Kapell v1.4.0 released

This version builds on v1.3.0's extensive search and indexing power, adding millions of tracks and albums.

Version 1.4.0 of Kapell has just been released on the App Store. This release also covers items from this week’s platform release.

Home Revamp

Kapell’s home screen was looking a little thin, so I’ve revamped it to be “bento box” style with dynamic entries for crates, stations, and recent albums.

Revamped home page shot with new bento style layout. — The home screen no longer feels flat. Welcome the new bento layout!

The “Just play something” bar remains at the top so you can fire off your personal station quickly.

Album Tinting

Kapell’s UI now “tints” based on the art for the album you’re viewing. The background and link elements all adjust accordingly:

Shot of Kapell's UI tinted pink to match the cover of Summer Walker's _Over It_ — Summer Walker’s *Over It* tints things a pleasant pink.

Search Overhaul

Kapell’s search is now fleshed out with genres, sorted by the ones you listen to most.

Improved search screen with genres sorted by your listening habits. — Your listening habits — stored locally! — drive the sort order, with art chosen from what’s popular in your region.

Clicking on the genre takes you to an index of albums, with a top rail showing what’s popular — in your country/storefront, of course — and also a few listening suggestions for albums that you’ve not completed yet.

Genre-specific screen showing popular and recommended albums. — View of a specific genre with popular and recommended listings. At the time of this writing Jhené Aiko’s new album is popular!

From the genre you can do even more filtering, digging down into sub-genres and filtering by decade, format, traits, and listen status.

Listing of albums filtered by sub-genre, decade, and format. — You can filter albums by all manner of things, and it’s really snappy. I’m a fan of the Quiet Storm genre!

The same filters work from any page: here, from a producer's credits down to one genre and decade. Also, I make videos now!

Note that this can also be toggled to the track level, which lets you browse nearly 150M tracks as of this writing.

Playlists and Crates

Crates can now be sorted and filtered by title:

Shot of playlist screen showing sort and filter controls at the top left. — Sorting and filtering controls are at the top left.

Playlists now respect Playlist Folders from Apple Music, and allow the same sorting and filtering as crates making it easier to manage playlists.

Shot of crate screen showing sort and filter controls at the top left. — Managing large numbers of playlists should be easier. One of my testers has over 600!

And Much More

Many “enriched” screens that contact Kapell’s API have had response times improved considerably, down to sub-second from multi-second.
Star icons marking “favorite” tracks have moved to the left side of the track listing.
Client side caching is now implemented for many requests.
Album’s Data tab now shows release date and copyright, if available.
Tracks can now be played directly from genre listings.
Tracks and albums genre listings now have ellipsis menus.