NewTube, SmartTube for phones :)

[aleixrodriala]

Hi everyone, and first of all: thank you, @yuliskov, and everyone who has contributed to SmartTube. SmartTube is how I watch YouTube on the TV, and I wanted the same experience on my phone: real sign-in, SponsorBlock, DeArrow, and nothing in the way.

So I built NewTube, an unofficial phone app on top of SmartTube. SmartTube's engine does the YouTube work underneath: MediaServiceCore and SharedModules, the code sign-in, SponsorBlock, DeArrow and Return YouTube Dislike. NewTube adds a touch interface and its own Media3 player, with background play, picture-in-picture and a mini-player, and it can save videos for offline. It also pairs with SmartTube on your TV using the Remote control code.

A few things I want to be clear about:

• It's an independent project, not affiliated with or endorsed by SmartTube. It has its own package name (io.github.aleixrodriala.arc) and its own signing key, so it installs next to SmartTube and can never update or replace it.
• Please report NewTube bugs in the NewTube repo, not in SmartTube's tracker.
• I don't take donations. If NewTube is useful to you, please support SmartTube instead.
• Much of NewTube's own code was written with AI coding assistants (Claude and Codex). I direct it, review it and use it every day, and each release record lists what was tested on a real phone.

It's MIT licensed, like SmartTube.
Repo: https://github.com/aleixrodriala/newtube
Download: https://github.com/aleixrodriala/newtube/releases/latest

Thanks again for SmartTube. NewTube wouldn't exist without it.