May 23, 2023 is a day for the streaming history books; the day Warner Bros. Discovery launched “Max,” and the purple-hued king that was HBO Max was forever taken from the public, lost in the web archives of the world.
A type of. Although WBD promised that today would be the day streamer Max replaces the original HBO Max, for a few hours after Max’s launch, its predecessor was still accessible via the Internet. That has since been fixed, and going to the HBO Max website now redirects you to a page begging you to go to Max.com, but it gave us ample opportunity to compare the changes between the two streamers and what changed and what didn’t. has changed.
So HBO Max is no longer available?
In the hours it was still active, HBO Max still had all of the content it already had on the site and could be watched and streamed as freely and readily as before Max launched. What was missing was all the content added to Max that is released on the service today, including the new revival of ‘Clone High’, the animated series ‘Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai’, the podcast adaptation ‘Smartless: On the Road’ or Discovery+’s bucket of legacy content such as the entire “90 Day Fiancé” franchise. Sadly, the HBO Max classic is now more or less officially dead, robbing us of hope of watching the “Succession” series finale on the old platform.
Why does Max have your old “Keep Watching” list?
The new Max keeps your viewing history from the old site. But in what appears to be a bug, titles you removed from the “Continue Watching” section on HBO Max may have moved to the Continue Watching section at the top of Max’s page. For example, this writer watched half of ” Juno” on HBO Max a month ago in April, and subsequently deleted it from its Keep Watching section. On Max, however, is on the home page, with the exact time he left the film still intact.
Does Max look different than HBO Max?
Appearance-wise, both streamers have basically the same UI layout, except that Max swaps its predecessor’s signature purple for a dark blue background. Each homepage features a list of saved titles (again, your watchlist has carried over) called “My Watchlist” and carousels like “Just Added” or “New Episodes This Week.” Some of the more creative or curated carousels featured on Max’s page on launch day include “Meet Your Next Obsession” (which appears to contain entirely docuseries and reality shows), “Life With TLC” (featuring content from the channel), “Become an Armchair Detectives” (true crime), “HGTV Happy Place” (home renovation), “All the LOLs” (comedies), and “Drama! Drama! Drama!” (self explanatory).
How do you navigate the new menus on Max versus the old ones on HBO Max?
The main difference between streamers lies in the navigation menu at the top of the screen, which has been streamlined during the transition.
HBO Max had buttons that lead to the “Movies” and “Series” pages and a drop-down menu that gave you the ability to search for “Original” titles, “Last Chance” titles that are being removed from the service, titles that are “Coming Soon,” what is “Trending Now” and projects that have received “Awards and acclaim”. The drop-down menu also had a tab for browsing titles by genre, a list of brands to search for, including curated titles from Turner Classic Movies and the Adult Swim and Studio Ghibli libraries, and a redirect to a titles page that offered descriptions. audio for accessibility purposes.
Max, ditches that dropdown entirely, in favor of a single top navigation menu that contains four redirects: “Series,” “Movies,” an HBO tab with channel titles, and “New & Notable.” A welcome addition is a ribbon symbol on the main navigation bar that automatically redirects you to your list of saved shows and movies.
Where do you find genre listings on Max?
As for the content featured in abandoned aspects of the original HBO Max UI, you need to search the streamer a bit to find it. Genre listings are included at the bottom of the HBO Max homepage, with “Audio Description” grouped as a genre between “Adventure & Survival” and “Comedy”. Collections featured in the HBO Max drop-down menu are included in a “Brand Spotlight” carousel on the homepage; along with DC, TCM, Studio Ghibli, Cartoon Network, and Sesame Workshop, new brands added include “Wizarding World” (“Harry Potter”), CNN originals, and a glut of programming from Discovery-owned cable channels like Magnolia, Discovery, Food Network, HGTV and TLC.
Is navigating a show’s episode list different on Max?
In terms of viewing the titles themselves, one of the more annoying UI changes is the way episodes for the show are displayed. On HBO Max, if you went to check out “Succession,” it showed all of a season’s episodes at once, with a navigation menu for switching between seasons. On Max’s homepage that season menu remains, but now the shows display vertically in a carousel, and you have to click an arrow button to scroll through four episodes at a time.
HBO shows that are currently airing have a “new episode” tag on the coroner at the top left of its thumbnail on the site, though this seems to only apply to HBO originals. For example, the Comedy Central-turned-Max comedy series HBO Max “The Other Two” is currently releasing new episodes of its third season, but it doesn’t get the honor of a “New Episode” tag.
Is the video player for Max different?
The popular HBO Max video player made the transition to the Max intact. The only big difference is that, with the old streamer’s player, the playing time was located in the lower left corner below the progress bar and showed the elapsed time in the episode followed by a slash and the total running time (for example, 25:00/50:00, for example). On Max, the time played is displayed on the right side of the screen and simply counts the total time left in the episode.
What TV shows and movies can you watch with Max?
With all these differences catalogued, what is there to enjoy a viewer who knows how to navigate the Max app in this bold new blue world?
In addition to the originals that have already been released and the Discovery+ content that has been added, upcoming Max content to be added in the coming months includes originals like Season 2 of “And Just Like That…” and Season 3 of former Cinemax series “Warrior”. in June and Steven Soderbergh’s miniseries “Full Circle” in July. And though HBO has been dropped from the name, Max is still the place to watch HBO shows; next month, you can use the service to stream the third season of the acclaimed comedy show “The Righteous Gemstones” or the premiere of the controversial Cannes premiere “The Idol.” Later Max originals that have been announced but won’t arrive for at least another year include the Batman spin-off ‘The Penguin’, ‘Dune: The Sisterhood’ or the controversial TV reboot of ‘Harry Potter’.
Were the titles removed from HBO Max returned for Max?
No, the new streamer doesn’t have any of the 87 titles that were picked up by HBO Max in the course of WBD’s transition to Max; those titles, like the HBO Max service, have been confined to our memories or FAST services, if they were lucky.
