Three-up player for vertical videos

Play phone-shot vertical videos side by side on TV and kill the black bars

Problem

A developer first built a tool to download Douyin and other platform clips into iCloud Photos, then realised vertical videos look terrible on TV with huge black bars on both sides. The fix was playing three at once, filling the big screen and letting the remote switch audio focus between left, center and right. A group of users already has local vertical libraries and no player designed for them.

Solution

A TV player that splits the screen into three columns playing three vertical videos in sync, with one-touch audio focus switching on the remote, plus random or single-album playback from Photos or a NAS. An iPad companion offers two-up side-by-side mode for workouts or tutorials, all reading from a unified local media index with no extra uploads.

Users

iPhone and Apple TV users who save short vertical videos locally and want to watch them on a big screen

MVP

Apple TV app with three-column synchronized playback; remote control for left/center/right audio; read and shuffle from iCloud Photos; lock to a single album; iPad two-up mode as a bonus

Revenue

Paid App Store download (e.g. $4.99–$9.99), with later unlocks for NAS and multi-album management; promote in short-video communities

Why now

Downloading short videos locally is now common, yet almost no big-screen player is designed for vertical layouts; an indie dev can ship an Apple TV build in weeks with SwiftUI