Matinee 1.5.5

AirPlay mirroring now shows the picture (it stayed black in 1.5.4 while audio played), keeps the phone's aspect ratio with bars at the sides in portrait, and recovers when the phone rotates.

Matinee 1.5.4

• AirPlay receiver (experimental): turn on Settings → Home screen → AirPlay receiver to show an iPhone, iPad or Mac screen on the TV, or play music to it. Built on UxPlay's protocol library.
• Liquid Glass edges: glass now bends the wallpaper behind it at the edges, adapted from Kyant's AndroidLiquidGlass refraction model so it also runs on Android 10–12 TVs.
• Smoother shadows without the dark bands some TVs showed.
• Photo wallpapers are back next to the built-in ones.
• Holding OK on a card opens its menu reliably (#1).

Matinee 1.5.2

Fixes holding OK on an app card: the menu now stays open instead of the app launching when the remote keeps repeating OK after a long press (#1). The same fix keeps arrangement mode open when it is started from Settings. Matinee is now released under GPL-3.0.

Matinee 1.5.1

Custom wallpapers and app pictures are now chosen as files with the system file picker, so Matinee no longer asks for any storage or photo permission. On TVs without a file picker, put pictures in Matinee's own Pictures folder and pick them from the list. The bundled photo wallpapers are gone; the eight built-in wallpapers and animated light stay.

Matinee 1.5.0

Make it yours

• Hold OK on a card for a menu: open, move, rename, change picture, add to a folder, lock with PIN, hide, app info
• Folders group apps into one card
• Parental PIN (Settings → Parental controls): lock apps, and optionally settings and home screen edits
• Wallpapers (Settings → Home screen → Wallpaper): eight built-in ones, an optional moving light, or your own pictures from the TV or a USB drive

Liquid Glass

• A frosted glass look across the home screen, menus and settings that shows the wallpaper through it. Turn it off in Settings → Home screen → Glass effects if your TV feels slow.

Also

• Works on Android TV and Google TV 8 and later
• Settings → Display and sound now opens the TV's accessibility settings
• Choosing a weather city no longer loses the remote's focus

The PIN guards what is opened from Matinee only. A locked app can still be opened from the TV's own menus.

Install
Google Play (recommended): join matinee-testers, then open the test link.

Or sideload Matinee-1.5.0.apk on Android TV 8 or later. On Android 13 and later, the optional Home button setting needs the Google Play version.

Matinee 1.3.2

Matinee stays your home screen

• With Settings → Home screen → Home button opens Matinee turned on, Matinee now also opens when Google TV brings back its own home screen: after the TV wakes up or restarts, or when you back out of an app.
• Fixed the TV's accessibility settings sometimes listing the Home button service as off while it was on.

The permission still never reads what is on the screen. It now sees only the Home button and when the TV's built-in home screen opens.

Install
Google Play (recommended): join matinee-testers, then open the test link.

Or sideload Matinee-1.3.2.apk on Android TV 9 or later. On Android 13 and later, the optional Home button setting needs the Google Play version.

Matinee 1.3.1

Live TV

• TVs with a built-in antenna, cable or satellite tuner now get a Live TV shortcut at the start of the inputs row. It opens the TV's own live broadcast, like the stock launcher.

Grid layout

• The shelf no longer jumps up the first time you move along it
• Moving down into your apps lifts the shelf neatly under the top bar
• Last played artwork (YouTube and others) now sits above the shelf and fades out behind it, with a smaller title that no longer clashes with text in the thumbnail
• The inputs row no longer sits flush against the bottom edge

Install
Google Play (recommended): join matinee-testers, then open the test link.

Or sideload Matinee-1.3.1.apk on Android TV 9 or later. On Android 13 and later, the optional Home button setting needs the Google Play version.

Matinee 1.3.0

Seven languages
Matinee now speaks English, Türkçe, Español, Français, Deutsch, 日本語 and 简体中文. Pick one in Settings → About → Language, or keep System to follow the TV.

• The language setting opens a list instead of cycling through options
• The date in the top bar follows each language's own order, for example 10月21日(水) in Japanese

Install
Google Play (recommended): join matinee-testers, then open the test link.

Or sideload Matinee-1.3.0.apk on Android TV 9 or later. On Android 13 and later, the optional Home button setting needs the Google Play version.

Matinee 1.2.5

• The profile menu now says Not available on this TV for AirPlay or Chromecast when the TV has no such receiver, instead of Off. Off is kept for receivers that exist but are turned off.

Install
Google Play (recommended): join matinee-testers, then open the test link.

Or sideload Matinee-1.2.5.apk on Android TV 9 or later. On Android 13 and later, the optional Home button setting needs the Google Play version.

Matinee 1.2.4

New installs now open in the Grid layout with Light cards: a favorites shelf above all your apps, each card showing the app's own TV banner, and the last played show across the top of the screen.

If you never changed these settings, Matinee switches to the new look after this update. You can go back any time in Settings → Home screen → Layout and Card style.

Install
Google Play (recommended): join matinee-testers, then open the test link.

Or sideload Matinee-1.2.4.apk on Android TV 9 or later. On Android 13 and later, the optional Home button setting needs the Google Play version.