Jellyfin's Android Auto interface got a big refresh
Jellyfin's interface for Android Auto was completely rebuilt from the ground-up, and a new download manager saves you from scouring the file system for media.
Jellyfin's Android development team lead, Niels van Velzen, announced the release of Jellyfin for Android 2.7 this week. The major update includes an overhaul of both the Android Auto interface and the downloads manager. Here are the details.
What's new
- Android Auto overhaul: The Android Auto implementation, which augments the experience of listening to music from your Jellyfin server while driving, has been improved. Van Velzen's blog post notes that it "was completely rewritten from the ground up. This makes it easier to maintain and expand with more features in future releases."
- Audiobooks are now fully supported.
- The earlier limit of displaying 250 results at a time is no more.
- The search function was improved in general.
- Downloads overhaul: Your media downloads are now fully managed in-app, meaning you no longer have to go into your Android device's file system to find and manipulate content you've downloaded.
- The Downloads interface can show you all your downloaded media and current download progress. The interface also gives you a shortcut to start watching downloads.
- Content you've already downloaded with an earlier version disappointingly won't be migrated, so you might have to do some file cleanups after the upgrade.
- The Jellyfin team is planning to expand the Downloads interface in future releases, including filtering and the ability to sync offline watch progress after reconnecting to the server.
What's getting better
- Video playback: Jellyfin's in-house "native" video player backend for Android is now the default.
- Previously, its web app video player was the default while the native version was, more or less, experimental, and Jellyfin developers weren't as confident as they are now about its readiness for prime time.
- The native video also now supports "TrickPlay" images and will display them if your server has implemented them. They're the small thumbnail-like images of video content that appear while you scrub through a video to preview its content.
- Language options: With an upgrade to Android 16, you can now set Jellyfin to use a different language than other apps on your device.
Jordan Gloor
What's going away
- (Soon) Android 5 and 5.1 support: This will be the last Jellyfin for Android release that supports versions 5 and 5.1 of Android, otherwise known as "Lollipop."
- Those Android releases reached end-0f-life in 2017 and 2018 respectively, so you're taking on major security risks by using a phone or tablet running it while connected to the internet, anyway.
Zooming out
Why this update matters: Jellyfin continues to be the most robust free and open source replacement for Plex, a popular self-hosted media server. An improved Android client makes the switch from Plex even more enticing.
- It's also coming at the same time that a major server update, Jellyfin 12, nears its full debut.
Lingering questions: How likely will future plans, like the enhanced download manager, be implemented when several developers recently exited the Jellyfin project?
My take: My car, unfortunately, doesn't support Android Auto. However, I've long been annoyed by the download management, or lack thereof. I see this as a major win for Jellyfin.
Diving in
The fineprint: You can read the full announcement blog post, or read the Jellyfin for Android 2.7.0 release notes on GitHub for technical details.
Get it now: At the time of writing, version 2.7 hasn't arrived on either F-Droid or Google Play. If you really want to try it out, though, you can find APK downloads in the GitHub release linked above.
