Decision record
Evidence, not orders.
This page keeps the question, the decision state, the evidence considered, the dissent, and Thomas's rationale together. Popularity never overrides accessibility, privacy, licensing, security, or measured correctness.
Recorded direction
Glass Horizon is the current iPhone baseline
The five-system round and later Cinematic Split Horizon study informed the product, but they are no longer presented as an unresolved choice. The current native build—not an earlier web prototype—is the visual authority.
Continue the iPhone visual baseline from Glass Horizon's cinematic, dark, art-led baseline while evaluating individual structures and interactions against current rendered evidence.
- Decision
- The original five complete visual systems are now historical decision probes. They do not remain an active public ballot after the native app moved forward.
- What carried forward
- Cinematic artwork, a dark blue-black field, restrained teal accents, real iOS 27 material for navigation and controls, and stable high-contrast media surfaces.
- Structural study
- Cinematic Split Horizon tested pinned identity and horizontally paged detail chapters. It remains a useful reference, not a second competing current build.
- What remains flexible
- Goal 8H can still refine hierarchy, spacing, typography, accessibility behavior, and individual screen composition. Final cross-platform adaptation remains later work.
- Evidence
- Current native Today, Shows, Movies, Discovery, details, Rewards, purchase, and Settings compositions plus normal and accessibility-pressure review.
Newest visual decision
People should feel cinematic, too.
The person page now treats filmography as film and television artwork instead of a generic square grid.
Use a cinematic portrait hero with deliberate identity inset and a horizontal 2:3 Known For poster shelf.
- Problem
- Identity text sat too close to the portrait edge, and the square Known For tiles did not read as movie and television posters.
- Accessibility
- At accessibility text sizes, identity moves below the portrait instead of being compressed into artwork. Names remain bounded, contrast increases, and every poster remains an independent navigation action.
- Evidence
- The normal and accessibility-text compositions were inspected, and two focused UI tests pass trait and sufficient-description accessibility audits. Complete Goal 8H and physical-iPhone review remain open.
Recorded direction
Personalized, visible, reversible.
Discovery can learn from a large Trakt history without hiding why something appeared or moving posters while someone is browsing.
Keep the opening discovery lanes stable, personalize the order inside them, and make every corrective signal explicit and reversible.
- Ranking
- Viewing Profile personalization is the default after the current library is verified. Chronological and popularity ordering remain available, and every personal result can explain why it appeared.
- Control
- Hide this title, Show me less like this, and Show me more like this are separate, undoable ShowNext signals. None silently becomes a Trakt rating, list, or watched action.
- Range
- Preferred-service availability strongly helps ranking without hiding great off-service choices. Roughly fifteen percent of personal recommendation space may test a clearly labeled outside-the-usual pick.
- Large import
- Public discovery works immediately. Personal ranking waits for a reconciled watched and current-library snapshot, then refines while the deeper lifetime archive continues.
- Stability
- Recommendations update in the background, but the visible screen stays fixed until the person applies the update, pulls to refresh, or returns later.
Release decision
Every admitted capability stays free.
ShowNext is free for this Release, with no purchase, subscription, paid product, or model credits sold by the app. Goal 8J-A froze the exact no-charge promise inventory.
Keep the product name ShowNext and provide every capability ultimately admitted to this Release at no charge. Retain the proven lifetime-purchase laboratory only as deferred R&D for a separately decided future paid path.
- Trust floor
- Reliable Trakt sync, recovery, ordinary tracking, basic Discovery, diagnostics, data controls, built-in views, and essential iCloud consistency remain free on every supported Apple platform.
- Free Release
- Every retained capability admitted to this Release will be available without receipt evidence. Goal 8J-A froze the exact promise inventory. Release offers no purchase or restore action and does not directly link StoreKit.
- Bring your own GPT
- ChatGPT enhancement is deferred and unavailable in the normal Release path. A separately authorized future decision would be required before any connection; deterministic and Apple-first behavior must remain useful without it.
- Data continuity
- Access in this Release never depends on purchase state. Nothing about this decision changes Trakt truth, ShowNext data, recovery, or support controls.
- Still open
- Broader Ask ShowNext language, physical voice/audio routes, Siri/system surfaces, joined iPhone acceptance, exact-candidate trust review, and TestFlight-installed proof remain before admission. App Privacy is re-reviewed after that behavior freezes. Any future paid path or ChatGPT authorization requires a separate Thomas decision.
Recorded direction
Instant without waiting—or pretending.
The interface accepts the person's intent immediately while Trakt confirmation and launch freshness remain honest, independent background work.
Use ShowNext Briefing to protect cold-launch currentness, and keep every episode independently swipeable while earlier Trakt actions confirm.
- Cold launch
- Show an already confirmed milestone, viewing memory, sourced fact, season artifact, or upcoming highlight while one Trakt activity check runs. Open Today as soon as its launch-critical state is current; never hold for animation.
- Quick return
- A recent confirmed receipt opens Today directly. A slow or unavailable check explains the state and offers last-confirmed data without labeling it current.
- Rapid watched actions
- Each row becomes dimmed, grayscale, and Confirming immediately. The next row never waits. Compatible episode intents may batch behind the interaction, but each row stays until Trakt read-back verifies it.
- Rewards
- Previously verified accomplishments may make launch useful. New rewards, totals, and completion artifacts wait for Trakt verification and never use guilt streaks or consumption pressure.
- Next proof
- Goal 4A's launch routes and Goal 5's isolated 1, 5, and 20 rapid watched-action proof passed. The next evidence composes that engine into the product before another write family is added.
Recorded direction
Foundation before features.
The fictional and real read-only evidence supported the starting architecture. Thomas recorded Keep, Milestone 4 passed, and the separately authorized Goal 5 isolated watched proof passed. Personal-account and other mutation boundaries remain gated.
Keep Trakt authoritative, render from a local GRDB projection, sync only ShowNext overlays through private iCloud, and use the passed real-import evidence to recommend Keep without erasing later gates.
- Refresh
- Open recent-receipt Today immediately; otherwise show the useful local briefing while changed Trakt domains are checked. Avoid duplicate checks inside five minutes and never repeat a whole- library import for routine freshness.
- Apple foundation
- Target OS 27 across iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Vision Pro. The app owns sync; one lightweight Today widget reads a small shared snapshot and routes actions through the same verified outbox.
- Speed
- A useful local surface should appear within one second, recent- receipt Today targets 500 ms, routine refresh normally finishes within five seconds, and rapid watched gestures never wait on an earlier network response.
- Proof
- Fictional scale fixtures, failure simulations, a private read-only real-account import, controlled Trakt writes, and physical-device TestFlight workflows remain separate evidence.
- Privacy
- Viewing history never joins community identity. Diagnostics stay local and redacted by default, and support exports are previewed before sharing.
Evidence gates
The foundation still has to prove itself.
These are not community popularity questions. They require provider confirmation, benchmarks, licensing review, or real-device proof.
Needs evidenceGRDB decision checkpoint
The scale fixture and signed private read-only imports passed and recommend Keep. Thomas's explicit Keep or Reopen record remains.
Needs evidenceTrakt OAuth exchange
Resolve how a shipped native client handles the currently documented token exchange secret, ideally with current provider confirmation.
Needs evidenceOS 27 device proof
Develop on beta SDKs, wait for public OS releases, and verify each claimed platform on appropriate physical hardware.
Needs evidenceTMDb and attribution
Review quality, cache rules, regional provider data, commercial terms, TMDb attribution, and JustWatch attribution.
Needs evidenceCloudKit convergence
Goal 7 now passes physical iPhone-to-Mac convergence plus a real-iPhone Airplane Mode save and Pending 0 recovery; keep the bounded proof harness separate from the eventual Mac product.
Needs evidenceNotification guarantee
Separate local scheduling from remote date-change detection so the launch promise matches a local-first architecture.