I redesigned Popcorn Time!

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Check out the interactive prototype here

:popcorn: Popcorn Time, but way better

Although it’s been up and running for over 10 years now, I’m shocked to say that in that time the UI has received very little attention or updating. So as a fan of the app as well as movies & TV in general, while looking for personal projects to build my portfolio I figured why not show my favorite streaming app some love and give it the much-needed visual overhaul it deserves.

During my redesign process, I also ended up reimagining the possibilities of what a streaming service could be. I though about all the features I’d want my dreaming streaming app to have and what would make it not only competitive with all the major streaming platforms out there, but overtake them entirely and leave them behind in the dust.

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Redesigned Home page

I wanted this to be the entertainment app to end all entertainment apps. That’s why beyond just redesigning the interface, I added some cool features like:

-Social connection through following different users as well as talent (cast & crew) in order to keep up with friends’ recently watched content and new releases featuring favorite creators.

-User libraries with watch later, history, favorites, as well as user-generated playlists (called Collections)

-Find media you have in common with friends through mutual collections (no more taking forever to find something you both want to watch!)

-Queue management, a common feature in music apps, now included to make movie marathons and TV binge sessions that much easier.

-Fine-grained filter & sort controls (including and/or logic) to make finding what to watch as easy as possible

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New Explore page (similar to original home page)

:desktop_computer: Layout

  • Home page (Classic streaming service experience)
  • Explore page (Sort & filter through all movies & TV)
  • Library page
  • Movie/TV Show pages and modals
  • Collection pages
  • Search/Filter page & dropdown
  • Cast & Crew pages
  • Talent (Actors, Directors, Writers, Producers) profiles
  • Talent filmography pages
  • Now Playing page
  • Queue page & modal
  • Trailer modal

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New user profiles

:sparkles: New Features

  • Multiple page view options (Grid & List views)
  • Better metadata layout
  • Queue management
  • Social network functionality
    • Recommend titles to friends
    • Follow friends & talent
    • View mutual titles in collections
    • Share collections with friends
  • Filter by:
    • Genre
    • Decade
    • Star
    • Language
    • Country
    • Watched/Unwatched
    • Liked
    • Tags
    • Rating

The goal with this project is to eventually be able to incorporate these designs and features into the actual app. I’m learning design & development in parallel so it’ll probably be a while before I take a crack at the real thing haha. Obviously the social features would be hard to actually implement, its a piracy app after all but guy can dream! If you know a way to create anonymous user accounts without storing their data at all please let me know!

I’ve been so excited to show this to y’all the entire I’ve been working on this, so please let me know what you think!

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Looks great. How long did this end up taking?

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…Does anyone actually want social network functionality in a media player? I don’t really care what other people are watching and I don’t see the point in broadcasting what I’m watching to others. The only bit that feels like it could be useful rather than just an advertising/data harvesting opportunity is sharing collections, and that could be done in a much more versatile manner by just being able to import Letterboxd collections or something.

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Maybe I’m off, but honestly this just looks like the Plex UI.

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Oh wait pct is Up? I was using stremio. There is like a millón alternatives nowadays lol.

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What about security/anonymity?

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Is a VPN needed when using popcorn time?

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It looks like you’re starting out on the UI / UX path so I understand the passion, I was at the same place as you a couple of years ago. I know this feels like something that you can be proud of right now, & you should be, but I also know in a couple of years you’re gonna feel a bit red when you look back at it, because i’ve done the same :wink: I would love to give you some tips if you’d be interested, but I also know that receiving criticism where you didn’t ask for it sucks so I’m only gonna point things out if you’d allow me to. Otherwise, a good effort for the portfolio

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This looks great!! Good job :))

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Cool, the font needs to go though

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Love it, keep up the good work!

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Easy for the eyes thank you man! One thing i would like to say is that social network seems weird that’s if you mean like facebook or shit like that, why not just integrate Trakt??

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Guy single handedly built a better platform for fun than multiple multi billion dollar corporations could lmfao

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some features make this app so powerful… gives people the power to add movies…smooth playback. That’s all…I think these two feature makes the app great and create a website also as the app alternative :blush::blush:

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Yo!!! I remember you from UT. The design looks sick!

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Hey one thing that Plex does that I don’t see here is a shuffle function. I can shuffle by, show, season, or any playlists I make up

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Very clean. I like it :ok_hand:

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I like Soap2Day better.

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Sorry, I have trouble trusting code from links that don’t immediately reveal the source code.

Do you have a link to GitHub or Gitlab you could post?

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Nice, I’ll follow this