HBO Execs Confirm Plans to Fix HBO Max App With Whole New Experience

One tweet format nearly guaranteed to get you to go viral online these days is making a joke at the expense of the HBO Max app. Though not every version of the streamer across devices is a tire fire, many of them are, and the people at HBO Max know it all very well. In a major write-up from Vulture's Buffering comes details about how they're handling the troubles internally and their big plans for an all-new HBO Max app that's in the works and will hopefully fix the issues. As the outlet notes, the HBO Max app on Apple TV had major problems with fast forwarding/rewinding with Roku users also having their own fair share of glitches, but help is on the way.

According to insiders at HBO Max that spoke with Buffering, the problems with the app have been "super painful" with an exec noting that it's not just the mean things people say on Twitter that they've noticed, adding: "We see the crash logs. We're not blind to it." Apparently many of the problems that have popped up on the app have come after the arrival of the cheaper, ad-supported tier on the service as well as expanding HBO Max's reach into almost forty new countries. In the end however it seems that the HBO Max app not being built wholly new, like other streamers' apps, has been its biggest problem.

As Buffering reports, "Max has been running on a retrofitted version of the old HBO Go and HBO Now services," noting that the original versions of the app were built primarily to handle the heavy load of traffic when new episodes of Game of Thrones premiered and everyone got ready to stream it. Now it has to handle that as well as the countless subscribers that are just wanting to watch a new movie, like, say, all of Warner Media's 2021 theatrical output.

The major problems could be a thing of the past though with "a completely new app" on the way and perhaps becoming available before the end of the year. "We're going to replace every single connected TV app in the next four or five months," an unnamed WarnerMedia exec revealed to the outlet. Apparently Roku users will be the first to get the new app with PlayStation next in line behind them. Buffering reports that Apple TV users will have to wait until early 2022 to get a new version.