Case study

Artcast

Streaming fine art to TVs in homes, hotels and offices, with an iPhone companion for discovering, curating and exhibiting artwork.

Role
Sole iOS and tvOS developer
Platforms
Apple TV, iPhone
Engagement
Since 2021, ongoing
Stack
Swift, SwiftUI

Artcast on Apple TV

Artcast iPhone app Discover screen with featured artists and genres

The product

Artcast streams a library of more than 100,000 artworks to TVs across Apple TV, Roku, Amazon, Samsung and other platforms. It turns a screen into a rotating gallery for living rooms, hotel lobbies, offices and healthcare settings.

The iPhone app is the companion: browse and curate artcasts, control display settings, and exhibit your own work. Artists earn a share of view revenue, and contests keep the community active.

What I built

Native Apple TV app. Full-screen art playback with display duration, music and matte settings.
Native iPhone app. Discovery, following, custom artcasts, comments and sharing.
Purchases on TV. An ad-supported free tier, ad-free subscriptions and in-app rentals.
Artist tools. Uploading, exhibiting and contests from the phone.

Interesting problems

Artcast iPhone app showing the Autumn Colors artcast

No typing passwords with a remote

On Apple TV, the iPhone app hands login credentials to the TV over the local network. Signing in takes a tap instead of a slow on-screen keyboard or frustrating speech-to-text.

Video loops with no hitch

Most players stutter at the moment a short clip restarts. Artcast plays its loops with no visible seam, so the art never hitches.

Buy now, sign in later

Viewers can subscribe or rent on the TV without creating an account, then log in with the same account they use on mobile to unlock favorites and curated artcasts.

Art that holds up on a 75 inch screen

Fine art is unforgiving. Images are loaded and displayed to stay faithful in color and detail on large displays, without stalls between transitions.

Fair pay and a safe community

Artists earn a share of revenue, so the apps include an integration that tracks ads and subscribers to drive artist payouts. An AI moderation system reviews the messages and images that users post themselves.

Beyond the code

Before AppSwage I spent more than a decade in VP-level roles at companies like Activision Blizzard, Vertafore and Adaptive Biotechnologies. On Artcast I bring that experience to the whole product, not just the iOS and tvOS code.

That means overall architectural guidance, platform and technical leadership, and project management alongside the backend team. An offshore team handles the other TV platforms under that technical direction.

Artcast iPhone app Earn tab with contests
"Scott is truly outstanding. Extremely skilled, great communicator, professional, ethical, resourceful, dependable. A huge asset for any project."
Derek O. · VP, Artcast

See it for yourself

Artcast is free to download on Apple TV and iPhone.