Were you one of the millions who tried to watch the series finale of Mare of Easttown only to be unable to get the HBO Max app to load or even let you play the episode? It was totally unusable the entire night, forcing fans to catch the finale the next day.

Unfortunately, this sort of issue is a common experience among users of HBO's streaming service. But that might soon change.

The HBO Max smart TV apps will be totally replaced with new versions by early next year, according to an anonymous WarnerMedia executive who spoke to Vulture and claimed the new apps should land in the "next four or five months". Roku and PlayStation owners will receive the overhauled apps first in late 2021, and then Apple TV users will be up next before the end of the year.

Mobile and web viewers should get their new HBO Max apps sometime in early 2022. Hopefully, these apps won't have flaws such as crashing, broken playback controls, missing settings, and an overall inability to use the app. Apparently, these serious issues stem from WarnerMedia rushing to launch HBO Max in May. It didn't build new apps but instead just repurposed HBO Go and HBO Now.

The service is now one of the most popular streaming apps in the US, however, and we suspect that high demand is too much for the apps to handle. WarnerMedia is supposedly planning to modernise the apps' underpinnings and give them room to grow.

There will even be a more "sophisticated" interface update as well as new and upgraded features, but don't expect a radical design change.