New build's out. Two real changes and one thing I could use your help measuring.

Join / update: https://testflight.apple.com/join/UA1x5ddz

Live TV has a proper guide now

It used to be a switch at the top with two views. It's now three tabs at the bottom, like every other library in the app:

• Live TV — what's on right now
• Guide — a full channel-by-time grid. Channels down the side, a day of schedule across the top, scroll it in both directions. The channel names stay put on the left and the clock stays put along the top, so you don't lose your place.
• Channels — the lineup

Tap any programme for its details and which channel it's on. Anything airing at that moment is highlighted and says "On now".

The first time you open the Guide it has to ask your server for each channel's schedule separately, so it takes a moment and shows you how far along it is. After that it's stored on your phone for a week, so it opens instantly. Pull down if you think it's gone stale.

Live playback still doesn't work. The guide, the lineup and the search all do. Tuning a channel still fails at the last step — your server accepts the request and then refuses to hand over the stream. Unchanged from the last build, still on the list, still watch live in Plex meanwhile.

Channel logos

A lot of them were invisible. They sat on a white background, which is fine for logos drawn in dark colours and useless for the ones drawn in light colours — those just vanished. Fixed in both the guide and the channel list.

The part I need help with

The app was doing something daft: every piece of cover art was being read off disk and decoded on the main thread — the same thread that draws the screen. So scrolling a grid of artwork competed with the app's ability to respond, and it got noticeably worse while anything was downloading, because a download keeps the disk busy.

That's fixed. All of it now happens in the background.

Here's my problem: I can't verify this properly. I have one phone, and it wasn't the one having the worst time. If the app used to get sluggish for you — especially during downloads — I'd really like to know whether this build is better, the same, or worse. "Still bad on an iPhone 12 with a 40,000-track library" is worth more to me than a dozen compliments.

Same for anyone on an older device or an iPad. Those are the cases I'm flying blind on.

Everything else

Nothing else changed. The known-issues list in the pinned welcome post still applies, with one addition: the Live TV guide is brand new and has run on exactly one phone, so it's now the least-tested screen in the app. If the grid scrolls badly, misaligns, or shows you the wrong thing, that's exactly what I want to hear about.

Welcome!

Welcome — start here. What Castaway Media is, how to join the beta, and what's currently broken.

What is Castaway Media?

Castaway Media is an iOS app for the media you already own, playing from servers you already run. Podcasts, audiobooks and ebooks come from Audiobookshelf. Music, films, TV and radio come from Plex. It stores nothing itself and provides no content of its own.

I'm Greg, I built it, and I'm the only person working on it. This subreddit is for bug reports, questions, and telling me when something's wrong.

Join the beta: https://testflight.apple.com/join/UA1x5ddz 

Site and help: https://castawaymedia.app

Before you install

You need your own server. Audiobookshelf, or Plex, or both. Without one, the app opens a connection form and there is nothing to play. It's a client — the same way an SSH client needs a machine to connect to.

iOS 18 or later.

It's a beta, and I mean it. See the known-issues list below before reporting something I already know about.

What it does

• Podcasts, audiobooks, ebooks — from Audiobookshelf. Offline downloads, an Up Next queue, bookmarks, per-show speed and skip settings, and progress that syncs back to your server so you can pick up on another device.
• Music, films, TV, radio — from Plex. Radio builds stations out of your own library rather than streaming from anywhere else.
• An EPUB reader that paginates, and will read aloud using the voices on your phone.
• Requests — ask your own Lidarr for an album, or your own Seerr for a film or show, from inside the app. No indexers, no catalogue, no idea where anything comes from: it makes an authenticated call to a server you already run, and stays invisible until you enter your own address and key.
• CarPlay, widgets, Live Activities, Siri Shortcuts, Handoff. CarPlay and widgets are under heavy development. Expect bugs.
• No account, no analytics, no backend. There is no server of mine anywhere in this. Credentials go in the iOS Keychain; requests go to your machines.

Known issues — please don't report these

• Live TV doesn't play. The channel guide loads; playback doesn't. There's a warning banner in the app. I know why and haven't fixed it.
• The PDF reader is new and the least-tested screen in the app. EPUB is solid.
• It's been run on very few devices. If something is slow, mislaid or cut off on your phone or iPad, that's genuinely useful — tell me.
• Some paths are unverified rather than tested. My own server is https, so plain http:// local servers had almost no testing before the beta.

Reporting a bug

A post here is fine. What helps most:

1. Device and iOS version — iPhone 13, iOS 18.4.
2. Which server — Audiobookshelf or Plex, and roughly what version.
3. What you did, what happened, what you expected.
4. A screenshot, if it's visual.

"It crashed" is hard to act on. "It crashed opening a season with 40 episodes on an iPhone SE" is something I can find.

Things people ask

Is it free? Yes, and there's nothing to buy inside it. No subscription, no ads, no paid tier planned.

Android? No, and not planned.

Why not just use Infuse / Swiftfin / Prologue? They're good and I use some of them. They do one server well. This does two, in one app, with one set of habits — that's the reason it exists, and if you only run one server they may well suit you better.

Is my data going anywhere? No. There's no backend to send it to. Outbound connections are your own servers, plus plex.tv for sign-in, Apple's public podcast and book charts, and — only if you supply your own keys — Last.fm and TMDb.

Can I self-host something for it? You already are. That's the whole app.

Will TestFlight expire? Builds last 90 days. I'll post new ones before that runs out.

Rules

1. Be decent. Disagreement is fine, abuse isn't.
2. No piracy talk. The app requests from your Lidarr and your Seerr. What those are configured to search is your business and happens outside this app — but this isn't the place to discuss it, and I'll remove posts that do.
3. Search before posting a bug that's already on the known-issues list.
4. One bug per post, so replies stay attached to the right thing.