How it works

How do I get an account, and what do I see first?

Pick a name and a passphrase. There is no email address and no confirmation link, because there is nothing here we would email you about. The name matters: it is what a friend types when they send you something, so choose one they would guess. Then you are in, looking at an empty queue -- which is the honest state of a new account, not a problem to fix today.

Forty-five seconds. Every field is shown before it is filled, the passphrase stays masked, and it ends where you actually start: an empty queue.

What are all the screens?

Queue, Add, Triage, Sets, Next and Shared, plus topics, types, an item page and your account. The application is deliberately small: there is no dashboard, no feed and no algorithm deciding what you see first.

Two minutes: every screen in the app, on a library with real things in it.

How do I save something?

Copy the address, open Add, and paste it. Then write one sentence about why it is worth someone else pressing play. That sentence is the product; the link on its own is just a bookmark you will never open again.

A minute and a quarter. Starts on the page the link came from and ends with it at the top of the queue, reason attached.

What is Triage for?

Things saved in a hurry with no reason attached. It hands them back one at a time, titled ones first, until the queue is empty.

Under forty seconds: clearing an item that was saved without a reason.

How do I find something months later?

Topics, not folders. An item sits under every topic it belongs to, which is the fix for a library where two thirds of it was never filed.

Under thirty seconds: filing by topic, and what a topic page looks like.

Can I search what I wrote, not just titles?

Yes. Search covers the reason you wrote, your private notes, the creator and the topic. One word from a note finds the video you could not name.

Twenty seconds: finding an item by a word that appears nowhere in its title.

How do I edit an item?

Reason, private note and rating save together. The private note is never shared -- it lives in its own table, so no share query can reach it.

Half a minute: the reason, the private note and the rating on one item.

We just finished a show. What now?

Say what you finished. It answers from the things you already decided were worth it, with the reason still attached. No show-hole.

Half a minute: asking for something to watch next and getting your own shortlist back.

How do I share a whole topic with someone?

Build a set. Five links and a reason, in an order that argues: the first item opens the topic, the last one lands it.

Under forty seconds: building a set and putting it in the order you would hand it over in.

How do I add a friend?

Make an invitation link and send it to them however you already talk. They open it, accept, and you are connected. Until that happens a share between you is refused outright -- there is no way to push something at a stranger, and no way for a stranger to push something at you.

Fifty seconds, and it shows both ends: the link being made, and the other person accepting it.

How do I send one thing to a friend?

Open it, type their name, and send. There is no separate covering note: the reason you wrote on the item is the message they read, so write it for them. Nothing leaves your library -- they get their own copy to keep or ignore, and your private note is not part of it.

Forty seconds: writing the message, naming the person, and sending.

Someone sent me something. Where does it go?

Into Shared, with the name of whoever sent it and the reason they wrote. You can open the link without ever putting it in your queue, or add it, and it becomes your own copy with their reason to start from. Nothing you do changes their library.

Forty seconds: a share arriving in an empty queue and being kept.

How do I get my queue on the television?

Open My Queue on the Apple TV. It shows a short code and nothing else until it is paired. Type that code into Account on the web -- or scan the code with a phone -- and the television is yours. No passphrase is ever typed on a television, and you can unpair it from the same screen.

Forty-five seconds, recorded on the television: the code and its QR, then the queue arriving the moment the code is confirmed on the web.

How do I move around on the television?

The remote does all of it. Left and right move along a row, up and down move between rows, and the select button opens whatever is focused. Every screen says what the buttons do along the bottom, so there is nothing to memorise.

Under a minute, recorded on the television itself.

How do I get to one kind of thing on the television?

Press up from the shelf. The sections across the top split the library by kind -- shows, films, books, podcasts, videos -- so you are not scrolling past nine podcasts to find something to watch.

Half a minute: three hundred and fifty nine things narrowed to one kind of thing.

Can I search from the television?

Two ways, and the second is the one people keep. You can spell it out with the remote, which works and is nobody's favourite thing. Or you scan the code on the same screen, search on the phone already in your hand -- where it looks at the reason you wrote, your notes, the creator and the topic, not just titles -- and send what you found to the television.

Forty-five seconds, and it shows both: the television's own keyboard, and the code that hands the job to your phone.

I press Select. Does it actually play the thing?

When the service allows it, yes -- exactly that video, not the app it lives in. This one hands off to YouTube on the video itself. When you come back the television asks how it was, and that rating is what Next answers from later.

Thirty-six seconds: one press, the hand-off, and the question it asks when you return.

Why did it open Netflix but not the show?

Because Netflix does not let a third-party app on an Apple TV open a specific title. Six URL forms were measured and none of them work. Rather than open the app and quietly hope, the item says so in as many words and offers every way it does have: open the app, open that exact title in Netflix on your phone, or a service that carries it and does allow a link.

Just over a minute: the limit, said out loud on screen, and the three things it can still do about it.

It keeps offering me a service I do not pay for. Can I turn that off?

Yes, in Services, under the tools to the left of the shelf. Tick the ones you actually have and the ways to open something stop offering the ones you do not. One list, saved as you press, and nothing here leaves the television.

Just under a minute: switching a service on and straight back off, and the three preferences underneath.

There is an article in my queue. Can the television read it to me?

It can do both. Select opens the article as pages meant to be read from a sofa -- the text, set for across the room, with no navigation and no cookie notice. Then Play/Pause hands the page to a voice and it reads aloud, following you page by page rather than running ahead.

Fifty seconds: the reader, a page turn, and the voice taking over.

A friend sent me something. Can I see it and keep it from the couch?

Both, now. Shared sits with the tools on the left: everything friends sent you, with their name and the reason they wrote. Up keeps it and it becomes your own copy; down passes. Before this the couch could only look, and accepting anything meant getting up to find a phone.

Under a minute: a share from a friend, opened and kept, without leaving the sofa.

Where is the help on the television itself?

Under the tools on the left, or by pressing Play/Pause from the shelf. It plays these same walkthroughs -- the television ones, recorded on a television. It used to offer the web app's videos, which showed a viewer on a sofa a mouse filling in a form they could not reach.

Just under a minute: all ten walkthroughs, on the television, reachable with one button.

What is free and what is paid?

The web application is free, on a phone or a desktop. The native apps talk to the same API and that is the paid surface. Lapsing removes write access to that surface; it never removes your library, and the web stays free.

Twenty seconds: the account screen, and what changes when a plan lapses.

How do I delete my account?

From Account, on the web or in the iPhone app. You enter your passphrase, and the account and everything in it are deleted straight away. It cannot be undone. How to delete an account, and what is deleted.