Watchly vs Aether Player

Transform Your Media Collection Into Your Personal Cinema Watchly is the ultimate media organization and streaming app for iOS. Turn your personal video collection into a beautiful, professional streaming experience. PREMIUM FEATURES • Professional video player with hardware acceleration and universal format support • Support for all major video formats (MP4, MOV, MKV, AVI, and more) • Smart episode detection and automatic series organization • Beautiful metadata with movie posters, cast info, and descriptions • Resume watching from where you left off across all devices • Handoff and Continuity across iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV • Cast & crew person pages with filmography • Siri, Spotlight, and App Intents • Intelligent next episode navigation for TV series • Advanced search with 30+ filters including genre, year, cast, and rating • Cloud storage integration (Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box) • Cross-device sync with your Watchly account (watch progress, watchlist, liked, and seen) • Cast to Apple TV or Mac and control playback from your iPhone • Share your library with nearby Watchly devices on the same network • File Sharing — upload videos to your library from any browser on your Wi‑Fi network • Offline viewing capabilities • Dark mode and accessibility support PERFECT FOR • Movie enthusiasts with large collections • TV show binge-watchers • Users managing personal media libraries • Anyone wanting a premium streaming experience for their content MODERN iOS EXPERIENCE • Beautiful SwiftUI interface optimized for iPhone and iPad • Gesture-based controls with tap, double-tap, and swipe navigation • Nearby hub — cast, share, and remote-control playback in one place • Lock Screen and Dynamic Island controls while casting • Professional media player with brightness and volume controls • Variable playback speed (0.5× to 2.0×) • Multiple aspect ratio options • VoiceOver and accessibility support PRIVACY & SECURITY • Your media stays on your devices unless you choose to sync • Sign in with Email, Apple, or Google for sync and PRO • No personalized ads and no tracking • Account data is used for sign-in and sync only • Industry-standard encryption ADVANCED CAPABILITIES • Automatic metadata fetching from TMDB • Smart collections and watchlists • Advanced filtering and search • Background processing for smooth performance • File sharing through iOS Files app • Professional video controls and settings FREE TO START — PRO WHEN YOU'RE READY Watchly is free to explore. Upgrade to PRO for unlimited media servers and cloud sources, full cross-device sync, advanced search, and up to 5 linked devices. Try PRO free for 7 days. Share with up to 5 family members via Family Sharing. Experience your media collection like never before. Watchly combines the convenience of modern streaming apps with the privacy and control of managing your own content. Download Watchly today and rediscover your media! Support: watchly.orbitx.studio/support

Aether is a personal media player for Plex, Jellyfin, Emby and your own files — built natively for every Apple screen. Connect your server and your whole library appears: movies, shows, music, Continue Watching, Recently Added. Add a second server and both merge into one deduplicated view, with a picker that tells you which copy is the better file. Your media, not theirs. PLAY ANYTHING • Direct play or server-transcoded — Aether follows the best path automatically, per title. • MKV, HEVC, HDR, lossless audio: formats other players choke on play through a modern engine, GPU-accelerated for smooth 4K. • Picture in Picture, AirPlay, surround sound, lock-screen controls. • Switch audio and subtitle tracks mid-playback on every platform. • Offline downloads, including whole seasons — and Smart Downloads that keep the next unwatched episodes ready. EVERYONE IN THE HOUSE • Profiles: separate Continue Watching, watchlist, ratings, Home rails and trackers, with a PIN on the way in and per-profile library visibility. • A child's profile can be held to an age rating. • Pair a profile to your Plex Home profile, or to its own Jellyfin or Emby user, so watched state stays separate on the server too. • Two profiles are included; up to five with Supporter. SUBTITLES, DONE PROPERLY • Aether reads subtitle files itself and times them against the picture, so they sit where you put them — in the black bars or over the video, in your own style, with sync and size adjustable in the player. • Search OpenSubtitles from a title's own page in thirty-one languages, ranked against the exact file you're playing. YOUR LIBRARY, YOUR WAY • One library across every connected source, filtered by genre, year, rating, country, audio language, server or the libraries you curated on them. • Continue Watching, Up Next and a Discover tab with trending titles and Where to Watch availability in your region. • Person pages, franchise collections, and ratings from IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and TMDb. • Music as its own tab — artists, albums, playlists, and a player built for it, with the catalog kept on disk so it opens offline. • Live TV from a playlist you already have, with a full guide, categories you make yourself, Xtream Codes accounts and HDHomeRun tuners. Bring-your-own: Aether provides no channels. BEAUTIFUL ON EVERY SCREEN • iPhone and iPad: cinematic hero art, a page that grows out of the poster you tapped. • Apple TV: precision focus design, and your Continue Watching in the top shelf. • Apple Vision Pro: an auditorium around the picture — raked seating, masking walls, house lights down. • Mac: a native app with a menu-bar mode, a series browser, and Apple's own decoder for what it can play. PRIVATE BY DESIGN Aether connects only to the servers you configure. No account of ours, no cloud, no ads, no cross-app tracking. Your ratings, watchlist and resume positions live on your devices and in your own iCloud. Optional anonymous usage statistics can be turned off any time. SOURCES • Plex (multi-server, multi-account) • Jellyfin (multi-server) • Emby (multi-server, Live TV, music) • Silo • SMB / network shares, with Bonjour discovery • WebDAV • Local files Optional, all bring-your-own: connect your own Seerr to request what you don't have, your own Trakt or Simkl account to track what you watch, and your own OpenSubtitles account for subtitle search. Aether requires a Plex, Jellyfin, Emby or Silo media server, an SMB or WebDAV share, or local video files. It is not a streaming service and does not provide any content. Plex, Jellyfin, Emby, Silo, Trakt, Simkl and OpenSubtitles are trademarks of their respective owners. Aether is an independent, third-party client and is not affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by them. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://aetherplayer.com/privacy