My main complaint is that there isn’t a consistent experience between apps. Things are in different places, actions do different things in different apps, no gesture support, subpar players with horrible scrubbing, etc.
I think all apps should be held to a few basic UI/UX standards so going from one app to another isn’t a completely different experience.
The attached photo is just one example. Within the Apple TV app itself, long pressing an icon brings up this great menu allowing you to go straight to the show or the episode page. Long pressing in most other apps removes the show from your now playing list! All of these conflicting actions need to be rectified.
The TV app available on non-Apple devices lets you view content from their TV+ subscription service and your content purchased on iTunes. And I think that’s the crucial point here: Before they started to spread their TV app, you needed an Apple TV to watch your iTunes library on your TV. But now with the app available on so many other devices, they made the Apple TV evitable for using their own services. So this might even strengthen their position as a content provider, but I think on the other hand it also weakens the position of the Apple TV as a hardware device. And I think in this regard they gave away their leverage in forcing UI/UX standards on other app providers. Because I think it won’t hurt them much not to be present on Apple TV if this would mean time and cost intensive extra work to conform with Apple’s UI/UX standards.