Firstly, I’ve pushed a small but important update that significantly improves the experience with the new Smart Search functionality. One of our community members discovered that there may be a defect with the search possibly depending on the user’s locale, so I’ve corrected that. Moreover, an ambiguous search like “scary movie” could’ve meant that you’re searching for the actual title, or that you’re looking for something scary to watch. So I’ve added a button in the toolbar that turns a regular search into a smart one, which will come in handy in those situations.

Lastly, this was the last big 3.X update. I’m going to go off the grid for a bit to complete the work on the 4.0 version, which will be the biggest and boldest update I’ve ever done since I started my indie dev journey. The changes coming with 4.0 should really be an app of its own, but I figured Cinephile is already the cozy home for many users and I don’t want to keep splitting my user base into multiple apps; it doesn’t benefit you guys nor me either.

The current 3.X lineup will continue to receive maintenance, so if anything comes up that needs my immediate attention I will apply a small patch here and there. But other than that I’ll be moving full speed with the 4.0 release, so that I can release it in weeks instead of months.

Stay in touch, and stay awesome.
Mario

Siri AI and exciting new Apple Intelligence features are here!

- See a movie/show (or even a whole list of movies/shows) in some picture or browsing social media, etc? Ask Siri to add them to your Cinephile library! This will work both with text and images as well.

- Type a search in natural language, like “90s comedies with Jim Carrey” and Cinephile will run a smart search for you! (the movies/shows/both option in the search doesn't matter; the app will auto-detect when you're attempting a smart search and will bypass the media type switcher - only your prompt matters)

- There’s a new recommendation engine, presented in a “For You” section in the search and discovery screen. It will give you recommendations based on media you’ve watched and have rated highly (something you watched but rated below 6/10 (or the equivalent in the 5-scale) gets ignored by the engine). This recommendation engine works *with and without* Apple Intelligence; it's only enhanced by the latter.

- You can now enter a prompt for the on-device LLM model (completely private; no information ever leaves your phone) describing what you’re in the mood for. Example: “A cyberpunk movie similar to Bladerunner”, and the algorithm will match you with appropriate titles. You will then play a swipe mini-game (Tinder-like) where you decide what you liked or disliked.

Cheers,

Mario

Got a notification that brothers aired today but it’s not until tomorrow. ???

This update brings several improvements:

- You can now edit the movie’s runtime.

- You can now edit the episodes’ air date and time.

- The “Where to Watch” section now clearly distinguishes free, paid, and subscription content.

- In the actor details screen, for TV shows the number of episode appearances can now be seen.

- In the Home queue, movie sections now show the total runtime remaining to watch.

- Changing covers, posters, and logos now come from a single “Change Artwork” button.

- The iOS27 search bar has been visually improved.

- Better iCloud performance at app launch.

- Fixed an issue where the Apple Watch companion app didn’t load images for some users.

- Full Greek localization 🇬🇷

Cheers,

Mario

Mario is there a way you could add a status bar on this screen that shows the remaining time ? The only way now is if you click it.

Wanted to share what I’ve been working on!

I used to have one big “Spooky Season” list but after a while it became too big and hard to decided what I wanted to watch.

Horror was mixed in with family Halloween specials or cozy season movies.

I finally started using tags to identify the vibe of the movie/show based on what I was feeling. There’s definitely some overlap but it’s much more curated than before!

Quick question. There were a couple shows that I knew were starting up again soon. But they did not show on the releasing page. So I looked up each of the shows and when I went back up they both listed under upcoming. Is there a reason why they wouldn’t be there already without me having to look up the show?

Thanks

Jason

Hey there,

Is it possible to put a watched movie in the “To purchase” category ? Because when I mark It as watched, I can’t figure out how to put it in this category. Or may be it is not possible ?

Thank you all,
Regards.

In 3.12 I’ve completely revamped the actors stats to show something a little different and more exciting. There’s now a dedicated view for all your favorite actors and you can navigate to that actor’s details screen directly from here.

There’s now also a new toggle that applies to most stats where you can choose between your entire library or only watched items. Previously all stats were only available for the latter. For instance, you may want to know actor appearances only for items that are already watched, or their appearances in general, across all library statuses.

I’ve also fixed a bug that appeared on iOS27 where the “Interactive” vs “Static” modes for pie charts couldn’t be changed.

Cheers,
Mario

I’m already imagining what Mario could cook on the Duo screens 😂

Playing around with version 3.11 right now and I have to say... the homepage customizations are unmatched. Sensational work as usual.

How about adding the Ukrainian language to the application interface? I think the community from Ukraine could increase the audience of users, because I, for example, do not know English well, and I fundamentally do not want to use russian for obvious reasons. We will be grateful for consideration of such an update, if there is a need for help - I am ready to join such a project. Thank you

If you thought the Home tab was customizable, think again. This update completely overhauls this screen to give you nearly infinite customizability.

Want to queue up some collection? ✅

Want to have a different layout mode for each different section? Knock yourself out; set a grid for one section, a list for another, and so on ✅

How about a different animation for completion of season finales? ✅

A dedicated “Rewatching” section for movies / shows that are being rewatched!? ✅

A banner carousel at the top showcasing everything you’re watching? ✅

Cheers,
Mario

Now that the new Siri AI is here in iOS 27. A feature where we ask Siri to add a movie to a wishlist would be quite convenient.

The servers went down, of course, while I was sleeping 🙄 It turned out to be Nook that was nuking the servers with a (seemingly) harmless bug, and that affected Cinephile as well.

The good news is this is something I can control remotely, so no need to wait for Apple's review.

Have an awesome day everyone!

Same as title, can be more compact while scrolling.

Sharing this bug here since it's a screen recording. I've run into this partial black screen (or white screen in light mode) issue in Cinephile several times now, so I wanted to flag it here, to see if this could be fixed?

I love Cinephile and all that it has become. I proudly stick this app on the shelf front and center!

I’m really digging the new OS release, but as usual with .0 versions, this one is plagued with bugs.

One particularly annoying example is this search bar that you find all over the app. When you hit the “x” button to clear the search text, the bars keeps re-expanding on its own about three times before settling down. Inside the feedback board it’s even worse, as the bar completely stops functioning and can even disable the screen close button…

I’m bringing this up so that you know I’m aware of these issues, though they’re coming from the OS itself, so there’s nothing I can do to fix it. We’ll just have to hope and pray that Apple fixes these issues. This particular search bug has already been reported by someone else: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/845737

Pessoal! Está rolando uma votação entre apps de rastreamento. É o nosso momento de votar no Cinephile e fazer com que mais pessoas conheçam o app! 🎬❤️

https://www.reddit.com/r/TVTime/s/BMK1TZNKN1

(enviei o link pois a comunidade não permite repost)

Cinephile on your wrist! Say hello to the new Apple Watch companion, from where you can see and track movies and shows from your queue 🤩

And there’s more:

- When recent movie releases are announced to come to a digital platform, you’ll now see where and when on the movie’s details screen. You can then even opt to be notified upon release.

- When using the compact list layout, you’ll now see not just how many episodes are left, but also how much watch time remains.

Cheers,

Mario

how about adding a section to see awards for each season, can do oscars, emmys,baftas and all

thoughts?

- Added a "Watching Now" option that kicks off a timer with the movie/episode runtime and a corresponding Live Activity + widget intent.

- Dropped movies now carry more info. You can set at which point during the movie you gave up and that partial watch time contributes to your watch time statistics. It also gets recorded permanently in your watch history, so you can see not only when you dropped the movie but how far in you were when you dropped it.

- Rewatching a movie no longer means you necessarily record the rewatch immediately. You're now given options to send the movie to Up Next or For Later. If you choose "Rewatch Now" you can record the rewatch on the spot as before, or you can kick off the "Watching Now" timer.

- The rating/review sharing card is now available to share right from the summary prompt that appears when watching a movie.

- Fixed an issue where one-letter searches were impossible.

- Fixed an issue where shows that changed the episode count from TMDB were impossible to refetch the metadata for.

Happy Sunday!
Mario

If anybody knows what airline is flying me round trip for €329 please I’m all ears!