It’s hard to believe that just a year ago, I had a thought of a Jellyfin client that played my Live TV channels and had a general feeling of a cable TV platform.

That was the beginning of the journey for the project I called LiveFin, a word that connects Live TV and Jellyfin together. I had a purpose and agenda for this project and so far it’s been great…

…merely

Throughout 2025, there’s been a rise of LLM tools and AI-assisted technology used for coding. Many inside the Jellyfin community have seen the increase of “vibe coded” clients and PRs for Jellyfin and I don’t need to explain their reactions here.

As a rookie developer, using these tools seemed like a great way to learn and build up a project much more quickly than learning something that took decades to build. It’s been a mixed bag of getting ideas out quickly having a guide inside SwiftUI (don’t think any client with Live TV that uses Swift utilizes a full fledged guide view). But it’s also been hell working with broken anquicated codes and misuse of the actual Jellyfin API.

While using these tools, I was reading and learning from the Jellyfin API to make several changes to finally implement a working live stream instead of relying on fake code that either lead to nowhere or wouldn’t work because there’s no VLCKit implemented (yet).

So what does this mean? Is it the end of this project???

Absolutely not.

I will still use LLM assisted tools for reference and planning functions. But I also want to reclaim that passion and original goal I had intentions for making LiveFin in the first place. Making it a long term project instead of a race to the finish line with broken code all over the place.

Like I stated at the beginning of the year, throughout the next few versions of the app going into 3.0, there will be small visual changes. It’s going to be mostly code organized, rearranged, and condensed to set up an easier path to creating the tvOS app. Extending the timeline instead of rushing without any kind of reward.

Speaking of that, I will be delaying the tvOS app indefinitely until everything on the iOS app is restructured. (Moonfin and Wholphin are great alternative open source projects for the tvOS space) Same thing applies for any other port outside the Apple ecosystem. Library support will eventually come right after implementing recording options for programs. I know it was well requested by many when I initially released 2.0, but it would feel out of place at the current pace in development.

Also, to answer anyone’s question on why LiveFin isn’t using FOSS, 3 things:

1. It was recommended by Thornbill, kill him (jk). He’s been a big supporter when I officially announced the project publicly and initially told me while I was developing that I should keep things private or even get things licensed.
2. Xcode fucking sucks at its GitHub integration. Whenever I do go for a push for the project, it would tell me my local repository is outdated and force me to do a pull request first then it will push. But every time, it leads to months of code lost to old commits. Stashed Changes are life savers.
3. I didn’t feel like the app was truly well suited enough for open source. The whole concept of the app was never replicated by any developer. Mostly because I made a whopping profit of -$100 USD. And again, the app needs more work before I share code publicly.

Let me just say one thing. I grew up in an environment where we value pro-art. I, myself, am certified in Photoshop and Illustrator and even designed the ugly Phineas-looking ass fish named Fishsticks. Of course discourse happened when AI became so much powerful than it was 10 years ago by making unrealistic images, fanfics, and of course software.

A lot of you might go “boo another AI Jellyfin client” thing on Reddit. Honestly, that’s totally fine. If you decide to no longer use the app either because of AI or your privacy (everything in the app since the inception has been running your server locally not to any data center; but please read the Privacy Policy), that is totally fine. This is why we use Jellyfin in the first place, to have and make choices of how and where we consume content.

If you are continuing to use the app, the next release, 2.2, will feature a new video player and of course optimizations.

LiveFin at the core was always supposed to be a passion project of making a better Live TV experience for Jellyfin users and I hope that you all will understand these decisions. And hopefully you will stick around for the many advances that I plan while growing as a future developer to make a reality in the future.

I also want to share deep gratitude to all of the original beta testers for their continued support.

Thank you again for reading and I hope to see you all on the other side on 2.2

-KP