VortX

VortX 0.5.6 beta 11 - AetherEngine on every Apple device and Trakt that stays signed in

Build 282 for Apple TV, iPhone, iPad and Mac. The AetherEngine player to try now comes to iPhone, iPad and Mac as well as Apple TV. Trakt stays signed in on every device you use, and Trakt Continue Watching reaches the Apple TV Top Shelf after re-signing.

New

• AetherEngine on iPhone, iPad and Mac, to try. The second player from Apple TV, using the device's own video decoding and display, now runs on iPhone and iPad with iOS 18 or later and on Mac with macOS 15 or later. Choose it under Settings > Playback > Player engine, or for one title from the player menu on its sources. Auto stays the default, and older systems keep the same app without the choice. If AetherEngine cannot play a source, VortX Player takes over on the same source from the same moment. The in-player engine menu shows when AetherEngine is playing and switches to VortX Player or AVPlayer. Picture-based (PGS) subtitles are not drawn with it yet.

Fixed

• Trakt stays signed in on all your devices (#187). Devices sharing one Trakt sign-in renew it at about the same time. One device could miss the renewed sign-in for a few seconds and sign itself out, so only one device kept syncing. It now waits briefly for the renewed sign-in from your other device and keeps going.
• Trakt Continue Watching on the Top Shelf (#229). After AltStore or SideStore re-signs VortX, the Apple TV Top Shelf shows your Trakt and SIMKL Continue Watching like it shows local rows. Under a signing service whose shared space other apps can read, it still shows only local rows.
• Imported Stremio titles in Library (#267). The Library shows the native engine's combined view, including imported saved titles and eligible watched history, and a connected account has a Refresh Stremio import action.

Android

Android stays on the 0.5.6 beta 7 packages for now. Its release build stopped at an account-sync check, and it ships as soon as that passes.

Please test

• Try AetherEngine on an iPhone, iPad or Mac on a few sources you know well, including Dolby Vision and Atmos titles, and compare it with VortX Player.
• If you use Trakt on more than one device, check that every device keeps syncing over a few days.
• On Apple TV after AltStore or SideStore, check that the Top Shelf follows your Trakt Continue Watching.

This is a prerelease for testing. Update using the same platform and variant to preserve your app identity and saved data. Apple IPAs require compatible sideload signing; the Apple-silicon Mac app is ad-hoc signed and is not notarized. Device playback, focus, audio routes and signing capabilities remain part of testing.

Install

Mac (.dmg). Download VortX-macOS-v0.5.6-beta.11-ci.dmg and drag VortX into Applications. If macOS blocks the app downloaded from this official release, use System Settings > Privacy & Security > Open Anyway, or run:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/VortX.app

The command removes the download quarantine flag; it does not notarize the app or change its signature. The Mac app is for Apple silicon, needs macOS 14 or later, and is ad-hoc signed rather than notarized. macOS may ask for your password so VortX can use its saved sign-in information in Keychain after replacing the app; approve only a prompt that names VortX. Step-by-step guide: Install on Mac.

iPhone, iPad, Apple TV (sideload the IPA). The IPAs are unsigned and need to be re-signed with a compatible sideloading tool or signing service, such as Sideloadly, AltStore / SideStore, or Signulous. No jailbreak. Use VortX-iOS-v0.5.6-beta.11-ci.ipa for iPhone and iPad. On Apple TV, `VortX-tvOS-v0.5.6-beta.11

VortX 0.5.6 beta 10 - Accounts that always open, Cast, saved playlists and AetherEngine

Build 281 for Apple TV, iPhone, iPad and Mac. This beta brings the Apple apps everything since beta 7 (the beta 8 and beta 9 numbers were not published): accounts that keep opening when one saved value is unreadable, sign-ins that refresh themselves, Google Cast on iPhone and iPad, add-on subtitles in the built-in players, saved playlists and Library genre filters, a new AetherEngine player to try on Apple TV, plus the fixes below.

Fixed

• Accounts open even when one saved value is unreadable (#262, #263, #265). One saved setting or name the app could not read stopped the whole account from loading, so profiles never appeared. Titles and add-on names that start with tags such as [RD] [4K] or [TB⚡] are now read as text. If a single device setting still cannot be read, the account opens without it, and a name that cannot be read shows as "Untitled". The original stays in your account's cloud copy, and the diagnostic log notes what was set aside.
• Sign-ins no longer run out. VortX accounts now refresh their sign-in while you use them, and the apps keep the refreshed one. If the account service does turn a session away, Library and profiles show a way to sign in again instead of loading forever.
• Your Stremio library in the Library tab (#267). Titles imported from Stremio show in the owner profile's Library instead of only the titles played in VortX.
• Connecting Trakt (#271). Connecting could fail with "Could not reach the VortX Trakt service" when the service sent a compressed reply. The app now accepts it.
• Tapping a movie on iPhone (#279). Some titles closed the app before their page appeared. The detail page now builds its information without running out of room.
• Installed add-ons stay visible. An add-on you had removed and installed again could stay hidden by its old removal record.
• Imported collections. One add-on with a broken catalog no longer hides the valid collections imported from the others.
• Saved seek previews show again instead of being replaced by a blank preview from memory.
• A crash while handling a background notification is fixed.
• Diagnostic logs leave out add-on settings. Add-on addresses in exported logs no longer include the part of the address where add-ons keep debrid keys and sign-in tokens.

New

• Google Cast on iPhone and iPad. Send what you are watching to a Cast device and take it back.
• Add-on subtitles in the built-in players. Subtitles from your installed subtitle add-ons load in the built-in players, with automatic timing alignment where the video allows it.
• Saved playlists. Create named playlists in your profile, saved with your account, and play them later. Each profile's playback queue is also kept between launches.
• Library genre filters.
• AetherEngine player on Apple TV, to try. A second player for VortX and VortX Lite that uses Apple TV's own video decoding and display. Choose it under Settings > Playback > Player engine, or for a single source from its player menu. Auto stays the default. If AetherEngine cannot play a source, VortX Player takes over on the same source from the same moment. Picture-based (PGS) subtitles are not drawn with it yet.

Android

Android stays on the 0.5.6 beta 7 packages for now. Its Cast, subtitle, playlist and collection work is still finishing its account-sync testing, and it ships as soon as that passes.

Please test

• Sign in on a device whose account would not load before, and check that profiles and Library appear. If something shows as "Untitled", tell us

VortX 0.5.6 beta 7 - More add-on results, playback queues and a better Quick View

Build 280 across Apple and Android. This beta keeps different configurations of the same add-on separate, gives slower aggregators more time to answer, and fixes updating an add-on without changing its URL. You can queue what to watch next, let Home surprise you, and open a larger, more cinematic title preview.

Fixed

• Several AIOStreams configurations, only one set of results. Configurations can all call themselves AIOStreams. VortX used that shared name in parts of the source list, so their sections, filters and selections could collide. Each configured add-on now keeps its own identity, and a selected source stays tied to the configuration that returned it.
• Slower add-ons cut off too soon. Stream requests now have 40 seconds to answer on Apple and Android. Faster add-ons still show their results as they arrive. Metadata keeps its separate, shorter timeout.
• Singularity torrent rows that could not be selected on Apple. When you have a compatible debrid account connected, an explicit selection can ask your own account to resolve an eligible torrent result even if it has no ready-to-play URL. Episode selections keep the requested season and episode instead of guessing the first file. Successful playback still depends on your provider and the release.
• Singularity stopping at the first 100 results. The updated Apple client and the deployed source service now support paged torrent results, allowing lists beyond the first page. Older clients keep their existing 100-result response. Android's Singularity pool remains disabled.
• Update did nothing when the manifest URL stayed the same. Refresh manifest fetches the latest configuration at the current URL; Update URL changes the address. A refresh ignores an old manifest preview, and the existing add-on stays until the update confirms.
• The eye button and disappearing disabled add-ons. Turning an add-on off keeps it in the management list so you can turn it back on. Visibility changes show that they are saving, report failures, and stay with the profile you changed.
• Mac crashing as the profile screen opened. A native player callback could fail before VortX reached the profile picker. Its thread handling is corrected, and the repaired Mac test build has been checked through that screen.

New

• A playback queue for movies and shows. From a title, choose Play next or add it to the end, then manage the order from the player. The queue can continue after normal playback completion. Apple's queue lasts for the current app session; Android saves it on this device for the account and profile. These are upcoming-title queues, not shared or cloud playlists.
• Surprise me on Home. Let VortX pick an unwatched movie or show from your loaded recommendations and visible catalogs. It opens the normal title page for you to look at and choose a source. It does not start playback automatically or use hidden catalogs and Continue Watching as its pool.
• A more cinematic Quick View on Mac, iPhone and iPad. Larger artwork, a title logo where available, compact facts and genres, cleaner red glass actions and a cast row replace the old poster-and-text box. Mac and iPad get a wider floating panel; narrow phone layouts use the available screen. Extra artwork and cast load after the seeded preview. View streams opens the existing full title page and sources.
• Title artwork while playback opens. Apple and Android show the selected title's artwork or logo, where available, while its video loads, then reveal playback. This startup cover stays out of the way of controls, errors and Back, and does not cover ordinary same-video rebuffering.
• Session audio presets in the MPV player. Normal, Dialogue and Night are available from the audio controls when the current

Android Full media component: the Apple player's mpv and libplacebo, producer 5774f40f

Component prerelease only; not an app release or Latest update.

The AAR is unchanged from the producer: SHA-256 81312ffa6a08373d16df689fd55be733bbb10aab6efd22bc69961d699bd25b88, 35,811,992 bytes. It contains the three existing Android ABIs with minSdk 26. Android now builds the same mpv and libplacebo commits as the Apple player: mpv 8c67647b50059406c5c0444903597281b81516cf (master, newer than the 0.41.0 release) with the same platform-neutral HTTP seek interrupt patch, and libplacebo 4c426e466814536def653cb23f1d1c287ea7a7f5. It also carries FFmpeg 9.0.2 (946fcce07b6dcd0331c8cc609192aeff5e1924f8), HarfBuzz 14.6.0, mbedTLS 3.6.7 and the reviewed distrust policy. It supersedes the FFmpeg 9.0.2 component vendor-libmpv-android-20261022-b7b13871 before any app release used it. Its accompanying source kit preserves the full captured dependency and publisher sources, source patches, generated FFmpeg configs, actual build recipes and the producer's evidence.

Producer: public commit 5774f40f1530a8db17b6afa7d183991ab511ede9, Actions run 39795493147, attempt 1, NDK 30.0.16248370. The run passed its own artifact checker (buildExit: 0). That checker is the same reviewed validator (450d2ed1…) as the previous components; its per-library results (ELF identity on all thirty libraries, 16 KiB load alignment on the twenty 64-bit ones) are carried into the provenance unchanged. No local reinspection was needed or performed.

This is not a device/playback/JNI or live TLS test, app/seam integration acceptance, Play artifact, or a claim of a reproducible binary rebuild. Packaging requires the exact producer SDK notice inputs and grants no publication approval.

Consume only the declared AAR checksum and publish its source kit, provenance and SHA256SUMS together. Do not replace an earlier vendor asset or reuse an upstream Maven coordinate for these bytes.