Younify is a streaming TV guide that actually works

Many companies have tried to build a universal TV guide for streaming, but they all suffer from the same fundamental problem: They don’t fully understand what you’ve been watching.

You can use Reelgood or Plex to discover new shows and create watchlists, for instance, but those apps can’t see your watch history and can’t help resume where you left off. Alternatively, Apple TV and Google TV devices have their own streaming guide features, but they don’t work with every major streaming service. The hope for a truly universal watchlist—one that pulls all your shows into one menu—has so far gone unfulfilled.

Younify might have finally cracked the code: This new iOS and Android app, from the makers of PlayOn, automatically combines your watchlists and watch history from 10 major streaming services, then lets you start watching with one tap. While it’s still rough around the edges, no other universal guide is this comprehensive at keeping track of what to watch.

Pulling everything together

Younify is based on the same platform as PlayOn, a streaming DVR service that’s been around since the late aughts.

In both cases, the company has figured out the folder structure that streaming services use to arrange their content. If you sign into Netflix in PlayOn’s app, for instance, you’ll see folders for things like “Continue Watching” and “My List,” reflecting what you’d normally see on Netflix’s home screen.

Younify is using that same knowledge to build a streaming TV guide.

When you launch the app, you’re prompted to sign into each service to which you subscribe. Younify then presents several rows of video thumbnails, including a “Watchlist” row, a “Continue Watching” row, and “Recommended for You.” Each thumbnail shows the source of the content, whether it’s Netflix, Hulu, or someplace else.

All this content gets pulled in automatically based on your activity on each service. If you watch something on Netflix, it’ll show up in Younify’s “Continue Watching” row. If you add a movie to your watchlist in the Amazon Prime app, it’ll appear in Younify’s “Watchlist” row.

Once you choose a movie or show, Younify will open it in the corresponding app on your phone. You can then use Chromecast or AirPlay to send the video to your TV. Tracy Burman, PlayOn’s COO, said that a direct TV casting feature—akin to what’s available in Reelgood’s mobile app—is on the way, and there might be big-screen Younify apps for TV platforms such as Android TV and Apple TV in the future.

In the preview build that I tested, Younify worked with Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Max, Peacock, Paramount+, Disney+, Discovery+, and Showtime. Burman said Apple TV+ should be available at launch, and that other streaming services may follow.

Younify vs. other streaming guides

With other guide apps, such as Reelgood and Justwatch, managing your watchlist is more of a chore. If you start watching a TV episode on Netflix, you must remember to mark that episode as watched in the Reelgood or Justwatch apps; otherwise, the apps will lose track of where you are. They have no visibility into what you’re doing in each streaming app, so they can’t automatically update your watch history.

The universal guides that are built into streaming platforms have their own blind spots. Some examples:

• On Google TV, the “Continue Watching” row integrates with Netflix, but watchlists and recommendations do not. Conversely, Peacock supports Google TV’s watchlist feature, but not its “Continue Watching” row.
• On Apple TV, the TV app doesn’t integrate with Netflix at all. It’s also overly aggressive about promoting Apple TV+ content.
• The “Resume” row on Fire TV only covers content from Amazon’s streaming services.
• Roku’s “Continue Watching” row remains a work in progress with only a handful of supported services, and its “What to Watch” section doesn’t let you filter out services you’re not paying for.

Such limitations are usually due to platform politics and the need to play nice with streaming providers. That’s never been an obstacle for PlayOn, whose recording features clearly run afoul of streaming companies terms of service–even if they have some legal precedent.

PlayOn plans to continue offering its DVR service, and it sees Younify as a new business opportunity. It plans to make money from the service by selling aggregate viewership data, similar to what Reelgood is doing, and Burman said individual viewing data won’t be sold.

What Younify’s missing

As of now, Younify still has some rough spots. When you refresh the home screen, it takes about 10 seconds to fully populate with recent activity, and I’ve had some issues with the app failing to reflect changes to my Netflix watchlist. The Continue Watching isn’t fully chronological, either, as the shows you’ve watched most recently sometimes appear further down the list.

Younify also isn’t a complete replacement for individual apps. There’s no way to manage your watchlist and recently-watched rows directly, so you’ll need to go into each individual app to add or remove watchlist items or hide things from the Continue Watching row. Browsing options, meanwhile, are limited beyond Younify’s “Recommended,” “Trending,” and “Critically Acclaimed” rows, with no ability to view genres from across different streaming catalogs.

On the whole, though, Younify’s app is a brilliant end-run around the limitations of other streaming guides, and a reminder of how streaming TV could work if petty platform politics didn’t get in the way.

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