WhatNext
Vol. I No. 01 Est. MMXXVI
A private cinema almanac · Vol. I, No. 01

What
Next.

Fifteen films a day. Yours.

A movie recommender that learns your taste on your phone — and keeps it there. No accounts. No posters. No infinite scroll. Just fifteen well-chosen films, every morning.

Download for iOS or Android → Support & FAQ
§ 01 — The case

A small, deliberate almanac.

Most film apps are billboards in disguise — designed to sell posters, sell engagement, sell you. WhatNext is the opposite: a quiet, on-device reader that learns what you love and delivers a short list each morning.

I.

No accounts.

No sign-up, no email, no cloud. The app opens, you start. Your taste profile is a single file on your device — back it up if you like, or don't.

II.

Your data.

Export it, delete it, restore it on a new device. Your ratings and taste profile are a portable file — yours to keep or wipe entirely. No company holds a copy.

III.

Built around you.

Rate a few films you love and the model learns your taste — on this device, in milliseconds, and never anywhere else. No algorithm serving engagement. Just films that fit.

§ 02 — How it works

Four small steps.

Setup takes under three minutes and never leaves your phone. The recommender runs locally on a small taste vector — no servers, no telemetry.

№ 01

Seed your taste.

Tap ten films you've enjoyed from a curated grid of two hundred. Or skip the grid for a tag-based fallback if your watch list is shorter.

№ 02

Rate a few more.

One card at a time. Mark each as Enjoyed it, It was okay, or Not for me. The model calibrates against your replies.

№ 03

Today's picks.

Each day, fifteen films are queued for you — synopsis, genre band, year, and runtime. Browse what catches your eye.

№ 04

Mark & save.

Save anything to your watchlist. Mark it seen and rate it — the recommender adjusts. Your library is a quiet, growing book of you.

№ 01 · Onboarding
Seed grid
Onboarding seed grid
№ 03 · Daily
Daily discovery
Discovery feed
№ 05 · Profile
Taste map
Taste map
§ 03 — Local-first

Everything stays
on your device.

The taste vector — a few hundred numbers describing what you tend to love — is computed on your phone and stored on your phone. There is no "WhatNext server" that knows you watched Stalker at 2am.

The catalogue ships with the app as a single SQLite file and updates quietly in the background. Searches run against local full-text indexes — nothing goes out as you type.

The most personal recommender is the one that never tells anyone what it knows.
— Editor's note · Vol. I
§ 04 — What's inside

The colophon.

A short list of what the app does. None of it requires an account; all of it runs offline once the catalogue is downloaded.

A.
Daily discovery

Fifteen picks a day, re-ranked by an on-device preference model that updates with every rating you give.

B.
Cold-start fallback

Haven't seen many films? Choose a few genres and moods instead — the model bootstraps from tags.

C.
Local search

Full-text over title, director, theme, franchise, and series. Nothing goes over the wire as you type.

D.
Watchlist & seen history

A growing library of films you've saved and films you've watched, with a quiet rating dot beside each.

E.
Mood search

Thirty curated moods — "Rainy Sunday", "Mind-Bending", "Road Trip" — mapped to semantic film vectors. Free for all users.

F.
Export & delete

Export your ratings, watchlist, and preferences as JSON, CSV, or Markdown. One tap to wipe everything and start over.

G.
Backup & restore

Export your full library as a portable JSON file and restore it on any device. Your taste profile goes with you.

H.
Taste profile

A radar chart of your cinematic DNA — top genres, archetypes, and a shareable taste card that captures what you actually love.

I.
Two themes

Default dark and Light — both free. The app remembers your pick across sessions.

§ 05 — Questions

A few letters to the editor.

Things people ask us, in approximate order of frequency. Write to the address in the colophon if yours isn't here.

Q. 01
Where, exactly, is my data stored?
In a single SQLite file inside the app's sandbox on your device. iOS keeps it encrypted at rest. If you delete the app, you delete the file — there is no copy elsewhere.
Q. 02
How does the recommender work without a server?
Each film has a small vector of attributes precomputed and shipped with the catalogue. Your ratings produce a taste vector. Each morning the app ranks films by similarity, locally, in about 40ms.
Q. 03
Why fifteen films a day?
Enough to give you a real choice; short enough that you read every one. Endless feeds are easy to scroll past — a bounded list is the one you actually act on.
Q. 04
Can I take my data with me?
Yes. Settings → Export everything saves your ratings, watchlist, and preferences as JSON, CSV, or Markdown. Import that file on any device to pick up exactly where you left off.
Q. 05
Does it work offline?
Yes, completely. The catalogue, your ratings, and the recommendation engine all live on your device. An internet connection is only needed to download the initial catalogue on first launch and to receive periodic content updates.
Q. 06
Android?
Yes — available on Google Play alongside the iOS release. The same local-first architecture runs on both platforms; your data never leaves the device on either.
Today's edition

Begin watching.

Available now on iPhone and Android. The catalogue downloads on first launch and lives entirely on your device. Setup takes under three minutes.

Download on theApp Store Get it onGoogle Play
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