9/15/2026

Lotus v0.4.4

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DrShift

Spreading Light ⚡

5 min read

lotus release changelog

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Highlights

Seventeen screens rebuilt for the phone. Twelve apps now put their places in a bar along the bottom, one word each, always in reach. The rest use the shape that suits them: Calendar keeps one toolbar, Settings and Accounts became lists you open, Profile a single switch. Filter strips and title blocks are gone everywhere, so what you came for starts at the top of the screen instead of below the fold. Chat and Groups are unchanged on purpose.
Onboarding gets you into Lotus faster. The first-run experience has been rebuilt to make creating or connecting an account quicker, clearer and easier to follow. Fewer decisions get in the way, the steps are easier to understand, and new users reach their Lotus home sooner.
Radio, rebuilt. Thousands of public stations, sorted by what is popular, by genre, by what is near you and by what you have played, and a station starts in a tap. Every station has its own public chat.
Cinema is one place. Home, Explore and Library, with one player bar instead of the floating capsule, and what is playing shown on a panel beside you on a computer or a full screen on a phone.
Shorts. A vertical feed you swipe through, with one video playing at a time and a clear end.
Home opens on your apps. The greeting shrinks as you scroll, search sits under it, and the app grid comes first, because opening another app is the most common thing you do there.
Drive works like a phone file app. Drive, Recent, Shared, Public and Search along the bottom, single line rows, and a folder opens as its own screen with a way back.
Your saved things survive a bad connection. A read that fails is no longer mistaken for an empty list, a save that does not land tells you instead of pretending, and a note you delete stays deleted.
Saving a station works the way you expect. Press and hold saves from anywhere on a touch screen, and a station's genres now come from everything it is tagged with rather than the first few.

UI/UX

One row of chrome, at most. Between the app bar and your content there is now a single search or filter row, never two strips stacked. Categories, folders, lists and labels became tiles and rows you open, each with its own screen and a back button.
Sheets that behave. Anything short opens as a bottom sheet, anything you write in opens full height with Cancel on the left and Done on the right, and a choice that follows an action opens as an action sheet, with the destructive option in red at the end and Cancel below it.
Tasks you can swipe. Swipe a task right to complete it, left to delete it, with an undo. The week planner folded into the date picker, so the list starts right under the quick add.
Calendar in one row. The month, Today, the arrows and the view picker share a single toolbar, and tapping a day in the month view now opens that day instead of starting a new event.
Archive is reachable again. Archived notes and private lists now have their own screens on a phone, and search can find an archived note and tells you it is archived.
Settings and Accounts read like Settings. A list of destinations that open as their own screens, with relays broken into three plain rows instead of five stacked layers.
Maps keeps the map. One search row over the map with the category shortcuts inside it, and Saved and Shared as full screens of their own.
The apps grid opens in place. The More sheet no longer pushes a second screen inside itself.

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue where a failed read could erase the radio stations you had saved.
Fixed an issue where a save that never reached your device still showed the station as saved.
Fixed an issue where saving a station while switching accounts could add or remove a station for the wrong account.
Fixed an issue where a note you deleted could come back.
Fixed an issue where archiving a note on a phone put it out of reach, with no way to find or restore it.
Fixed an issue where a copy someone sent you offered editing actions that could never work.
Fixed an issue where leaving Search in Drive left your public files filtered with nothing on screen to explain it.
Fixed an issue where a link straight to a file in Drive arrived before your files had loaded, so it opened the right place and found nothing.
Fixed an issue where Shorts would not start when the videos had already been loaded, so tapping a video did nothing.
Fixed an issue where the Shorts unmute button and caption sat underneath the navigation bar.
Fixed an issue where a search typed in Mail kept filtering other tabs after you left search.
Fixed an issue where deleting a list said no notes would move when it held some.
Fixed an issue where a long contact name widened the page instead of wrapping.
Fixed an issue where signing up could fail on the contact card, and where retrying could leave you with a second account.
Fixed an issue where the Subscriptions and Tools screens in relay settings could disagree with their own back button.

Contributors

Thanks to everyone who shipped this release:

@DoktorShift
@pratik227 (Pratik Patel)

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Highlights

Seventeen screens rebuilt for the phone. Twelve apps now put their places in a bar along the bottom, one word each, always in reach. The rest use the shape that suits them: Calendar keeps one toolbar, Settings and Accounts became lists you open, Profile a single switch. Filter strips and title blocks are gone everywhere, so what you came for starts at the top of the screen instead of below the fold. Chat and Groups are unchanged on purpose.

Onboarding gets you into Lotus faster. The first-run experience has been rebuilt to make creating or connecting an account quicker, clearer and easier to follow. Fewer decisions get in the way, the steps are easier to understand, and new users reach their Lotus home sooner.

Radio, rebuilt. Thousands of public stations, sorted by what is popular, by genre, by what is near you and by what you have played, and a station starts in a tap. Every station has its own public chat.

Cinema is one place. Home, Explore and Library, with one player bar instead of the floating capsule, and what is playing shown on a panel beside you on a computer or a full screen on a phone.

Shorts. A vertical feed you swipe through, with one video playing at a time and a clear end.

Home opens on your apps. The greeting shrinks as you scroll, search sits under it, and the app grid comes first, because opening another app is the most common thing you do there.

Drive works like a phone file app. Drive, Recent, Shared, Public and Search along the bottom, single line rows, and a folder opens as its own screen with a way back.

Your saved things survive a bad connection. A read that fails is no longer mistaken for an empty list, a save that does not land tells you instead of pretending, and a note you delete stays deleted.

Saving a station works the way you expect. Press and hold saves from anywhere on a touch screen, and a station's genres now come from everything it is tagged with rather than the first few.

UI/UX

One row of chrome, at most. Between the app bar and your content there is now a single search or filter row, never two strips stacked. Categories, folders, lists and labels became tiles and rows you open, each with its own screen and a back button.

Sheets that behave. Anything short opens as a bottom sheet, anything you write in opens full height with Cancel on the left and Done on the right, and a choice that follows an action opens as an action sheet, with the destructive option in red at the end and Cancel below it.

Tasks you can swipe. Swipe a task right to complete it, left to delete it, with an undo. The week planner folded into the date picker, so the list starts right under the quick add.

Calendar in one row. The month, Today, the arrows and the view picker share a single toolbar, and tapping a day in the month view now opens that day instead of starting a new event.

Archive is reachable again. Archived notes and private lists now have their own screens on a phone, and search can find an archived note and tells you it is archived.

Settings and Accounts read like Settings. A list of destinations that open as their own screens, with relays broken into three plain rows instead of five stacked layers.

Maps keeps the map. One search row over the map with the category shortcuts inside it, and Saved and Shared as full screens of their own.

The apps grid opens in place. The More sheet no longer pushes a second screen inside itself.

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue where a failed read could erase the radio stations you had saved.

Fixed an issue where a save that never reached your device still showed the station as saved.

Fixed an issue where saving a station while switching accounts could add or remove a station for the wrong account.

Fixed an issue where a note you deleted could come back.

Fixed an issue where archiving a note on a phone put it out of reach, with no way to find or restore it.

Fixed an issue where a copy someone sent you offered editing actions that could never work.

Fixed an issue where leaving Search in Drive left your public files filtered with nothing on screen to explain it.

Fixed an issue where a link straight to a file in Drive arrived before your files had loaded, so it opened the right place and found nothing.

Fixed an issue where Shorts would not start when the videos had already been loaded, so tapping a video did nothing.

Fixed an issue where the Shorts unmute button and caption sat underneath the navigation bar.

Fixed an issue where a search typed in Mail kept filtering other tabs after you left search.

Fixed an issue where deleting a list said no notes would move when it held some.

Fixed an issue where a long contact name widened the page instead of wrapping.

Fixed an issue where signing up could fail on the contact card, and where retrying could leave you with a second account.

Fixed an issue where the Subscriptions and Tools screens in relay settings could disagree with their own back button.