🚀 Introducing a New VIP Beta of Trakt for Android

[kcador (Kevin)]

@Gratiskeder

How this can make sense to force users over to this when it haven’t been developed properly yet.

We are not forcing anyone to use the beta. This beta version is currently deployed on a beta track, so only VIP that wants or wanted to be part of pre-release testing have access to it. You are free to leave the beta anytime you want.

[kcador (Kevin)]

Commenting and replying hasn’t been implemented yet but it’s on our todo list for before a public release.

Thanks!

[kcador (Kevin)]

Rating will be available soon on the Android beta.
Thanks for your feedback!

[kcador (Kevin)]

We use “Alpha” for internal testing and “Beta” for external testing.
Currently, this version is available to only a limited group of VIP users who either asked for testing pre-release build in the past or are interested in testing the new builds now.

[kcador (Kevin)]

@Seven_PRX

When watching something in Kodi, I used to be able to see that in app, it would say what I’m watching and at what minute i am. That’s no longer there.

It will be back. Check in and Currently watching (aka Scrobbling) is coming back.

@Seven_PRX

Also when i look at a season, the Icons for watched and not watched seem to be reversed: I’m seeing a red X when I’ve watched something, and a purple V when i haven’t watched it. That doesn’t make sense to me.

Yes, that is an issue we are going to fix, thanks for pointing it out.

@Seven_PRX

And when im viewing an episode, i used to be able to click on the season there to jump to the season. Can’t click that any more.

Those kind of shortcuts will be coming back.

@Seven_PRX

I went ahead and uninstalled the beta and went back to the prod version.

[kcador (Kevin)]

Not high on our priority list, but I’m taking note of this. Thanks!

[kcador (Kevin)]

The current app on the Play Store has been flagged by Google for violating their policies about linking to external payment mechanism. The problem with TV content in general is that a lot of websites we link to have their own payment mechanisms. This is one of the reasons we are adding external links carefully in the new app.

[Granitoro]

Can you please make an easy to follow set of instructions for how to opt out of the beta, and revert the app to the non-beta version?

[Kristin]

@kcador

You should be able to either leave the beta program from the Google Play page or just uninstall the beta and reinstall the production version.

Here’s a guide from Google on the topic.

Let us know if this doesn’t help!

[Astranora (Andy A.)]

I’m confused. Are we expected to be happy about our privilege to beta test an unfinished product?

I’d get it for new features or even the full experience with bugs.

I’ve literally never seen a beta been used to test a downgrade in the product… at least not without a seperate branched app so I could switch between the 2 versions.

TLDR feedback:

Release 2 apps with one being Beta fi your going to do such drastic changes.

Having to reinstall the app just to have access to features I’m used to is ridiculous.

(that’s how browsers and other apps deal with overhaul app design, canary, etc..)

[Mattwak3 (Matt)]

Find the app on the App Store, there’ll be a bit under app support that says you’re part of the beta, just press to leave and the app goes back to how it was after a few minutes

[bb010g]

@kcador

That’s an option we can bring back. We would prefer to give you everything in the app tho. What are you currently missing from the old or the new that you would like to keep access to?

Trakt is fundamentally a web-based service, and I always would like the ability to grab a permalink for whatever I’m interacting with whenever one is available.

[bb010g]

@kcador

This is one of the reasons we are adding external links carefully in the new app.

Would self-publishing an alternative build through a mechanism like a F-Droid repository be an option here?

[VesNL (Vilmar)]

Had preferred to see this as a canary/separate app rather than built upon the existing one. That way we can easily switch to judge on UX.

So far I like that continue to watch shows how many episodes.

Would prefer to see the search icon up top, rather at the bottom.

[ahmed365 (Ahmed Hamdy)]

Is anyone going to talk about the missing watching now (check in) feature in the new app? I think you can’t launch an app without that feature, it is one of the main reasons I use trakt for.

[t.eduardosam (Eduardo)]

They said it’s not yet available in beta. Probably soon.

[TwiztidJuggla420]

Between not being able to specify when I watched a particular title and not being able to easily add/remove specific titles to lists, the mobile app is basically useless to me. I left the beta program on Play and uninstalled and re-installed Trakt hoping to get the older version that had the features that I previously mentioned which were stripped out of the new version, but even after I left the beta program it still downloads the new Trakt with less features. I am just going to go to a third party app store to download a previous version, which seems crazy to have to do for an app that I pay for VIP.

[titusmartin (The martin)]

Have to say, I extremely dislike this new interface. I’m going back to the none beta, and hope the final version is nothing like this.

[kcador (Kevin)]

There’s no plan to support this ourselves but I’m pretty sure old versions of the Trakt Android app will continue to be distributed through unofficial channels.

Thanks for your feedback!

[kcador (Kevin)]

Thanks for this feedback! I agree, I’m a huge check in user myself. We’ll have check in and scrobble support before the official launch!