Max is here, and it will feel very familiar to HBO Max subscribers

Today marks the big debut of Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max, the new streaming service that bundles all of the company’s entertainment together inside one destination. All the eggs are going in one basket, and yes, HBO is still getting a major focus – even if it’s not in name anymore.

I got an early preview of Max at Warner Bros. Discovery’s New York City office last week, and I was initially struck by how closely the HBO Max app matches what it’s replacing. The homescreen, shows and movies pages, and general user experience will feel instantly familiar to everyone. but only because looks like Similar doesn’t mean it’s a recycled app: Warner Bros. Discovery has extensively rebuilt Max with a focus on simpler navigation, deeper personalization, and more reliable offline downloads. The company wants to show the breadth of additional content that is coming with Discovery without overwhelming customers.

We work directly with the app demo, so I can’t speak to the account signup process or how smoothly the migration from HBO Max to Max will be for existing customers. (The Max at least includes new login options like Wi-Fi sign in and a QR code you can scan to log in from a mobile device that’s easier to type than a TV.) Some days— A glitch seems inevitable. But what I saw looked like a promising starting point. “Both companies had great technology stacks. But we wanted to create something that was the best of both,” said Avi Saxena, chief technology officer at Warner Bros. Discovery.

Navigation is one area that has received a lot of attention. On the TV platform, navigation on the left has been dramatically simplified to just three sections: Search, Home, and My Stuff. The primary homescreen has the usual detailed artwork and autoplaying videos we’ve come to expect from major streaming services. At the top are the categories (or “lenses,” as Warner Bros. Discovery calls them) Home, Series, Movies, HBO, and New & Notable. Yes, HBO gets its footing here for making it easy to drill down into that network’s acclaimed programming. If you want, you can avoid Discovery stuff altogether. But on the main homescreen and throughout the rest of the app, Max isn’t shy about mixing content from all over Warner Bros. Discovery’s properties. New and Noteworthy is the place where you can find the latest additions to the service and see what Max is dropping in the near future.

Throughout the app — on the content carousel and various collection pages — Warner Bros. Discovery says it’s offering more personalization than ever before. It’s a mix of human curation and algorithms at play; The latter will be more important once people actually start using the app and indicating which content suits their tastes. All told, Max will have twice the total amount of content as HBO Max, so Warner Bros. Discovery wants to bring you the most relevant shows in front of you. And while sports and live, linear streaming hasn’t been a major focus of the Max right out of the gate, it looks like it could change down the road.

“We’re exploring what to do with live content and sports and news, and we’ll have more to share later this year,” Tyler Whitworth, chief product officer for Warner Bros. Discovery, told me last week. ” , “We think there are some really interesting opportunities out there.”

Like HBO Max, Max will support multiple different profiles per account. New signups will see a default kids profile paired with the primary profile; This account is limited to PG-rated content and lower, but parents can customize their own rating threshold. You can also set up a PIN to prevent kids from changing profiles when you’re not around. The migrated accounts will see all of their existing profiles when they switch to Max, so if you didn’t have a Kids account before, you won’t have one either.

A few months back, I was on a plane with an iPad with a handful of HBO Max downloads. But when I went to run them, the app threw an error saying it couldn’t access the internet – and I couldn’t access Any of that offline content. I later found out it was a general complaint, There were workarounds; Putting your device into Airplane Mode will help HBO Max realize that it was offline and make your downloads playable. But I didn’t learn that pro tip until Afterwards landing, and it was a very frustrating experience.

Warner Bros. Discovery has heard some of this feedback, and with Max, the company’s development team has completely revamped the codebase for offline downloads. The result should be a more stable and reliable system that won’t fail on you at the worst of times – like on an airplane runway. “We improved the speed a lot,” Saxena told me. “We have our own encoding platform, so we encode the videos in a very efficient way, so the download size is very small and the downloads are very fast.” The team has also tried to better account for different network conditions.

Max is launching on every popular platform you can think of: there are 15 in total. The AirPlay and Casting features are still present, although Apple’s SharePlay is not supported at launch and neither is the frame rate or dynamic range matching on the Apple TV. And Warner Bros. Discovery is using its own player instead of the native tvOS version, so you can’t clear content as easily with the Apple TV’s remote.

If you want to experience Max with the best possible picture quality, you’ll need to subscribe to the $19.99 Ultimate plan. Some customers are disappointed that 4K resolution is still gated at certain levels and now costs more than HBO Max.

“We recognize that there are many customers who prefer to receive their content in the best video and best audio possible,” Whitworth said. “The number of shows we’re offering in 4K is overwhelming.” The company confirmed this on Monday, publishing a long list of movies and TV shows streaming in 4K at launch. Warner Bros. Discovery has said it will be adding more 4K content to the service on a monthly basis. “As we think about how to give customers the right choice for what they want, with the expanded offering, this will be well positioned to be on the last level,” Whitworth said.

The good news for current HBO Max subscribers is that they’ll keep all of their existing plan benefits (including 4K) at the same price they’ve been paying for at least six months.

From my conversations with Warner Bros. Discovery, it’s clear there is already a roadmap in place for where Max will go from here. The company plans to closely monitor customer feedback and prioritize updates and tweaks based on what customers say. There are large teams to support the launch of the service and keep things humming along, but bugs and occasional problems seem all but certain with a migration this big.

You can try Max starting today: The new app has debuted on multiple platforms — streaming devices, smart TVs, game consoles, and more — and Warner Bros. Discovery has said that “a substantial portion” of HBO Max subscribers will see their apps switch to Max with today’s software update. In some cases where this is not possible, you may need to download the standalone Max app to get started. Don’t be surprised if this all sounds very familiar. But if Warner Bros. Discovery has done its job, Max should run more smoothly across the board than HBO Max.