This one is big. I've been building the infrastructure behind Lagu Relay for a while now, and I'm really excited to finally share it, along with a lot of other design and feature work.
What I wanted from Lagu Relay was to stop worrying about whether my phone was on the same network or VLAN as the computer or TV it was controlling. It should just work, closer to how Spotify Connect feels, but over the internet, with privacy and security at the front. That's how Lagu Relay came about. There's a full write-up of its security and privacy here: 
#66
The next biggest change is the redesigned artist page, on every platform except the Watch: a full-width artist photo, their top 10 songs, and your own listening with them. As always, the full release notes are below. If you have questions, reply here or start a new thread!
What's new in 0.16.0
The big one: Lagu Remote now works away from home. Through Lagu Relay, your phone reaches your Lagu computer or TV from anywhere, encrypted end to end, and it is on by default on your phone once your computer or TV offers it. Artists get new pages everywhere, with a big photo, their popular songs and your own listening history, including on Apple TV and Android TV. Siri can shuffle your Liked Tracks or your whole library, CarPlay's Library shows your playlists and artists, and Shuffle finally starts on a random song. Swipe a song to queue it on iPhone and Android, arrange Home and Library the way you like, choose an app icon, and see what you're playing from at the top of Now Playing. And a long list of fixes from your forum reports.
Everywhere
- Lagu Remote away from home. Control the music on your Lagu computer or TV from another network, over cellular or someone else's Wi-Fi. The details are under Lagu Remote & relay below.
- New artist pages (iPhone, iPad, Android, desktop, Apple TV, Android TV). A full-width artist photo runs behind the name, or a fan of their album covers when your server has no photo. Under it: their albums, songs and years, your own listening (your plays, when you last played them, your top song), then Play, Shuffle and the artist's station. Top songs shows ten of their most popular songs, Your most played ranks their albums by your plays, and About, Similar artists and, with Plex Pass, Sounds like follow.
- Artist Play means the same thing everywhere: the whole discography, newest album first, each album in its own order. Shuffle shuffles the same songs. The artist's station starts with their top song.
- Popular songs carry a small flame on Android, desktop and the TVs, as on iPhone: on album pages and in an artist's Top songs.
- Home, your way (iPhone, iPad, Android, desktop) (forum #44). Settings › Appearance › Home › Home Sections, or Edit Home at the foot of Home: show, hide and drag Home's shelves into your own order. A hidden shelf isn't loaded at all. The shelves from your Plex server move as one block, and a Genres shelf is there if you want it (off by default).
- Pin playlists to Home (iPhone, iPad, Android, desktop). Pin or Unpin from any playlist's menu, and your pins show as a Pinned Playlists shelf near the top of Home.
- Library Sections (iPhone, iPad, Android, desktop) (forum #46). Show, hide and reorder the Library list (or the desktop sidebar's Library rows), from Edit on the Library page or from Settings. There's a new Radio row, shown by default while the Radio tab is off.
- Save a Radio mix as a playlist (iPhone, iPad, Android, desktop) (forum #56). A mix page has a Save button beside Play and Shuffle, and a mix card's menu has Save as Playlist. If a playlist with that name exists, Lagu asks whether to replace it or save a new one beside it.
- Artist mixes get their own cover and page (forum #56, #57). A tap on a mix card opens the mix; the play button on the card starts it.
- The Lagu mark beside the Home title (iPhone, iPad, Android, desktop). Settings › Home, off by default. A Simple mark switch swaps in the two-stroke lines mark.
- Stats: This Year and 365 Days (forum #58).
- Search: remove a single recent search with a swipe or a long-press (iPhone, Android), and with the Radio tab hidden, Search offers a Radio row (iPhone, Android, desktop).
- Accent swatches show the colour you'll actually get in a light window, with a note when Lagu had to darken it, and the light-window adjustment is gentler, so fewer accents change at all.
iPhone and iPad
- Swipe a song to queue it (forum #46). Swipe right to Play Next, left to Add to Queue, as in Apple Music. A full swipe does it at once; a partial swipe shows the button. On Search, Songs, albums, playlists, folders, moods, mixes and Downloads search. It works while you're controlling another device with Lagu Remote too.
- Choose the app icon. Settings › Appearance › App Icon: Bloom, Solid Dark, Solid Light, Lines Dark or Lines Light.
- "Playing from" at the top of Now Playing (forum #56). The playlist, album, collection or mix you're playing from sits at the top of the player; tap it to open the playlist, album or collection.
- Tap title or artist to open (Settings › Now Playing, off by default). The title opens the album and the artist line opens the artist. With the quality badges and the volume slider both off, the title grows.
- Library › Edit opens a sheet like Edit Home, with checkmarks to show or hide and grips to reorder.
- iPhone Duo: unfolded, Lagu wears the iPad layout, with the sidebar and the player bar in landscape, and rotates freely. Folded, the cover screen keeps the iPhone layout. Now Playing fills the open screen, and Play and Shuffle never wrap.
- The iPad player bar shows the song title on smaller iPads instead of cutting it short.
- Downloads › All Songs: remove any song. It leaves every album and playlist it was in; a song in a kept-in-sync playlist explains why it stays.
- Settings › Plex › Connection says Local, Remote or Relay above the address.
- Settings search lands on the row you searched for, not the top of its section.
Android
- Swipe a song to queue it (forum #46). Swipe right to Play next, left to Add to queue, on every song list. You feel a tick at the threshold and a click when you let go, including on Samsung phones and phones without rich haptics. TalkBack offers both as actions on the row. In Downloads, swipe left still removes.
- Pick your app icon. Settings › Appearance › App icon: Bloom, Solid Dark, Solid Light, Lines Dark or Lines Light. Android has to close Lagu to swap it, so Lagu asks: Restart now, or Next time, which swaps it when Lagu next goes to the background. Music keeps playing either way.
- "Playing from" at the top of Now Playing (forum #56). Tap it to open the playlist, album or collection.
- Tap title or artist to open (Settings › Playback, off by default), as on iPhone.
- Settings › Remote works like the iPhone's Remote tab: Add device to scan a code, then Play on with this phone and each paired computer or TV, with Connect, Disconnect, Back to my queue and Re-pair.
- Downloads rows match the iPhone: swipe right to Play next, swipe left to remove, and the ⋯ menu has Play next and Add to queue. Remove works on every song.
- Up Next stays open through a rotation, as the side panel in landscape and the sheet again in portrait.
- Galaxy Watch shows the album art (forum #19). Lagu now sends a smaller cover that Wear OS watches accept.
- The artist page's photo runs up under the status bar and fades into the page without a hard line.
Apple TV and Android TV
- New artist pages. A full-width artist photo fades into the page behind the name and Play, Shuffle and Radio; with no photo, a fan of album covers. Popular is ten songs in two columns, with flames on the standouts. The text stays readable on any photo, light or dark.
- Mono on the TVs (forum #41). Settings › Appearance gains Look (Bloom or Mono), Appearance (Dark, Light or System) and, on Mono, the nine paired Primary colours as one row of swatches. With Light chosen, Now Playing and the visualizer stay dark.
- Shuffle and Radio look like buttons at rest, not just when focused.
- Apple TV: Down always reaches the next shelf, even a short one under a longer row.
- Android TV: Lagu Relay is on by default while Lagu Remote is on, so your phone can reach the TV away from home. If you turned it off, it stays off.
Desktop (macOS, Windows, Linux)
- A Now Playing panel (forum #60). A new button in the player bar opens one panel on the right with three tabs: Now Playing, Lyrics and Up Next. The Now Playing tab shows the album art, the next two songs, the title, artist and album, and an About the artist card. Settings › Appearance › Navigation › Now Playing panel lets it float as a card (the default) or take its own column. The Lyrics tab gets bigger lines with a soft fade at the top and bottom.
- A redesigned artist page (forum #60): a big photo hero, Top songs in two columns of five, Your most played, About beside Similar artists, and Sounds like with Plex Pass.
- Show audio quality on Now Playing (forum #60). Settings › Playback, on by default. Off hides the quality and codec badge on Now Playing and the player bar.
- Messages show bottom-right above the player bar, where your eye already is.
- Opening an artist or album from Spotlight closes Now Playing so the page isn't hidden behind it, and Now Playing fades out when it closes.
CarPlay, Siri and Apple Watch
- "Shuffle Liked Tracks" works with Siri. "Shuffle my Liked Tracks on Lagu" and "Play my Liked Tracks on Lagu" play your loved playlist, or your hearted songs when you don't have one. If there's nothing loved yet, Siri says so.
- "Shuffle on Lagu" shuffles your whole library, the same mix as Home's Shuffle Library. "Shuffle my music on Lagu" works too.
- Siri finds smart playlists when you ask it to shuffle one, and finds albums with numbers in the name whether or not you say the commas ("play 10000 Days").
- CarPlay's Library tab shows your playlists and artists (forum #62), the first eight of each with artwork and a See All row for the rest, and says "Loading your library…" while it loads.
- Music no longer starts by itself when you open Lagu after leaving the car (forum #62). It only resumes when CarPlay or your headphones come back.
- Playlists keep their own cover in Home's Recently Played when you start them from Siri, Shortcuts, CarPlay, a widget or the Watch.
Lagu Remote and Lagu Relay
- Lagu Remote works away from home. When your phone isn't on the same network as your Lagu computer or TV, it connects through Lagu Relay, Lagu's own relay servers in cities around the world. Everything between your phone and the computer or TV is encrypted end to end, so the relay only passes it along. It keeps nothing about you or your devices on disk, and you can watch it at status.lagu.fm; lagu.fm/relay and the privacy policy on lagu.fm have the full detail.
- On by default on your phone (iPhone and Android) once your computer or TV offers it, in Settings › Remote (under Away From Home on iPhone and iPad), with a short note on privacy and a link to more. You can turn it off.
- Your computer or TV picks the nearest relay, switches to another within about 15 seconds if its relay goes down, and moves without dropping your phone. On a computer, turn on Settings › Remote › Lagu Relay; on the TVs it's on by default.
- Pair from anywhere. Turn on Pair over Lagu Relay on the computer or TV and its QR code works from another network for ten minutes, once. A typed PIN still pairs only on the same network. The codes are also easier to scan.
- Already paired? No need to pair again. Phones paired on 0.15 pick up relay access the next time they connect at home.
- The status says which relay, by its city: "via Lagu Relay (Montréal)". On the iPhone mini player the relay's city always shows in full.
- Reconnects quickly. If your computer or TV moves to a different relay, your phone finds it within about a minute, and coming back to Lagu reconnects straight away.
- Android: smoother remote control. The seek bar moves smoothly over the relay, Disconnect responds at once, and handing playback back to your phone overlaps the music instead of dropping out.
Fixes
- Shuffle starts on a random song (iPhone, iPad, CarPlay, Siri, Apple TV, Apple Watch, Android TV) (forum #62). Shuffle on a playlist, album, collection, Downloads or a Home mix always played the first song first. Android and desktop already did this right.
- Your phone moves to your server's local address at home (iPhone, iPad, Android) (forum #59). A phone that connected away from home stayed on the remote address even back on your Wi-Fi. Now, on Wi-Fi, Lagu quietly checks your server's local addresses and switches to one that answers, while the music keeps playing. Never on cellular. Refresh connection (Android) and Test connection (iPhone) now re-check every address.
- Android: swiping down on the lyrics no longer drags Now Playing away (forum #61). A pull from the top of the lyrics or a quick flick down closes the lyrics, and Back closes the lyrics without flashing the screen behind.
- Android: dragging a song in Up Next keeps hold of it (forum #55), and quick back-to-back swipes to remove take the right songs.
- Android: playlists with more than 500 songs download in full (forum #51), and a short download from an older version fills in the next time you open the playlist.
- Android: downloaded covers load fast online and show offline (forum #51). iPhone downloads keep their covers offline too.
- Android: music never plays without its controls after a call (forum #51). After a long call or another app's interruption, the playback card and lock-screen controls stay and come back with the music.
- Android: sign-in waits for a slow approval through network blips, on phones and Android TV.
- Android: Touch feedback off silences Lagu's haptics on every Android version.
- Android TV: the Mono Primary colour title is readable in Dark.
- Desktop: mix covers load on more servers.
Known issues, coming in 0.16.1: in CarPlay, the Albums, Playlists and Artists lists you open from Library show nothing until they finish loading. A song that restarts from the beginning on radio over cellular (iPhone) is still under investigation; when Lagu has to recover a stream it now writes a line to the phone's log, so a report can be traced. The desktop artist photo doesn't yet get the readability guard the phones and TVs have, and the Leveling target setting is on its way.
Thanks for the reports: most of the items above began as one of your forum posts.
