0.3.8 Beta 15
Another big one: a Collections hub (Discover cards, Streaming Services with their logos, and Genres) on Home and Discover with a tap-to-browse grid, native debrid playback that plays cached torrents instantly, budget and box office on movies, spoiler-blurred unwatched episodes, an in-player AirPlay button, a download queue, upcoming-movie release dates, and the Apple TV 47-second crash plus the Mac crash fixes from your reports. In-place update, nothing resets. Please install it and report anything off, especially the Apple TV stability and the new hub on real hardware. Thanks to @OrigamiSpace , whose open SkipDB and in-player editor several of these features build on.
Fixed
- Apple TV no longer crashes about 47 seconds into playback when the streaming cache is on. The on-disk cache budget was being held as an in-memory buffer and pushed the Apple TV past its memory limit; it is now capped to a device-safe amount of RAM, so the cache can be on without the crash.
- Mac no longer crashes from the search bar. The macOS search field lived in the window toolbar, which could throw under rapid UI updates; macOS now uses an inline search field instead.
- Title logos show for titles from any catalog. A show or movie coming from a TMDB (or other non-IMDb) catalog now resolves its logo via the title's IMDb id, on the detail page and the Home hero, not only IMDb-catalog titles.
- A series detail page no longer crops the hero image. Series that only ship a portrait poster now fit the hero band instead of cropping with black bars, on Apple TV, iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
- A finished download no longer fails with "cannot create file" (the downloads folder is created before the file is saved).
- Mac: arrow keys move focus on Home, and the Home hero no longer flickers through titles when focus changes.
- Video upscaling is now per-device (standard on Apple TV, scaled on Mac if you choose) and no longer syncs over.
- The streaming cache is Off by default (the picker used to show 2 GB while it was actually off).
Added
- Scrub-preview thumbnails now generate on every player engine. They previously did not capture when a title played through the AVPlayer engine (Dolby Vision and HLS on Auto), so those titles produced no previews; they are captured and contributed now, on Apple TV, iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
- A Download button beside Quality on the detail page (movies and episodes) downloads the auto-selected quality, with Download, Downloading, and Downloaded states and a Library badge that shows active downloads, on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
- Apple TV: an in-player skip-segment editor. Mark and submit intro, recap, outro, and preview times right from the Apple TV player; submissions go to VortX's open skip database and the community SkipDB. Thanks to OrigamiSpace, whose iPhone and Mac editor this is the Apple TV version of.
- Apple TV: offline downloads. Download movies and episodes on Apple TV, with a note that the system can reclaim the space when storage runs low.
- A Collections hub on Home and Discover. A new band high on the screen with three rows: Discover cards (Trending, Popular, Latest, Upcoming), Streaming Services shown with their logos (Netflix, Disney+, Prime, and the services available in your region, including anime, K-drama, and regional ones), and Genres. Tap any tile to browse its catalogs, Movies, Shows, New Movies, New Shows, Top This Week, Month, and Year, and Trending, and every title plays through VortX as usual. You can reorder the streaming services, turn the hub on or off for Home and Discover separately, and choose how often it refreshes. Needs a TMDB key (Settings, Metadata). It replaces the older grouped streaming and genre rails. On Apple TV, iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
- Budget and box office on a movie's page. A movie now shows its budget, box office, and profit under the ratings. Movies only, needs a TMDB key, and you can hide it in Settings. On Apple TV, iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
- Spoiler-safe episodes. Episode thumbnails you have not watched yet are blurred so a future episode's art does not spoil you. Watched episodes stay clear; turn it off in Settings. On Apple TV, iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
- AirPlay from the player. iPhone and iPad now show an AirPlay button in the player overlay, so you can start AirPlay without leaving the app.
- Download queue. Downloads now run a few at a time and the rest wait in line, starting automatically as each one finishes, so queueing a season no longer hammers your connection all at once.
- Player haptics on iPhone and iPad for play/pause, accepting a skip, and copying a link.
- Cached debrid torrents play instantly. Add your Real-Debrid, TorBox, AllDebrid, or Premiumize key under Settings, Debrid, and a cached torrent now plays straight from your debrid account instead of starting the torrent, with more than one service checked at once.
Install
Mac (.dmg, easiest, never expires). Download VortX-macOS-v0.3.8-beta14-ci.dmg, drag VortX into Applications, then clear Apple's one-time quarantine: open it once, click Done, then System Settings > Privacy & Security > Open Anyway (or run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/VortX.app). Full guide: Install on Mac.
iPhone, iPad, Apple TV (sideload the IPA). The IPAs are unsigned, because VortX is open-source and distributed outside the App Store with no Apple Developer ID yet, so you re-sign them yourself with Sideloadly, AltStore / SideStore, or Signulous. No jailbreak. Full guide: Installing on iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV.
Each asset lists a SHA-256 checksum so you can confirm your download matches what the public GitHub Actions workflow built from this code.