Android Oreo Home Screen/ functionality

[JamesNQ]

Took delivery of TV (XG83) this week and attempting to get used to Android experience. The picture and build quality is miles ahead of the Samsung Q60r it replaced but the the OS seems limited to say the least compared to Tizen.

UK streaming channels/ Sony Select: It seems the only way I can have direct access to iPlayer, ITV Hub, All4, etc. from the home screen (without going through YouView menu) is via the Sony Select 'featured' row. This featured row is otherwise useless and annoyingly is constantly recommending that I watch 'Marriage Story' on Netflix (seen it already). It's impossible to remove this item from the featured row, as pressing remove only adds it additionally to the 'Watch Next' row. As such, is there a way to remove Sony Select it but still have links to iPlayer, etc. in 'apps'?

Watch next: this could be great but at present only seems to work with Marriage story (see above) or with Google Play titles. It doesn't work with iPlayer, Prime, etc. As such, it's pretty useless.

Channels: channels recommending content from various apps could be great but at present is limited to Netflix, Spotify, and a few others. I assume there's no way to get a channel for iPlayer, Amazon Prime, etc?

Search: I really thought having google assistant built in would be great but the search function is in no way universal. It seems to be limited only to Google content. Even when a title is available on e.g. Netflix, it will only bring up the paid google version.

Overall then, the software experience leaves a huge amount to be desired, especially in comparison to Tizen's integration (offering search, watch next and recommendations across pretty much all services).

How do others cope with this?  At the moment chromecast seems to work great but it's still a bit annoying compared to using the remote. Are there any neat tricks or should I just buy a Roku/ Firestick/ Shield and give up on the Sony's 'smarts'?

PS: Marriage story is actually pretty good but once is enough.

[khallergard]

Down at the bottom of your Home screen (assuming you are on Oreo) there is a button "Customise Channels" allowing you to get rid of Sony Select and Watch Next and add your own.  I have added YouTube and two foreign TV channels.

As to UK player apps, I am using my old BT YouView Box (big hard disk for recording programs).  But can't you add them to the Favourites Bar by long pressing on the icon for iPlayer etc?

And then you can sideload apps that are not shown in the Android TV version of the Google Play Store:  https://tinyurl.com/yx96hkuj

[khallergard]

Correction:  you cannot put iPlayer in the Favourites bar, but you can put Sony Select there.

[Tonycv51]

I have all of the catch up apps on my favourites bar... but they are the sideload versions with youview disabled so might be why. I assume you could sideload the iplayer app even if using youview and then be able to add it to your favourites. 

I have kept Sony Select at the bottom as the Rakuten app only appears via Sony Select for my XF  (and the sideload version i could find is not as good).  Think theres a proper 4k version of the app on this year's tvs with the upgraded chipset. 

[Tonycv51]

On channels question it depends on whether the app author has added that capability to their app. I guess over time more of them will. Channel 5 works as a channel but seems to be the only catch up app that has added that functionality so far

Re Search - I don't use it much tbh but think I've sometimes had success by adding words to the search eg play xxx from netflix, but more often than not it just goes straight to YouTube or the app store. The roku does have the best cross platform  voice search I've encountered so far.  It still has limitations though.  If you search for a movie/show it will list apps that have it, and knows if you have a netflix or prime subscription so shows them as free. However it doesn't know if you've bought or own that movie on say Google Play or Rakuten so will show them as paid options