Have a Shield Tube that generally works great. HBO Max is kind of laggy when browsing, but at least can play video. Netflix, Hulu, Paramount, YouTube all work flawlessly.

AppleTV+, though, fails to play and crashes out of the app or punts back to the home screen of the app at least 80% of the time. Closing the app, force closing, uninstalling, reinstalling doesn't help. Restarting the device works sometimes . Once it finally decides to play something, it's smooth sailing after that.

So I gave the official Chromecast with GoogleTV device a go. Feel the general performance of the device is better (which is surprising given how much better the specs on the Shield device is), but same problem with AppleTV. Stuff just won't play without jumping through force closing hoops and/or fully rebooting the device. It has a higher success rate than the Shield, but still is a big PITA.

I just want to finish watching Ted Lasso, and refuse to get extorted into buying an AppleTV device in order to do so. Anyone figure out a way to make AppleTV+ not suck? Is this just me?

Two different devices, same issues. The only thing I haven't ruled out is the TV itself (Samsung UN65MU8500FXZA). Maybe something with the TV's HDR implementation? I'm at a loss.

EDIT: Found this post about how apparently there were problems with HDR / Dolby Vision an AppleTV+ causing crashes, but allegedly Apple released an update to fix it: https://9to5google.com/2021/07/19/apple-tv-app-gets-an-android-tv-update-hopefully-to-squash-widespread-hdr-crashing-issues/

EDIT2: Moved my Shield Tube to another TV and AppleTV+ works just fine there. I think it's my TV (a 2018 Sammy) that has something weird with its HDR/4K implementation that's causing certain apps to bug out.