A download page, with a code for the App Store
The app now offers a code to the person beside you, and it leads here rather than
to a store, so that one code serves a phone of either kind and so that this page
can be corrected without shipping a build.
Android has a section and no code, deliberately. There is no Play listing, so any
code would lead nowhere — the section says what the app will do when it arrives and
what it will have to ask for.
Support draws the distinction the app makes people meet twice: the code that gets
you the app, and the code that gets you into a room, which only works on a device
that already has it.
david
committed
Sep 27, 2026
A room is where the devices are; a show is what plays in it
The app now names the two things apart, so the pages have to as well: you open or
join a *room*, and a *show* plays in it. The quick start says which is which at the
point where someone first meets both.
Also answers the question that made the distinction necessary — whether the show
can be changed without everyone joining again. It can, it always could, and the
answer says what to expect when you do: the new pictures have to be handed out
before the show will start, and the arrangement is worked out afresh because
differently shaped pictures can want the devices laid out differently.
david
committed
Sep 20, 2026
The card that says what is wrong
Polyptych now comes with a test-pattern show, so there is something to start
before any pictures have been added — and, mainly, so that an arrangement that
looks wrong can be photographed rather than described.
The answer reads it element by element, because that is how the card is used:
letters out of sequence mean the devices are in the wrong places, a step where a
line crosses a seam means a screen's measurements are out, an egg instead of a
circle means a scale rather than a position, the wrong corner shape means a device
held the wrong way round, and the greys and colour bars are the screens themselves
rather than anything the app did.
Also says it at the top, where people are told what to include when they report a
problem: one photograph of that card across the screens is worth more than a
paragraph describing what looked off.
david
committed
Sep 20, 2026
Video, an Android guest, and the two things they change about privacy
Support gains four answers about video — how to use one, why every device has to
be given the whole file before anything starts, why the sound is muted, and what
to do when one screen drifts — and one about Android, framed as what it is: in
progress, not released, and a guest rather than a host. It also says up front
that an Android screen has to be told its own size, because Android exposes
neither the screen's physical dimensions nor the device's reliably, and that the
border estimate is what decides whether the seams line up.
Two changes were not optional. The Privacy Policy described what leaves your
device as "pictures"; a whole video file now leaves it too, and is cached on
every device that receives it. And the plain connection that lets a non-Apple
device join is **not encrypted**, unlike Apple's own local networking — so the
network you are on is now part of who you are trusting. Both are stated plainly
rather than left to be discovered, and the effective date moves with them.
Conditions follow: what you show includes a video, and the unencrypted door is
named there too.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Dag
committed
Sep 2, 2026
Answer the new questions: the fleet preview, sharing a GIF in, per-turn timing
Five new answers — trying a show across an imagined fleet, sending a GIF in from
another app (GifMotion included), per-turn hold and transition times, what the
device-by-device transition does, and where to edit a saved show — plus the
hosting device no longer having to be one of the screens.
Corrected the quick start: building a show is Shows → New show now, and the eye
opens the fleet preview rather than a single-screen run.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Dag
committed
Sep 1, 2026
Say "show", and answer the language, appearance and rotation questions
The interface no longer says "mosaic", so neither does the documentation:
Start a show, Join a show, and "a show" wherever the pages described the shared
thing. "A mosaic physically wider than that resolution" becomes "an
arrangement", which is what that sentence is actually about.
Three new answers in the FAQ — the app's seven languages, that it follows the
device's light or dark appearance, and that rotation is free everywhere except
the screen showing the picture. Corrected the start button to "Start the show",
and gave the picture limit its real ceiling of 48.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Dag
committed
Sep 1, 2026
Add a support page
Quick start, and the questions worth answering because the answers are not
guessable: why a device is turned sideways, why the seams may be slightly out
on an unrecognised model, why the picture is soft on a wide mosaic, why "Start
the show" waits, and what a long GIF actually becomes.
Linked from the home page alongside the policy and the conditions.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
david
committed
Sep 1, 2026
Add the privacy policy and conditions of use
Polyptych's privacy story is not the usual "everything stays on your device":
it does send your pictures, to every device that joins the mosaic, over Wi-Fi
and Bluetooth. The policy says so plainly, and spells out the consequence —
anyone holding the six-character code, or able to see the QR on the hosting
screen, receives them. Nothing reaches us or the internet either way.
Also covers what else crosses between devices (device name, screen dimensions,
draw instructions, clock timestamps), the camera being used only to scan a code,
and where saved shows live on disk.
The conditions are the plain-language essentials: free and as-is, your pictures
stay yours, you are responsible for what you show and for having the right to
show it, and the join code is disambiguation rather than security.
Home page rewritten from the placeholder to introduce the app and link both.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
david
committed
Sep 1, 2026