Why Zapline exists

There is no shortage of IPTV players. There is a shortage of ones that treat watching television as the point.

The problem

If you use a playlist from a provider, you have probably been through three or four apps already. The pattern repeats:

The best players live on Android boxes

The apps people rave about in IPTV communities are overwhelmingly built for Android set-top boxes and sideloaded sticks. Arrive with a Samsung or LG TV, an iPhone or an Apple TV and the shortlist gets a lot thinner, and a lot older.

The price is a puzzle

It is normal in this category to find the price only after typing your TV's MAC address into a website, to buy through a reseller, or to pay every year for a player that talks only to your own provider's server and costs almost nothing to run.

The guide is an afterthought

Most players show a scrolling list of channel names. Actual television has a schedule: what is on now, what is next, what you missed. When the guide is bolted on at the end it shows one line of text if you are lucky, and nothing if your provider's channel IDs are untidy.

They do not feel at home on the device

Cross-platform ports drag their conventions with them. Menus that ignore the TV remote, layouts that assume a mouse, a Mac version that is an enlarged iPad screen. Proper remote focus, Picture in Picture and AirPlay get skipped because they are per-platform work.

Someone is always paying

Players given away for nothing tend to fund themselves with ads, trackers, or an account you did not want. A player is a local tool; it has no business reporting what you watch to anyone.

What we decided instead

• At home on every screen. Samsung and LG TVs, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and Mac, each built for its own remote, touch screen or keyboard rather than one layout stretched six ways. Android is next.
• The guide is the product. On-now and up-next on every channel, a schedule for each channel, and past programmes playable straight from it wherever your provider keeps an archive. On Apple devices, a full schedule grid too.
• Activation without the runaround. Each TV gets a 10-day free trial with everything working, then an activation: scan the code on the TV and activate it on your phone. It's free during our launch. No MAC address to type, no reseller.
• Nothing taken in exchange. No ads, no analytics, no accounts in the app. Your playlists and history stay on your device. Two things reach us from the TV apps: a playlist you send from your phone to the TV, end-to-end encrypted and deleted within minutes, and the TV's trial or activation, kept under a one-way fingerprint of the TV.
• It behaves like a television. Channel up and down from the player, favourites, continue watching, a PIN over the groups you would rather the household did not find.

What Zapline will never do

• Bundle channels, or point you at any. It plays playlists you already have. It will never ship a list, suggest a provider, or link to one.
• Collect app data. The app has no account, analytics or viewing history on our side. The website's optional notify-me waitlist stores an email, chosen platforms, and signup/update times so we can announce launches; your IP is kept for 60 seconds only in a rate-limit entry and is never saved with the signup. Ask [email protected] to delete it.
• Show you an advert. Zapline will never be funded by your attention or your data.

What it does not do yet

Being straight about the gaps, since every other page here is a pitch. Zapline does not record programmes, does not show several channels at once, and does not sync your library between your devices — each one keeps its own. Those are on the list, not in the app.