Archive Watch vs ciniq
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Archive Watch
Explore a vast collection of public-domain films, classic TV, and vintage commercials. Enjoy a curated cinematic experience with real posters, cast information, and genre browsing. Create personalized channels or let the app surprise you with delightful discoveries.
- Public domain film and TV streaming
- Live programmed channels
- Customizable channels
- Detailed film and TV show information
- Browse by decade, genre, and collection
- Surprise Me feature
- No ads, subscriptions, or in-app purchases
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Archive Watch turns the Internet Archive's vast public-domain moving-image collection into a cinematheque you can wander from your couch — feature films, classic television, silent cinema, animation, newsreels, and the strange, wonderful world of vintage commercials and ephemeral film. Every title is presented with the care of a great repertory house: real posters, cast, synopses, and genres, so a 1920s silent and a 1950s sci-fi B-movie look as considered as anything on a modern streaming service. LIVE CHANNELS — A REAL TV GUIDE - A programmed, scrolling channel guide: see what's on now and next - Tune in and it plays straight through, one title rolling into the next - Vintage public-domain commercials play between programs — the 1990s-TV feel - Build your own channel from any mix of genre, type, and era A REPERTORY HOUSE, NOT A FEED - Hand-curated shelves alongside the most-watched titles from the Archive - Browse by decade, genre, and collection - Classic TV with real series, seasons, and episodes - Surprise Me — for when you'd rather be delighted than decide BUILT FOR THE LIVING ROOM - Native Apple TV experience, full-screen and focus-driven - Resume right where you left off - Search with the Siri Remote or your voice - Favorites and playlists in your Library - Cartoon Mode, Party Play, and a cover-art screensaver FREE, AND RESPECTFUL OF YOU - No subscription, no in-app purchases, no ads - No account required to watch - No tracking, no analytics — nothing about you is collected - Optional Sign in with Apple syncs your favorites and progress across your household's Apple TVs using your own iCloud All content is sourced from the public domain via the Internet Archive. Metadata and artwork come from TMDb, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons, and the Library of Congress. This product uses the TMDb API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDb. If you'd rather wander a well-stocked repository of curated cinema than doomscroll a recommendation feed, Archive Watch is for you.
ciniq
Discover films tailored to your personal taste without relying on crowd scores or critic reviews. Engage in ten-minute film auditions and provide detailed readings across ten dimensions to refine your preferences. Share film recommendations with friends and compare your unique taste profiles.
- Personalized film recommendations
- Curated film canon
- Ten-minute film auditions
- Multi-dimensional film readings
- Friend taste comparison
- Private by design
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ciniq is a film-discovery app built on a canon of festival and academy award winners. No accounts, no user data collected. 1.10 adds a voice mode to the Ask tab. Everything else in this release is canon data corrections and Ask answer quality. VOICE (new in 1.10) Tap the microphone in the Ask tab and speak; ciniq answers aloud and keeps listening, so the user can interrupt it or ask a follow-up without tapping again. Speech is recognised on this device only. requiresOnDeviceRecognition is set rather than requested: if the device or language cannot recognise locally, the microphone reports unavailable instead of sending audio to a server. No audio, transcript or recording leaves the device, and nothing is retained beyond the conversation visible in the app. Answers are composed on-device with Apple's Foundation Models. There is no cloud model and no Private Cloud Compute. On a device without Apple Intelligence the voice mode still works and Ask still answers from the user's own data. To test: Ask tab → microphone → "What have I rated highest?" A real device is required; the Simulator has no microphone and usually no speech voices. The microphone and speech-recognition prompts appear on first use, and their purpose strings explain them. PLAY ON TV "Play on TV" sends a film to a Roku player on the same Wi-Fi using Roku's public External Control Protocol (unauthenticated HTTP on port 8060, enabled by default on Roku devices). ciniq discovers players on the local network, then sends a launch request with the streaming provider's own title ID so the app opens on that film. This is the same mechanism Roku's own mobile app uses. Discovery uses SSDP — a single multicast query on the local network — alongside a subnet probe. The Multicast Networking entitlement was granted to our team on 2026-09-11. This affects only how players are found; launching a film is unchanged. Testing this requires a Roku on the same network as the review device. Without one, the feature shows "No Roku found" plus a manual IP field, and nothing else in the app is affected. To reach it: open any film → Where to watch → Look up → the TV icon on a source row. The app requests local network access for this; the purpose string explains it. Nothing leaves the local network — no analytics, no identifiers, no server. WHERE TO WATCH Where-to-watch lookups use a Watchmode API key that the user supplies in Settings — ciniq has no server and no shared key. For review, please use the key below; paste it in Settings → Watchmode key. Then: any film → Where to watch → Look up → the TV icon appears on sources that can open directly on the film. [PASTE YOUR WATCHMODE KEY HERE] IN-APP PURCHASE ciniq+ unlocks sending to more than one TV. It can be viewed without hardware at Settings → ciniq+ → "See what ciniq+ unlocks". PRIVACY The privacy label is unchanged: no data collected.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: ciniq at 5.0 against Archive Watch's 4.0. ciniq also leads on update cadence (every 2 days vs every 5 days). Archive Watch's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1) and ratings volume (7 vs 1). On price, ads, device support and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. ciniq sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Archive Watch asks for nothing beyond the download.
ciniq holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Archive Watch has 7 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.
Archive Watch ships an update every 5 days, ciniq every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on October 8, 2026 and October 16, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Archive Watch | ciniq |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.0 (7 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 83.3% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 7 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 5 days | Every 2 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free — better | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV — better | iPhone, iPad, Apple TV |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 26.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 29 MB | 8 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Learning is Change, Inc. | Labham LLC |
Customer experience
Archive Watch
ciniq
In-app purchases
Archive Watch
No in-app purchases
ciniq
- ciniq+$5.99









