Crafted with care
A peek under the hood at the technology and thoughtful engineering behind RandomPlayer.
Tech Stack
Engineering Highlights
100% Native, Every Device
Built entirely in Swift for each Apple platform. No web views, no cross-platform shortcuts. Every screen gets the experience it deserves.
Smart Caching
Only downloads the parts you actually watch. Seek to the middle of a big file? Only that portion gets cached. The playback timeline shows you exactly what's downloaded.
Encrypted Storage
Every cached file is encrypted on your device, with keys synced through iCloud Keychain. Your content stays private, even if someone gets physical access to your storage.
MKV & WebM, Natively
No conversion, no waiting. MKV and WebM files play directly, and VideoToolbox extracts real thumbnail previews so your library looks great.
Background Downloads
Downloads keep going even when you switch apps. The system schedules them intelligently around battery and Wi-Fi, and partial progress is always preserved.
Browse That Scales
The Netflix-style Browse view builds smart rows from your watch history, favorites, and folders -- no extra server calls. Handles massive libraries without breaking a sweat.
Fast Streaming
Pipelined reads and connection caching deliver noticeably faster SMB and NFS throughput, and the SMB transport is built on Network.framework -- the same transport that carries SMB over QUIC when your server offers it. Seeking through big files on a network share feels snappy.
Credentials Just Sync
Server credentials travel with you through iCloud Keychain, and share profiles sync through CloudKit. Change a password on one device and the others adopt it before their next connection attempt -- no relaunch, no retyping.
A Library You Can Carry
NewVideos copied to a drive live in a portable encrypted vault. One append-only sealed journal is the source of truth for what's on the drive, every file is encrypted with a fresh nonce, and the private key that unlocks it lives on each device and never leaves it. Nothing on the drive is readable outside the app.
RandomPlayer is a labor of love. Have questions about how something works? Feel free to reach out.