0.5.2 — Listening to the first users

The evening the app met its audience: two bench phones, a TestFlight cohort, and honest feedback acted on the same day.

• Typing to the Angel works like a messenger. The input and Send button stay visible above the keyboard.
• Downloads show themselves. A model pull now reads "Downloading… 2.1 of 5.2 GB", then "Checking the download…", right on the model list.
• The Boards heading tells the truth. Your own board is no longer counted as a campmate's, and an unnamed board no longer titles itself "this phone (this phone)".
• App-first framing on the site and README: every tool works before any AI model is installed, and the Playa Angel is the optional layer. The copy was trimmed after real-user feedback.
• Playa Angel Max was verified on both bench phones. It runs fully resident on a 16 GB Pixel 9 Pro with instant replies, and as a documented, warned-about squeeze on an 8 GB Pixel 7.

Full story: CHANGELOG.md · playapal.lol/changelog

The attached playapal-v0.5.2.apk is release-signed. Its SHA-256 is in the file digest GitHub shows beside the asset.

0.5.1 — Consent, the reader, and the Max Angel

Same-day follow-through on the first public release.

• Consent on friend cards. Sharing asks "just for them" or "pass it on" at the moment of sharing. Only pass-it-on cards ride "Beam friends", and direct cards say so on their row. The pick is honored by the app rather than enforced by cryptography, and the app tells you that itself.
• The pack reader. Read the saved source materials straight through, credited and fully offline, with no question needed.
• Playa Angel Max. The first zero-contradiction Angel on our 31-question battery (a Gemma 4 E4B fine-tune) joins the catalog as a top tier for high-memory phones, with an honest measured-RAM recommendation. We squeeze-tested it on an 8 GB Pixel 7: it answers, slowly, exactly as the app warns.

Full story: CHANGELOG.md · playapal.lol/changelog

The attached playapal-v0.5.1.apk is release-signed.

0.5.0 — The social city

0.5.0: The social city (Aug 19, first public release)

The release candidate that rides to the playa.

• Friends on playa. Share a friend card (playa name, camp, address, a find-me note) as a QR code any normal camera scans; the card travels inside the link itself, so it never touches a server or an address book. You can also share it as a file, or use "Beam friends", which re-exports every card you hold so one organized camper can assemble a whole crew's map at a pre-party. A printable paper list is included, in BurnerMap's honored tradition.
• The offline city map. Black Rock City drawn from measured geometry: streets (Center Camp keyhole and all), plazas, toilet banks, your pins, your friends, and your blue dot, plus a compass mode. It needs no tiles and no network.
• One coherent app. Three tabs (Now · Camp · Settings), the Angel as a full-screen conversation you can open from anywhere, and packs in their proper homes.
• The real 2026 city geometry went live (GIS-confirmed radii, real street names, per-number provenance). Daily events now say "Daily" instead of masquerading as one-day listings. "Don't use this" curation ships with restore, an About section landed, and the contributor doorway is finished (authoring spec, pack doctor, embeddings builder). The README carries an honest disclosure: the whole app is AI-written under human direction.

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Getting it on a phone: the attached playapal-v0.5.0.apk is release-signed (v0.5.2 is newer). iOS ships via TestFlight; contact d@simbi.com for an invite until the public link opens. To build from source, see the README: npm ci && npm test, then tools/gate.sh --apk.