[Stable Track] v1.0.1 [2025-01-25] - Trial Reset, Performance Improvements, Watched Indicators, Wallpaper Themes, Advanced Auto-Start Mode, Bug Fixes, and more.

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.