that you might want to watch the next one.

Let’s face it. HBO NOW just isn’t cutting it. The original series content, post-GOT, has been, along with the documentaries and stand-up specials, mediocre at best. The movies are few and far between, hang around for too long, and are generally of C or D-list quality. Three new movies a month? That’s pathetic! I can watch all of those in one day if I wanted to! And that’s even if they’re worth watching!
Overall, HBO NOW just isn’t worth the $15 a month I pay. I get more from my other streaming services (Netflix & Disney+, for example) for half the price!
I know the HBO MAX upgrade is suppose to help widen the variety by allowing viewers access to all of the Time Warner catalog, but that won’t be happening until May. I don’t think I want to waste my money for the next 4 month on sub-par content so I’m out at the end of this month.

I lost access to HBO because of the corporate spat with Dish network. So I finally subscribed through HBO Now, but was astounded how incredibly inferior their UI was compared to their Go app, The whole process of adding watchlist items and navigating was so much better there than this clumsy feeling now I am forced to use now. How is it they offer a parallel app to the same content and generate such a terrible user experience in comparison?

But the worst thing: according to their user support there is absolutely no way to disable auto play. That is of significant issue with me and I will most certainly drop HBOMax within a couple of months purely because of this. Even the most egregious streaming apps for forcing auto play down their users throats have come around to allowing it to be disabled.

My biggest complaint is that every time I start a new episode or movie I have to sit through HBO Ads. I already pay for the monthly subscription so I shouldn’t have to watch any ads. Other services offer Ad Free content when you pay. HBO should follow suit. You have my money. You win. No need to push any further.

My other complaint is that you can’t skip intros. If I want to binge Westworld, I have to watch an ad AND the intro to EVERY episode. That is just ridiculous and extremely annoying. HBO can learn a few things from Netflix.

Other than those to complaints I would have given HBOMax a 5 star rating as it works as expected.

Every time I try to watch a show on HBOMax it takes an extremely long amount of time for it to load. If I were to go on Netflix or any other app to watch something, it would load in a quarter of the time so I know it’s not my wifi that is the problem. There’s also times when i’ll be watching a show on HBOMax and then 6 minutes in, it will stop and buffer and say, “Cannot play title.” HBOMax has very good shows but it just doesn’t function well at all. Also, sometimes it doesn’t save where you’re at in the show so I’ll have to go through the whole thing and wait for it to load in order for me to get back to where I was. The creators of HBOMax really need to get fix this.

HBOMax is pretty easy to browse through and watch but it a huge pain to keep changing parental controls when ever my kids want to watch something and then switch back. It would be a lot easier to allow streaming of restricted content by entering a quick passcode only parents know instead of going to setting and changing everything. This method would also prevent any mistakes in which parents forget to switch restrictions back on after watching. Not well designed for people with kids.

HBO has always been the top of the heap in quality, original programming. But to look at their app, you'd think they are losing the streaming wars. It's impossible to see everything, like all the movies or all the shows listed in alpha order. Everything is categorized, giving the impression there's not much there there any more. Any out of 24 "collections" why are 11 of them Sesame Street? I just updated HBOMax , so maybe it will be easier to save my place within a video or add whole series to my watchlist, which have been problems in the past. All in all, HBO Now is not raising HBO's profile or making it appear competitive any more.