Philo
reviews and complaints

I have been enjoying Philo on my fire stick almost 2yrs now I think it’s going on. When I wanna watch tv I put on Philo...everyday. Something I think could make it better is when in the guide you can still have what you are/were watching in a top corner while browsing thru the guide. Might be a looooong set of commercial ads like normal that happen (play so long I sometimes forget what I’m watching) but I’d be able to set future times for shows and see what I wanna watch next while not leaving my current channel. I’m sorry to compare cause you guys are better...BUT Pluto tv plays the show you’re watching while scrolling the guide and they are free. I know they play older stuff and it’s not current update shows...but nonetheless they still play some good stuff. It would just be nice is all. And don’t get me started on alllll the hallmark snd lifetime channels and other channels I don’t watch. Which is fine I just scroll over them. But since we are forced with your ways...just be nice. So for a rantish review. Still an awesome app tho! I wouldn’t trade it in for any other tv app.
Y’all have a great rest of your week

I really like the new Philo model, it helps me save money and eliminate my cable bill all together. I’m able to watch my favorite channels without the extra fees that a traditional cable company can’t do. I don’t think I’ll ever go back to cable ever again.

Since I don’t care for live sports, this subscription model is perfect for me. I can use the app on different devices and create different profiles for the people in my household. I can save my favorite shows for easy access. They have on demand library content that will fill all your time while you’re stuck in the house. The DVR feature is better than my previous cable provider. Interface is clean and easy to navigate. Playback features feel intuitive and convenient even for new users.

The only thing that I would really like to have, is an easy fix (maybe it isn’t, I’m not an app developer) but I really would appreciate it if philo could run in the background if I’m trying to multitask on my tablet. I was hoping that I can minimize the screen and leave it playing in the background.

Overall, philo made it possible for us to cut our cable bill and still catch our favorite shows!

Ok, update. I originally gave this two stars because of all the commercials. This is actually an awesome service once you understand it. Long story short, they should’ve put DVR everywhere that they have the word save. If you want to skip commercials, then you have to save a program. Once you save it, the next time that it “airs” then it will put it into your save list parentheses (DVR). You can then watch it at your leisure and skip the commercials. If only they would explain that when you get it. Again, the best TV service I’ve seen out there because of this feature but unfortunately, they don’t explain how it works clearly at the beginning. I would love this app but it seems like there are a ton of commercials. Every time that you start to get into something it’s another commercial break. Yep. Done. 1 hr and 40 mins to watch a 1 hr show? Too many fricking commercials compared to the competition. I’m done. After reading a bunch of responses I did as suggested and changed the billing to go through Philo. No difference. Now I feel like they are just trying to get us to switch the billing when it really makes no difference on being able to skip ads.

When I realized that my cable bill represented my second highest monthly payment NEXT TO MY MORTGAGE I decided enough was enough and had to make a change. After much research I landed on Philo because its channel line up best matched what I was watching previously on cable.

I’ve had Philo for over a year now and my experience has been stellar especially considering I’m saving about $80 a month over my previous cable bill. I also don’t miss the hundreds of channels on cable I didn’t watch anyway so Philo is much more focused on my esoteric show interests.

The DVR is great and I’ve had few technical glitches over hundreds of hours of saving/watching programs.

I have only recently discovered the Philo app and it too is stellar. I can search for, watch, and save programming identical to what I can do on my TV at the house all on my tablet or smart phone. The interface is uncluttered and user friendly.

No surprises on my bill either - except for a pleasant one - when my cell phone provider ran a promotion to get Philo for 1/2 of the paltry $20 a month I was already paying! So THANKS T-mobile and Philo! You just put $120 MORE into my pocket!

I am currently laid up with a broken leg for the next few weeks and quarantine has allowed me to get a lot of shows off my bucket list. This being said, I came across some YouTube clips for a show I thought looked interesting. I looked around and the only place to watch it was here. I went to sign up for the free trial and it said I had already used my free trial (whatever, maybe I did awhile ago and I just don’t remember) this did mean though, that I could not see what seasons/episodes they offered, just that they had the show. I bite the bullet and paid $20 ($9 more than I pay for commercial free Hulu) with the intention to just binge watch the next month or 2 and then cancel. When I got on, they only had the most recent 2 seasons (14 & 15) of my show. Annoying, but I’ll get over it. $20 for roughly 20 episodes isn’t a bad price. I start watching and there is literally a 3 minute ad every 5 minutes. No fast forwarding, if I leave the app to do something else or change the show, it picks right up where it left off. No joke, I sat through 2:56 out of 3 minutes of ads, accidentally clicked next episode and when I went back to finish the one I was on, had to watch that same set of commercials all over again. Very annoying.

This app is so good because it has a lot of channels and shows that I love to watch but it’s lacking in some ways. For example you should be able to watch show that have previously aired just in case you missed an episode or want to watch a movie, I don’t know why philo allows a certain amount of channels to let you watch previously aired shows or movies, plus it dosent even tell you when you are allowed to watch it when it airs on live tv. And another concern I had was that there is no Cartoon Network channel on philo. Why? You guys have add ons for starz and epix but why no Cartoon Network or showtime? Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And the last thing I wanted to add is why do some channels not have all the seasons? For example jersey shore only has season 3 and 4, and black ink crew only has season 8 and 9, dosen’t really make sense. But overall I like the app and all the good shows it had but it needs a lot of improvements. I’m not gonna pay $25 a month just for a couple of channels when half of them you cant even watch what previously aired, some of the seasons are not even available and some channels that most people enjoy aren’t even there… i’d rather just stick to sling unless philo changes their game.

I cannot believe I finally found an app that has all the shows I love.I’m weird not only do I like reality TV, I love old westerns. It’s hard to find Gunsmoke seasons, this app has it I love it! From Gunsmoke, Mamma June, love after lockup i’m completely hooked I love this app! *If I watch Gunsmoke or other older shows sometimes it’s fine, But I’m watching VOD and watching life after lock up there are so many commercials my God! I watched like three minutes of the show then I got a two minute commercial, I watch another 6 minutes of the show then I got another two minute commercial. I understand $20 a month is not enough to support the app with all the current shows that are on it, But maybe talk to the networks I don’t know what to do and see if they can maybe just limit three commercials per hour? I don’t mind commercials I know you have to have them, but they are so frequent.***
It’s been so long since I’ve had cable,It’s true cable has just as many commercials. I’m sure it’s not not the apps fault or the developers, i’m guessing you have to go by what the network says you have to do when it comes to commercials. I changed my rating back to five stars this is my favorite app, this really is the best entertainment app.

I think Philo is an absolutely amazing platform. Everything about it is great, really.
There’s just one thing that should be tweaked. There are more ads than any other streaming platform at more frequent intervals than any other place as well. For 25 dollars a month, if you do the math you can quickly calculate that by the amount of ads you’re forced to watch you realize that you shouldn’t be paying so much.
My suggestion is maybe lower the monthly price even if it’s not by a crazy amount. Philo needs to show it’s not greedy, by doing this I’m confident people will respect the platform even more and use it more than other video platforms. Which would be great for Philo. The balance is off after all, anyone who knows about ad revenue knows this company is making a lot of money in an almost actually unfair way since it charges so much per month when it’s the King of commercial breaks currently.

Though I say all this I’ve never seen a company take anything except it’s own advice and that goes for every company on earth. There’s always going to be a lot of greediness so all I can do is cross my fingers and hope that maybe people and things are actually capable of change.

Anyways, love where Philo is going and hope that it continues to do things right and great as it has been.

I've been steaming for over a decade. I've been able to be quite happy using just 3 services (Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon prime). The only reason I decided to try Philo was to have access to certain series' entire libraries (on most services, you only get a few episodes picked here-and-there, or as they'd say, 'curated' , an over MISused word).

With Philo, you DO get the access I'm referring to, BUT - and this is a major reason I hate this - the number of adverts that are FORCE FED... EVER FEW minutes is outrageous (by comparison, on Hulu, only only on certain parts are there adverts and it's always a 2.30 minute block of sales spots followed by only a couple more - and they've spaced FAR apart).

I was being forced to sit through 2.30 minute blocks every 7 minutes.

When someone's PAYING for a steaming service, such as Netflix and Amazon, there's ZERO ads This is a case of pure GREED on the part of the backers - and Philo's the brainchild of the cable consortium.

I'm not going to pay to be forced to sit through BS, and you shouldn't either.

I haven't even discussed the... unusual (bizarre) initial set-up.

A good idea, but executed terribly. I cancelled the same day I got this free trial (I couldn't stomach even a week's' work of 'free' Philo with all those adverts...no way.

I cut the cord about a year ago and was using Primestreams. That was very unreliable, especially when a major sport was airing. It would just start buffering and then would just stop till the event was close to being over. I found Philo from talking with some guys at work that have had it for a long time! Long enough that it was only $16 a month. So about 2 months ago, I cut ties with Primestreams and came over to Philo. Best decision hands down! Sure I don’t have all the premium channels.. HBO, Stars etc... but I can watch all that movie stuff on Cinema HD for free anyway. But what I do have with Philo is a solid connection, no buffering, and the most amazing channel line up! Every channel we watch too! I love love love the fact that they have all 3 of the Hallmark channel line ups, along with a lot of the Discovery channels line ups as well. They really hit the nail on the head when they chose what they did to air. I’m not a big news guy, so I’m also glad they didn’t stuff a bunch of that crap in there and stuck with real family type broadcasting, and all for $20 a month! Oh I I forgot to mention... The DVR set up they have is AMAZING! I’m sure there are others out there cheaper, but my parents always said... you get what you pay for! Love my Philo! Especially being home bound for this quarantine covid 19 crap, it’s especially welcomed in my home and on my devices! Thank you Philo!
Customer for life
Joshua Emo

Read the other 1-star reviews. They are true in every word.

Do not waste your time or money. For the amount of money I pay ($20 per month) for this worthless app and even less useful customer support, I’m done with it.

1.) They block their app and deliberately prevent it from being watched on TV. You have no other option but to watch it on your phone. So what exactly am I paying you people for?

2.) Every show and episode no matter what you watch has 5...yes you heard that correctly...5, 3-minute long commercials and they are the same annoying commercials over and over and over again. They get $20 per month and then swamp the shows with commercials? Talk about greed! Let’s not talk about how that’s a total of 15 minutes of commercials we are forced to watch in just one episode.

3.) I’m fed up with trying to watch shows and having it buffer for 30 seconds to a minute. It does this about ever 10-15 minutes. It takes about 2 minutes before it does it all over again. Hulu doesn’t do this. Netflix doesn’t do this. CBS doesn’t do this. In fact none of my other apps do this. However Philo makes excuses saying it’s my phone. Then they blame my carrier AT&T. Then they blame the software on my phone. They blame everyone except themselves for their lousy system. My wife’s Philo app does the same thing. Then they said it’s her phone too. What idiots.

I contacted these bozo’s and had my service canceled. Save your money and time. They are worth it.

FF no longer works with dvr feature. Forced ads interfering with play. Unable to rewind to correct loop. Rewind; loop goes back to beginning of ad. FF; you miss part of the programming. Happens with all programming recorded on dvr feature. Episodes aren’t being recorded on time or in sequence. Sometimes recording a month later. Eg. episode 16 recorded 12/12 but ep 14 recorded 1/12. Return/back button has changed. No longer goes back to the program title. Returns to main menu. Customer service is terrible. Always deflecting and gaslighting. Excuse after excuse. They want me to do their job and take a video of episodes/movies where the issues are occurring and submit it to Philo. In addition, their solution is for me to upgrade the dvr feature in order to compensate for them not recording in sequential order. What a scam.
I Repeat; customer service wants me to do PHILO’S job for them.
YOU (PHILO), watch the networks’ programming and ads. pressing the arrow and ff/rw buttons endlessly because the application skips. The ff/rw HAS changed. FYI there isn’t even an option on the IPAD Samsung phone version, ONLY PAUSE/PLAY. Don’t bother trying to ff/rw on them. You have to use your finger to scroll side to side trying to find the frame and memorize time counters on the loop. Oh, yes Al software and devices are up to date. Uninstalled, reinstalled, sign-out and sign in on THREE DEVICES including ROKU, blah blah blah. That’s a lot of time = money and energy.

I just subscribed to Philo recently and I have enjoyed it and the channels that are offered. I have forgotten what commercials were like though and I understand they are controlled by the channels, but sometimes seeing the same commercial twice in the same break is annoying. I don’t know if that is the tv channel or not, but I think it probably is. I am having an issue this evening trying to watch a movie though. The movie keeps stopping and I have to press play again, then it pauses every few seconds and I have to keep doing this over and over. It hasn’t happened previously, so I hope this is a rare thing, and maybe by the time I finish, it will play all the way through. One thing that would be very nice if offered is a rewind 10 seconds or fast forward 10 seconds option. I know you can move the show back, but sometimes I am not trying to back it up, but if I touch the screen wrong, it does back the program up and ultimately, I end back in a commercial I have already watched. I watch on my iPad, so I will check out settings to see what changes I can make so it is easier to rewind or fast forward. In saying all this, I am struggling to move forward or back to find the spot I stopped a movie or series. So that forward rewind option would really be great! I also had the episode of the series stopping all of a sudden, but it did start back up and didn’t keep doing it over and over like last night. I hope this works out well as it is a very good option for a cable replacement.

Philo is outstanding. It has all the channels that I need. For the price I can afford. Thank You! FINALLY! A streaming service that doesn’t add all sorts of channels you don’t watch for an affordable price. BUT I was wondering if you will ever have a NEWS package? My husband needs FOX business and FOX news. Will it ever happen? I would pay the extra 5 dollars for that package just to make him happy.

AND what happened to the guide on ipad? I had one when I did the free trial. Now I can't find one now that I downloaded new app.

About the news channels that I mentioned I was just thinking of adding them as an ADD-ON feature. Like other streaming companies offer. A News Package as they call it. So there is no extra cost to your customers except for the ones that want that package. Like a sports package which I could care less about but others might like it. So those people pay extra for a sports package and the rest of us don’t have too.

This is the reason I signed with you. I am tired of paying for other peoples stuff. When I don’t watch sports or HBO or music ETC. THANKS FOR YOUR HARD WORK! So far I am very happy with the service.

Regarding this new update : So far I really like it! Thank You for all that you are doing.

HOW IS THAT NEWS ADD -ON OR PACKAGE COMING ALONG ?
I WILL PAY EXTRA FOR THAT! THEN YOU WILL BE MY STREAMING COMPANY FOR LIFE. RIGHT NOW OTHERS OFFER THE EXTRA ADD-ON. I REALLY DO NOT WANT TO LEAVE YOU. PLEASE HURRY! BUT YOU ARE DOING GREAT. I LOVE PHILO.

Update, 1/24, they should remove the option to start a show over and watch from the beginning because every time I try that, the show always ends up hanging up during a commercial and eventually I get bounced out and into what is currently playing live on that channel. If I do manage to be able to start a show over and watch it, they always cut off the end. I’ve been trying to put up with the issues because of the price but I think I will cancel during this month.

Update, 1/3. I received a developer response to my review/complaint and I don’t think he read what I wrote. His response was as if I don’t know how to save a show for later. My problem is that any show I save for later, “continue watching”, does not finish the final 2-3 minutes of the show and jumps to the live channel and I cannot go back to watch the end that I got kicked out of. Also, If I search for the episode and try to re-watch it, I have to sit through the entire show instead of scroll to the end and immediately watch the ending I got kicked out of. My fix will likely be to go back to Hulu Live. For 2xs the money you at least get support that understands what you are saying.

If I pause a show and continue watching it later the end of the show gets cut off and I don’t get to see how it ended unless I watch the show again in it’s entirety or I can find it on Peacock or Pluto where i can drag the slider to the end and watch the end of the show that Philo rudely cuts off. Happened to me 3 times.( Roku app doesn’t perform well either. Many live channels freeze at times. Thought I would throw that in.)

First let me say this is an awesome idea to offer this channel lineup without highly priced sports and news channels. It currently provides an excellent add-on without much overlap to services such as YouTube TV for a very affordable cost.

With my limited testing so far it works great with Roku without any noticeable buffer issues. There are two things I knocked off stars for: The interface leaves something to be desired without any kind of guide that I’ve found besides what’s playing, I can’t fast forward shows even after pausing for a while (putting up with ads) which I understand is probably helping pay for the service so it isn’t that big of a deal, and no iPad support is the big deal!

Come on Philo! You have an iPhone app and you advertise “iOS app.iOS compatible! Yada yada!”. You should state it is for iOS for iPhone! I do not want to run a vertical (portrait mode) crappy iPhone app x2 on my beautiful iPad Pro screen real estate! You have the iOS code, change the resolutions and aspect for the iPad and push out the app! It’s barely watchable this way to me, but is viewable. Luckily I will be watching through Roku most of the time if I decide to continue with it. Or let it be watched on the iPad in a web browser!

I just hope I’m not supporting some service being broadcasted out of a basement with no support. The picture looks good on TV. I would rate it 5 stars if there was true iOS support across the board. I’m trying to “cut the cord” for my overpriced comcast, and this discovery is a disappointment. I hope it changes soon. 2 stars for the device support. 5 stars for the cost and channel lineup.

I can’t remember even how long I’ve had this app. I’ve never canceled it. When I had another TV app I always was canceling it because I thought it was too expensive. I don’t watch even everything on this app but I would pay what I pay now for what I do watch and sometimes I get adventurous and watch something else. :-) I love this app. Can’t you tell? Also, I am blind and I find this app really easy to use. Are use it in conjunction with with nfb Newsline to get some future TV listings but I really like the fact that I can click the live channel button and then see what’s on each channel at that moment and read it with my voiceover on my iPhone. It’s funny that the channels are out of order and they don’t have a number but that’s OK I don’t really need the numbers. It’s very easy to click and bring the channel app right that instant. Please don’t change anything :-) I watch this app for hours at a time and I hardly ever have problems with buffering. Sometimes in the mid afternoon it gets a little slow but that happens with both the wireless and with the cellular data. I love it. I found it by accident I think it was on Facebook and I really liked the free trial so I signed up. I think I did that two years ago. And now that you have stars with a ZSiri :-) I am going to try that. I hope you get STARZ westerns because I would definitely sign up for that. :-) Great job guys please keep it up. Funny thing is I think you’re located in California and I moved from California to Texas and I use it to California TV app. :-) I would definitely recommend this app and I think I do. :-) I love to sit on Sunday afternoons and watch the science channel for hours that’s my big TV splurge :-) have a great day guys.

I did the Philo trial and ended up signing up for a month. I watch TV almost exclusively on…my TV, which is powered by my Apple TV 4K. I canceled my subscription a few days later after realizing that it didn’t support the main Apple TV feature, which is the TV app and the way it keeps track of everything you’re watching, in your “Up Next” list.

Sadly, Philo does not support the “Up Next” feature/list in the TV app and on the Apple TV itself. The only other TV provider that I know that does not support the Up Next list is the ridiculously designed Netflix app. I despise using Netflix due to its horrible interface and again, no support for placing the show you’re watching or want to - into your/my Up Next list.

This is the #1 feature that would make me use or at this point, not use Philo. So I am not using it, but would love to and would in an instant if they ever decide to update their app to support that wonderful feature - the Up Next list - or some might just call it the TV app on your Apple TV.

Every other streaming provider that I’ve tried *doessupport this feature. Sling, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, YouTube TV, Paramount+, Disney+ and nearly ever “single-channel” app (Eg. ABC, NBC, FX, and on and on) — Those *allsupport the Up Next list.

So here’s my feature request, please just add support for this so that we can keep track of our shows OUTSIDE of the Philo app. The shows will still open and play through Philo, but they need to show up in the Up Next TV list of shows that I’m watching. I do not and will not open up a dedicated app that stores everything within it and is completely walled-off of the Apple TV main feature.

If you can/do add support, I’ll sign up and be a lifetime customer. Here’s to hoping!

If (and it’s a big if) you don’t have a desire to have sports packages as part of your streaming TV service; Philo is a great option. It’s a good companion service for cord cutters that are happy getting local stations over the air; and I think the choice to price it to fill that niche was a smart one. Unlimited “cloud” DVR is a great feature as well.

My complaints are few; but significant. I hope someone from product development receives this feedback; as the developer has made it clear in other responses that they are monitoring these reviews.

First; when playing VOD content; I’d you forget that it isn’t a DVR recording and attempt to fast forward in a commercial it will advance the time index but continue playing the minutes of commercials. Once you recognize your error and try to go back to the start of the content after the commercial break; you inevitably will have to completely restart the commercial block. Making you rewatch some amount of the commercials that you’ve already watched. This is true if you do this 30 seconds or 3 minutes into the commercial block. It’s frustrating. It wastes time. It should be improved.

Second; It’s been years now. As I write this in the Apple App Store; Please add yourself to the TV Providers in iOS.

Third; it would be nice if apps on platforms could work towards common commands per platform. Example; Philo has a click and hold to fast forward when using a physical remote where as a different live TV dvr with an app on the same platform uses a click alone. And Philo advances at a speed where the other source jumps a fixed time per click. This isn’t Philo specific but underscores the needs for developers to participate in starboards bodies.

Thanks for making a great affordable service.

Philo offers a great package of channels for a great price, and is a much better app than SpectrumTV with the Essentials plan, has all the same channels except The Weather Channel (don’t miss it, Accuweather channel is a fine replacement), plus a few more that SpectrumTV did not include. SpectrumTV app was unwatchable, the video quality was terrible with SpectrumTV… Moving to Philo solved that issue. Philo’s DVR is also superior. I am pleased with the transition from SpectrumTV to Philo.

The Philo app on AppleTV is ok, it works better on Roku at the moment, but is tolerable on Apple tvOS, though it is a little unstable on Apple tvOS, especially when leaving the Philo app and then later returning to the Philo app, that really throws off the Philo app, being stuck on whatever was playing before, then the guide menu won’t load or be usable… I find myself being careful now to fully kill the Philo app before going back into it, saves a lot of time and frustration to just kill it and relaunch, rather than trying to just reopen it from where I left it.

Features are needed badly too, it is 2022, almost 2023, and it is time for the ability to browse the guide while also watching a channel, that is basic functionality that just needs to be there on all platforms (AppleTV, Roku, FireTV, etc.), no matter what. The guide should also have a choice between thumbnails and text; the thumbnails are nice looking, but are gigantic, making the guide 20 feet tall and lengthy to navigate/scroll vertically. Philo app could also use a customizable startup channel so when launched, a channel automatically begins playing. The DVR feature is great, but really needs its own menu, clearly defined… it is too much navigation to go to Saved, find show, scroll down to Seasons, scroll to Recordings, then finally view recordings. I’d also like to see some options to the recordings chosen, like “new episodes only” and “number of episodes to keep”, it gets messy in there fast when it is recording every episode of a show whether it is new or old, season 1 or season 7, depending on how the network airs replays.

Overall, I am happy with Philo, much better than the unwatchable and pixelated SpectrumTV app.

this app works so well on the iPhone, but Apple TV is another story. The app on my Apple TV doesn’t actually work around 90% of the time. I’ve had to uninstall and reinstall the app 5 times and it’s extremely frustrating. The most common error message I’ve gotten is “error, this video has taken too long to load” even though it only tries for like 2 seconds and than it just closes out. This is one of the three error messages that I consistently get multiple times a week. Sometimes it won’t even let me watch a show that I’ve recorded for days after the recording - with no error message either, it just won’t show the video. It’s so frustrating to pay so much for a streaming service that doesn’t actually work 90% of the time that I want to use it. Definitely needs some work.

Philo offers the newest seasons and episodes of all the hit shows which is fantastic however for an app with a paid membership the amount of ads is unreal. If I have to pay to watch your streaming service I expect to have little to no ads. A few ads at the beginning and end of a show is fine, heck even two or three throughout the show is fine, but that is not what you get with Philo. Philo is considerably more expensive than most other streaming services with double even triple the amount of ads per show time. Philo runs 5-7 minutes of a show then 3 minutes of ads throughout the duration of the show, no matter which show it is. Overall if you’re desperate to watch the newest episodes of a show you’re obsessing over Philo is great for that, otherwise it feels like a scam. This app could definitely use some fixing up.

So I was told about philo so I decided to download it and start a free trial so after I input all of my personal information name email phone and credit card number it said thank you your free trial has started. So I then downloaded the app on my home tv and it said 25.00 due because your free trial just ended and so I contacted customer service and was told that a similar IP address similar to mine had An account before and I was like how is that possible when I never had your service so the customer service representative that called me was rude and said my kind doesn’t qualify for philo and I said what do u mean my kind n she said I can tell your African American and philo doesn’t service people like you then she disconnected the call in my face. I have never In my life ever had to deal with racism I WILL BE SUING FOR RACIAL PROFILING

Checked my account today. I started the “trial” two days ago. The $20 is already deducted. It was taken the day after I started the supposed trial. Just beware in case you didn’t plan to have funds taken from your account. I had planned to keep the service, but might reconsider because they did not do the free trial. That created a bit of ill-will toward Philo.

Otherwise, a decent option when you don’t need locals, news or sports.

The channel logos on the TV screen are extremely small. The iPad doesn’t have a guide at all. That’s a major flaw.
I like how shows can start either at the beginning or Live no matter when you tune in. That is a great option in Philo. I don’t know about DVR yet. They have a really good selection of channels for the money. Since I’ve PAID for a month, I will see if I see any improvements. Otherwise, it’s off to HULU Live TV I go.

05-30-23 Update: they finally fixed the guide! Now they should either lower price or have fewer commercials. The minimum time for a commercial break is 5 minutes, with one I just timed hitting 7 minutes. I’m paying a monthly subscription to watch more commercials then the ad supported services have.

12-21-22 Update: Guide still won’t load if you switch Apps and go back to Philo. I assume it is a memory leak. Original Review: On AppleTV after watching Philo I turn off my system. When I try to watch Philo after coming back the Guide tab just spins and spins, the Guide does not load. If I restart the system or force quit Philo the Guide will function again. When I contacted support they provided me with the work around I’ve already been using and refuse to take it any further because “it works now”. I expected better support from a paid service. Very disappointing.

Large selection thought not with live local news that I want , I tried fubotv years ago , nothing change , I cancel with in a week , it’s app is glitching, it’s search engine is brainless , it’s ten times harder to find channels or what ever , in comparison to hulu and YouTube tv, this app is broken in comparison, I also notice a fuzziness first few seconds then it glitches to sharp , everything has a glitch , it’s like using a broken tv , i sticking with Hulu , fast and just works on any device , I need live news and it said it had cnn and ch7 news , I could not find cnn on my phone app iPad app or tv and ch7nbc was not local and few other news channels missing

Most of the large selection is worthless anyway and have all those channel anyway with my other apps and I just stated using Apple TV puts all those channels together, I can’t even compare this to Apple TV

Trying to set programs to save to DVR. Click on program, read description, click save, click button to go back to last page and the app closes. Reopen and start process over. This has been happening for a while, but has gotten so bad I am considering other options

Gave two stars for the following two reasons.

One, because they at least organize the saved programs with their respective series as applicable e.g. all episodes for a show are together. As compared to Frndly where everything is saved individually based on when saved to DVR which means episodes for shows are scattered.

Two, it does not make me constantly sign-in repeatedly. One of my apps that I stopped subscribing to would kick me out of app in the middle of watching a program even though I had signed in to watch the program.

Fix the app or I will switch and stop recommending to friends, family and FB group members

This app is programmed like garbage. If someone texts you and you have to switch between apps it will reset your counter and take you to the last minute marker you watched.

So if you watched a show and stopped at 23:00 but missed a scene, you rewind to let’s say 11:45 and start watching again. You then get a text, or want to check an email, the app will take you to the 23:00 mark every time. Even if you never got to rewatch the scene you wanted.

Do this 30 times and 30 times it takes you to the wrong spot

And yes, I did contact support and you know what I got in return? An email saying we got yours then asking me to rate your customer services.

Well what customer service? Saying we got your email is no resolution not helpful. Actually fixing the issue would be helpful so I gave that email 1 star also for wasting my time.

Don’t ask me to rate your response if you haven’t actually worked on the issue.

It’s cheap which is why I need to stick with it. When I watch shows I enjoy watching from season one and going through the whole thing in order, so I appreciate that Philo has a lot of shows starting from season 1. My gripe is that usually whatever I am currently watching doesn’t save in the currently watching and then I have to go and search for it. Then I have to search for the episode and the part of the episode I was at. Also any time I get a call or a text and I go to look and come back it changes my spot from where I was about 90% of the time, usually I am forced to watch 3 min of commercials before I can even find my spot again. Every single time I get a notification and move out of Philo and go back it’s like at the end of the episode again and I need to rewind it! I am still using the app with a very thin thread hanging on bc I enjoy the shows but I may cancel and just go back to watching YouTube instead I don’t know.

As I noted earlier, the Philo app (whether running it on the IPhone or AppleTV with the latest iOS) it crashes. You can be watching a show and suddenly the app closes and returns your device to the main menu. This behavior started recently with the latest Philo App update. It’s gotten to the point where Philo is worthless.

The issue happens on both iOS devices but to add insult to injury, I dusted off my old Amazon firestick and the issue will happen on this device well with the latest updates. In all situations this seems like there is a buffer overrun and is causing the app to crash.

Other apps such as Netflix are solid and perhaps a well tested app. As others have reported, this is not something that is isolated to my devices or environment but rather, they have had the issue too!

I look forward to an update with this app fixing this problem otherwise what was once a great service has become dysfunctional to the point of looking elsewhere.

Please test and fix your app.

Philo as a streaming service delivers on content, but the app needs to adopt some basic UX principles from other video streaming apps. The easiest of which should be double tapping to skip ahead at 0:15 or 0:30 second intervals.

More advanced would be scrubbing that shows the preview. I discovered that with a long press and swipe across the middle of the screen there is a scrubbing mechanism but it’s too hidden and it’s a bit clunky. The benefit of DVR is being able to skip the commercials but without a suitable fast forward control, I feel like I’m fast forwarding a VHS tape.

Please fix this, as an additional comment I’d like to add that it would be awesome to either control extending recordings beyond the finish time, or automatically adjust to record 3-5 minutes post show so that we can watch the previews for next week’s episodes.

There’s a lot of promise here, and the app should not deter anyone from purchasing Philo as their channel line up for cord cutters is very appreciated.

Tonight I had reached out to customer service to see about the streaming ability of this platform and what happened next was ridiculously disappointing and frustrating. One tech told me that i needed to accommodate their platform and Rudely gave me a list of things I needed to buy, one being a smart TV that had one of their services they are allowed to stream from, first of all what if I was a single parent on a budget and i could only afford one certain streaming device I would feel horrible being called out like that, then to top it all off I was rudely cut off after being told to go ahead and go elsewhere and when I tried to start up another chat the new person ended the chat right away. Great streaming platform but their customer service is ridiculously rude and judgmental and very unprofessional. I’d absolutely recommend them and give them 4 stars if their customer service was better or they had their team take sensitivity classes and how deal with consumer respectively and professionally classes.

I signed up today for a seven day free trialAnd entered in my payment information. Not even a full day and the app kicked me out of the show and says I need to contact Philo. I called the company and I was told there are five account under my phone number and that I would need to be charged $20 to continue using Philo. I was also told they do not have my payment information. If this is the case I am concerned that there are multiple accounts under my phone number which should not be the case because I signed up today they told me they do not have my payment information which I entered so now where is my information being sent to. I never write reviews but this is not okay. I told Philo Will be checking my banking statements to make sure they do not take any payments from me. As I do not trust them and did sign up today with my payment information. Also you cannot sign up without giving that information and I was able to watch one show on the app so how do they figure. I would give negative stars if I could!

I cancelled this service because it was always timing out. It was awful. Deleted it from my tv the first week. Cancelled it on Apple and apparently didn’t take and I was charged another month. Biggest rip off ever because it was charged after I cancelled it. Avoid this service! Thanks Philo for the response. I deleted the service from my tv. I went through all the processes to fix it. As well, I did contact Apple but it is in fact you that has to make it right because they won’t reverse charges from you - but you know that already so let’s just be honest about that. You get to keep a charge you did not earn.

Responding to Philo stating Apple has to make the decision: Yes you are correct Apple makes the decision - but they have an agreement with you to not refund - they won’t even consider it. Because they have always been reasonable with their response to problems with a service. This one they didn’t even go look to see all the complains of timing out. So just stop. Again worst streaming service I have tried.

I had high hopes for Philo, but it’s extremely buggy on my Apple TV. Constant freeze up issues (lag?) which require a full system reset at least every couple of days. Sometimes the shows don’t load at all and other times they freeze up in the middle of a program. Error codes abound. There have also been various issues with the channel guide rearranging itself by random criteria and scattering favorited channels to various places in the list. There’s an option to restart a show from the beginning, but you can never watch more than about 30 minutes because eventually it overrides and forces you back to live programming. You can’t go back again - it’s a sleezy way to force customers into paying extra for the DVR add-on.

They have been talking about an overhaul of the Apple TV platform for a long time (a year or more), but either that never happened or it didn’t work. This is not what I would consider a “release-ready” product in its current state. Customer service has been great, but unfortunately the technology just isn’t there yet.

This app really isn’t for busy people. I bought this app because I like lifetime movies. They’re good clean movies and I love HGTV. I get both with this app. However, I will start to watch a lifetime movie before work at 6:30am while I get ready and when I get home at 6pm ready to have dinner and finish my movie Philo tells me “this content is no longer available” So now I’ve seen 3 movies that I wasn’t able to watch the last 40 mins of, which of course is the best part. It’s so frustrating. I understand they will just keep certain movies on for a limited time, but tell us the expiration! And why would the content be available that morning but expire in the afternoon. What an odd time. It should expire at midnight. Things available in the morning should be available until the next day. Hulu puts a warning on something that was going to expire. I never would have started these movies if I had known I wasn’t going to have time to finish before it expired. I would have started one that wasn’t and saved these for when they air again in the future.