Aardvark Daily

Please visit the sponsor!

Disney+ Why is this so hard?

Yesterday I was gobsmacked at how something which should be pretty simple has been made so hard by the misuse of technology.

Over the past month and a half, my wife has been incredibly patient and hard working as she has cared for me in my pretty much helpless state -- lying on the living room floor. During the first couple of weeks I was out of my tree on very powerful pain killers and I wasn't actually even able to remain vertical for more than a few seconds at a time until week four.

It's not like she doesn't have health issues of her own so this selfless dedication to making the past few weeks far less miserable for me than it otherwise would have been deserves its rewards.

Yesterday I decided to surprise her with something she'd already mentioned several times over the past six months.

She wanted a subscription to the Disney+ streaming service.

We did have access to Disney+ for a few months a couple of years ago but dropped it when pruning such expenses. Since then she's been longing to watch a few series and have some of her favourite movies on-tap.

Yesterday I cracked out the credit card, logged onto the Disney+ website and created an account with associated streaming subscription.

Pretty simple stuff, no worries.

However, the real fun was about to begin.

Obviously I needed to change the login details on the Disney+ app so that it would once again deliver the feast of entertainment my wife was expecting.

I fired up the Google device that plugs in the back of the TV. All the usual apps are there: YouTube, Netflix, PrimeVideo, Disney+ and a raft of others.

Clicking on the Disney+ app brought me a screen that said "there is a problem" -- which was to be expected. Those old login credentials were invalid. In setting up the new account I'd used a different login email and password.

Now at this stage I would have expected the app to drop be into the "login" screen so I could enter the new credentials.

No, apparently that would be *far* too simple and obvious.

Instead, the app just displayed the Disney+ logo and did nothing else. That's it. Total silence and neither the "OK" button nor any of the direction keys did anything.

Back to my computer and time for some Googling...

Ah, apparently I needed to clear the app's data memory and cache. This involved navigating to the "advanced setup" options on the Google streaming device, selecting the Disney+ app and then scrolling a list of options until I came to the ones I needed.

Clickedy-click and 'twas done!

Back to the Google TV home page, click on the Disney app again and... a blank screen.

WTF?

Of course at that stage the sage words of a thousand Indian helpdesk workers sprung into my consciousness. "Have you tried rebooting your device?"

One power-cycle later and yes, I was being invited to log into Disney+. The worst was over; or so I thought.

First thing was that the system prompted tme to scan a QR code on the screen of my TV with a smartphone.

Excuse me? Why the hell do I need a smartphone to log my TV set into Disney+?

Netflix never required that. Prime Video never required that. In fact nothing else I'd tried over the years on this device had ever required that.

I fired up my smartphone and scanned the QR code. That brought up the Disney+ website so we moved on to Step 2 of this process.

The TV set was displaying an 8-digit authentication code that, I was told, should now be typed into the smartphone app.

Once again I was left scratching my head. The app was asking for just a 6-digit code that it said it had emailed to my account's email address. I checked that email... nothing.

The 8-digit code on the TV was, it warned, only valid for 15 minutes. For the next nearly quarter of an hour I stood at my computer, refreshing the inbox.

Nothing arrived.

Finally I noticed that there was also an option on the smartphone app to enter my login credentials there instead of relying on the promised but undelivered email. So I logged in.

Now, finally I had a place to enter the 8-digit authentication code on my smartphone so I proceeded to do so.

"That code seems incorrect" I was told.

WTF? (again).

Oh... how's this for timing... just as I keyed the last digit of that code, the TV screen had refreshed (after the 15-minute timeout I guess) and a whole new code had now been generated, hence the failure.

This whole process, from whipping out the credit card to reaching this insane level of frustration had taken almost half an hour. Why should things be so damned difficult?

A huge wave of relief washed over me when, after finally entering the correct code, I was told that everything was now set up and I could commence streaming my favourite series and movies.

So what company in their right mind would make the whole setup process so difficult and complex? Why on earth should I be required to use a smartphone to simply log into Disney+ on my TV set?

I don't recall any of these shenanigans last time I used Disney+ and that's because I wasn't forced to jump through these hoops. It seems that these extra layers of complexity are probably part of Disney's attempts to stop people from sharing their accounts with others outside their own household.

Once again, DRM ruins what should actually be a very simple process. I'm also gobsmacked that the app didn't automatically default to the login screen when it found that the credentials already entered were now no longer valid.

I'm a pretty savvy computer/internet user but this had me gritting my teeth with frustration. How on earth would the little old lady who simply had a smart TV and a landline manage when she decided it would be great to relive her childhood and watch the original Snow White cartoon movie on the screen in her living room? Unlesss she had kids or tech-savvy friends living nearby, she'd have to pay someone to come in and jump through the hurdles that Disney deliberately puts in the way of this process.

Hell, even VHS tapes and DVDs were a whole lot easier than this.

More tech does not always mean more better and once again, rampant paranoia destroys the user experience.

Carpe Diem folks!

Please visit the sponsor!

Here is a PERMANENT link to this column

Rank This Aardvark Page

Change Font