This is a minor update with some changes being tested on the beta track

This setting allows users to change the default action when a media item is opened in Dispatch. There are two options: Go to info page and Start Playback immediately.

These options are found in Settings -> Experience -> Playback Options

When this option is used, selecting a media item from the movies, televeision, or search pages will open the selected item's info page in Plex. This has not changed from previous versions, however, with this update the ethos is applied to the home page as well. When enabled, the from media items on the home page and the will always go to the info page in Plex.

This option is useful for users who encounter a bug where starting playback directly from Dispatch stops Plex from recording / updating the user's playback progress. Unfortunately, this is a bug within the Plex app that has existed for years and also exists when using the default Android TV launcher.

When this option is used, selecting a media item from the movies, televeision, or search pages will start playback in Plex immediately. On the home tab, the and the will always start playback immediately in Plex.

In earlier versions of Dispatch, some users reported some playback lag while using Dispatch. In order to make sure user's media playback experience was never impacted, a feature was introduced to automatically shut-down Dispatch while media is being played.

However, with all the recent optimizations, it's likely this feature is no longer required. As such, for the next while, releases on the beta track will have this feature disabled by default. If testers on the beta track don't report any regressions to their playback experience, this will eventually be rolled into the stable track.

The feature will remain optional, however, and can be turned back on from Settings -> Experience -> Playback Options.

Note, however, that on devices with lower amounts of RAM, it's likely that the Android OS will close Dispatch during playback anyway. Higher RAM devices, however, will notice that pressing the home button will re-open Dispatch much more quickly if it wasn't previously closed by the above option or by the Android OS.

The following has been fixed:

Users who want to join or leave the beta track can do so from here:

With this update, enhancements that have been tested in the beta track over the last two months are making their way to the stable track.

Aside from the first change outlined below (), all other changes listed in this post have already been communicated by the January 15th and December 24th changelog entries.

When users opt to enable Auto-Start in Dispatch, they will now be presented with two options:

This auto start mode is the same as what was previously available in Dispatch. It uses an Android Accessibility service in order to set Dispatch as the default launcher on your device. Unfortunately, all Accessibility Services on Android incur a Users who want to maximize performance on their device should consider using the Advanced Auto-Start Mode instead.

Note: If you are using any other accessibility service, such as a , your device will still take the due to the accessibility service involved.

This auto-start mode uses the help of the ADB TV app from Google Play in order to set Dispatch as the default launcher. When selecting this mode, users will be shown a guide on exactly which steps need to be taken in order to use this mode. Since this mode forgoes using an Android Accessibility Service, UI performance is significantly better than the Simple Auto-Start Mode.

Note: if you already use ADB from your PC to disable the default launcher entirely, the advanced mode achieves the same result.

Each mode has their pros and cons, which are listed in the mode selector and screenshots above.

With this update, all trials have been reset once again. Anyone who has previously tried Dispatch will be able to do so again with a refreshed 14-day trial.

Please keep in mind that the update is being rolled out in stages, meaning you will need to wait until the update is available to you before taking advantage of the trial reset.

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The specific updates that affect performance are too numerous to list, as there are hundreds, but with this update, users should see improved UI performance across the board.

A huge number of changes and optimizations have also been made in order to speed up how fast Dispatch syncs your media. For instance, some operations, which used to be applied to every item in your home feed, have been sped up by ~15,000x

The sum result is that Dispatch will sync with your libraries much more quickly than before. This not only results in quicker syncs, but also better all around app performance, as Dispatch needs to spend far less time processing your media than before.

The clearest example would be Dispatch's

Before this update:

With this update:

When a custom wallpaper has been set, Dispatch will now theme the rest of the app accordingly.

Users can now also configure the wallpaper is shown. For example, in the following screenshots, the user has opted to show the wallpaper on the as well as on the pages.

The following options are available:

Additionally, the user wallpaper will now show in the page, allowing users to preview changes to the wallpaper and the wallpaper's brightness. Options have also been added here to control which pages the wallpaper is shown on, as explained above.

An additional option has been added to control the Shelf Peek opacity when that option is being used.

Dispatch can now optionally display watched indicators in the top right corner of your media items.

Additionally, Dispatch can now display indicators detailing unwatched episode counts, playback progress, how many episodes are in a season release, as well as whether a particular item is trending

These options are turned on by default and can be turned off from Settings -> Experience.

Users can now manually activate their screensaver by pressing the back button while the . This behavior is on by default, and can be disabled from Settings → Experience.

When browsing the home feed, users can now long press the back button to activate the no matter where they are. Previously, the Home Directory could only be activated by pressing the left direction button while the user is highlighting the first item in a row.

As a reminder, the Home Directory is a simplified view of your home feed that is more similar to other launchers and the stock Android / Google TV launcher. It's a great way to quickly see more content on your home screen or zoom out of Dispatch's large artwork focused UI.

These last few updates put a close to a set of efforts aimed at improving Dispatch's performance across many metrics. And while I have noticed some lamenting the fact that new features aren't been added as quickly as they'd like, I felt it was important to improve upon these issues as best as I could first. I believe as a result, Dispatch is on a much more solid foundation than at the time of release. I will of course always keep an eye out for any other potential improvements that can be made in these realms.

Otherwise, the roadmap hasn't changed and work continues on the following features, which I will have more to say about when they are ready.

This update is largely aimed at improving the speed with which Dispatch syncs your media. Like the previous update, the changes under the hood are quite sweeping, even if there are few visual changes.

A huge number of changes and optimizations have been made in order to speed up how fast Dispatch syncs. For instance, some operations, which used to be applied to every item in your home feed, have been sped up by ~15,000 times.

The sum result is that Dispatch will sync with your libraries much more quickly than before. This not only results in quicker syncs, but also better all around app performance, as Dispatch needs to spend far less time processing your media than before.

The clearest example would be Dispatch's

Before this update:

With this update:

Dispatch can now optionally display watched indicators in the top right corner of your media items.

Additionally, Dispatch can now display indicators detailing unwatched episode counts, playback progress, how many episodes are in a season release, as well as whether a particular item is trending

These options are turned on by default and can be turned off from Settings -> Experience.

For those in the beta track who have noticed this error while updating to the previous version, this update also aims to address this issue. If you update and notice this error again, please consider doing the following:

These last two updates put a close to two efforts aimed at improving Dispatch's performance across many metrics. And while I have noticed some lamenting the fact that new features aren't been added as quickly as they'd like, I felt it was important to improve upon these issues as best as I could first. I believe as a result, Dispatch is on a much more solid foundation than at the time of release. I will of course always keep an eye out for any other potential improvements that can be made in these realms.

Otherwise, the roadmap hasn't changed and work continues on the following features, which I will have more to say about when they are ready.

Hi everyone! The bulk of this update are optimizations aimed at improving app performance. In addition, a couple of minor new features and bug fixes have been included as well.

The specific updates that affect performance are too numerous to list, as there are hundreds, but with this update, users should see improved app performance across the board. In terms of changes to the app's code, the performance improvements take up roughly 95% of the code changes in this update.

When a custom wallpaper has been set, Dispatch will now theme the rest of the app accordingly.

Note: A minor bug currently requires that Dispatch be restarted after a new wallpaper theme has been applied. This will be fixed before this feature reaches the stable track.

Users can now also configure the wallpaper is shown. For example, in the following screenshots, the user has opted to show the wallpaper on the as well as on the pages.

The following options are available:

Additionally, the user wallpaper will now show in the page, allowing users to preview changes to the wallpaper and the wallpaper's brightness. Options have also been added here to control which pages the wallpaper is shown on, as explained above.

An additional option has been added to control the Shelf Peek opacity when that option is being used.

Users can now manually activate their screensaver by pressing the back button while the . This behavior is on by default, and can be disabled from Settings → Experience. This feature is not available on devices running Android 14 and above.

When browsing the home feed, users can now long press the back button to activate the no matter where they are. Previously, the Home Directory could only be activated by pressing the left direction button while the user is highlighting the first item in a row.

As a reminder, the Home Directory is a simplified view of your home feed that is more similar to other launchers and the stock Android / Google TV launcher. It's a great way to quickly see more content on your home screen or zoom out of Dispatch's large artwork focused UI.

The following fixes are included in this release

The roadmap has not changed. Work continues on the following features, which I will have more to say about when they are ready.

While features selected for the roadmap are always my main focus, users can still expect other updates to be released here and there addressing smaller issues or features while those larger projects continue to be worked on.

Hi everyone!

With today's update, and many others over the past two months, the launcher has finally reached a level of stability that I'm happy with.

In addition, the trial has moved to a cumulative model, meaning only consecutive days of use are counted. So if you try Dispatch today, and don't feel like it's right for you yet, you can always try it again later and

Summary of issues resolved since the initial release:

The following features have been selected for development next:

I will also continue investigations into the possibility of integrating with , as it is by far the most popular feature request.

The first official release of Dispatch is here! V1 brings one (maybe 1.5) additional features + many more bug fixes as well as some performance improvements.

Media from Android TV's Play Next row will now sync to Dispatch's Watch Next row.

Unfortunately, since very little metadata is known about media in Android TV's Play Next row, these items won't be as visually rich as content from your Plex library (so no logos, for example.) Still, it's better than nothing!

Dispatch's App Peek feature also supports Play Next items from Android TV. If an app has added media to your Watch Next / Play Next row, those items will be contained in a special card in front of all the other media in App Peek.

It is not yet possible to manually add to the watch next row, but that enhancement will come in the future. , on the other hand, can always be added to Watch Next by clicking the "Add to Watch Next" button.

You can individually control which apps are allowed to add items to Watch Next (and Watch Next in App Peek) from Settings -> General -> Home & Wallpaper -> Personalize Media Feed.

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Dispatch comes with a free . Afterward, users have the option of buying the app outright. Pricing differs per region, but in general, the lifetime license hovers around the Big Mac meal range 🍔:

Lifetime license:

Monthly license:

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Lastly, I'd like to take this last paragraph to thank everyone who has helped with testing. Many of you have been very enthusiastic about this project from the start, and it's been a joy working with you all. Thank you for all your help and suggestions, ! 🫡

The control center has been redesigned with some new features, including the ability to put your device to sleep.

The control center also includes a new input switcher. Note that the input switcher will only show on displays with Android TV built in, and will not show on devices like the Nvidia Shield or Chromecast with Google TV.

Additionally, users can access a new recent apps menu from the updated control center.

As a reminder, the control center can be accessed by pressing right on your remote when the tab is highlighted, or by pressing the menu button on your remote. To use the menu button, your remote must be configured to send the menu command. I personally recommend users set the menu button to send the menu command with a single click, and a long click set to open the android device settings view.

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The context menu now includes options to mark media as watched / unwatched, as well as the ability to navigate to an episode's parent season or parent show.

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The following changes and fixes are included in this release as well:

In order for navigation sounds to work System Sounds must be enabled in the devices settings.

Instead of having to manually enable / disable each row one at a time, a button has been added.

Logo brightness modulation is a feature that attempts to keep logos visible as detailed here

This feature is now optional and can be disabled from Settings -> Advanced -> Graphics Settings.

Dispatch has a logo! It's nothing fancy, but it's nice to have nonetheless. The logo features a capital D that functions as the upper half of a capital P.

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You can now show and hide the movie and television tabs. For each tab that you hide, you will be able to add 2 additional favourite apps using the free up space.

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The following issues have been fixed:

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A new onboarding slideshow has been added for the initial setup.

A clean installation is not required, but without one, you'll notice that upon launch you will be prompted with a "continue setup" screen. You can just click through the setup until you arrive at the home page. This will trigger a metadata refresh as well, similar to the first install. However, all your previous media and settings should be carried over without issue.

Enhanced logging: Users can now enable logging in Dispatch from Settings → About → Diagnostics. If you are having issues, you can enable logging and send me the logs so that I can investigate. You can export your logs from the same page. Logs are exported to the Downloads folder by default. If you do not know how or don't have the ability to extract the exported logs from your device, please let me know. For those users, I can enable cloud upload for logs on your device, which will zip and send your logs directly to me upon export.

All in all, app recommendations should appear much more stable and instances of app media disappearing or not showing when expected should be completely eliminated.