What’s new.

v2.7.0 2026-09-27

Profiles grow up: optional social handles and a country flag, a way to report a Profile, three new Ork palettes, and the opening screen is dark again.

Added

• Three new Ork palettes: Rokkit Barrage, Shokk Attack and Mega Armor Boss. The library grows from 106 to 109 palettes. Hive Brood, Toxic Spore, Chitin Carapace and Thesa’s Thrakener Steppe also get new artwork; their colours are unchanged.
• Add your Instagram, X, Bluesky, TikTok and YouTube handles to your Profile. Each is optional. Type the handle or paste a link to your profile and the app keeps just the handle. If a handle isn’t valid for that platform, the reason shows under the field.
• Pick your country on your Profile. It shows as a flag next to your name in competitions: on entry cards, comments, the entry page, the Hall of Fame and the Top 3. It is optional, and “None” shows no flag. Choose from a list of every country, with a search box to find yours faster. TalkBack reads out the country’s name, and a Hall of Fame row now also says who won.
• An entry’s page and a past competition’s Top 3 show the painter’s social handles. Each one shows the platform’s logo and the handle, like “@alex_paints”; tap it to open that profile. Only the handles a painter has added appear.
• You can report a painter’s Profile, for example when it pretends to be someone else. On an entry’s page, “Report profile” sits next to “Report this entry” and opens the same report sheet. The sheet has a new reason, “Impersonation”, which you can also pick for an entry or a comment.

Changed

• When a moderator upholds a report on a Profile, its name, picture and social handles are cleared. The country stays. The painter shows as “Anonymous” everywhere until they set a name and handles again; the picture stays gone. Dismissing a report leaves the Profile as it was.
• The privacy policy covers your social handles and country (v7). It says both are optional, that every app user can see them, and that deleting your account deletes them. It also covers reporting a Profile.

Fixed

• The app’s opening screen is dark again, not white. Since v1.9.0 the app showed a plain white screen for a moment before the workbench appeared. A cold start now shows the logo on the same near-black as the rest of the app.
• A filter chip’s number now counts that chip’s own palettes. With Sour and Historical picked, Grimdark read “(2)” and stayed tappable, although tapping it added nothing. It now reads “(0)” and is greyed out. Selected chips show their own number too; the total is on the Apply button, as before.

v2.6.0 2026-09-24

A big quality release. Browsing and managing your collection get faster, the app works much better with TalkBack and large text, and a long list of rough edges is gone.

Added

• Sort palettes by what you can already paint. The filter sheet has a new Sort option: Paintable first puts the palettes your paints cover best at the top. A→Z stays the default.
• See your active filters at a glance. Browse now shows a row of chips under the search box, one per active filter. Tap a chip to remove that filter without opening the filter sheet.
• Search finds more than names. Browse search now also matches a palette’s tags, mood, genre and style, so typing "grimdark" or "xenos" finds every palette that fits.
• Mark a whole paint range as owned in one tap. Every brand and range heading on Paints shows how many you own (e.g. 3 of 24 owned) and a Mark all owned button. One more tap undoes it.
• Mark a paint as owned from its detail page. No more going back to the Paints tab to find it again.
• Remove a palette from a project. Each saved palette card has a remove button. The palette stays in your library.
• Create a project straight from the Projects tab. The empty Projects tab and the empty projects strip on Home both offer New project.
• A visible pager on palette details. A ‹ 3 of 27 › row at the bottom lets you step through palettes with a tap. Swiping still works, and TalkBack users can now move between palettes too.

Changed

• Your stats and Community stats moved to Home. They now live in a new Insights section at the bottom of Home, and Settings is one section shorter.
• Home reads in the right order. Home now has a screen title like every other tab, and the competition card no longer shouts louder than the Palette of the Day.
• The filter sheet tells you what Apply will do. The button reads e.g. Show 27 palettes before you commit, and each filter group can be cleared on its own.
• Bigger buttons. 24 buttons and links that were smaller than a fingertip now meet the 44 px minimum, including Apply and Reset on the filter sheet. Some rows are a little taller as a result.
• Large text sizes are handled properly. Content grows with your phone’s font setting, while small labels and controls are capped so they stay inside their boxes.
• Much better with TalkBack and voice control. Buttons are now named after the words you see on them, toggles say their new state after a tap, pop-up dialogs announce themselves, and labels no longer tell you to "tap" twice.
• Search boxes no longer autocorrect or auto-capitalise, so hobby words like "xenos" stay as you typed them.
• Every retry button now says "Try again".
• Fair-use limits in the competition. You can post up to 10 comments in any 10 minutes and file up to 20 reports an hour. Reporting the same thing twice tells you it’s already with the moderators. The photo upload allowance (5 a day, 50 in total) is now enforced by our server, not just the app.
• A smaller download. Palette images were re-encoded at a more sensible size, saving about 3.5 MB with no visible loss in quality.
• Groundwork for a German version. All of the app’s text now comes from language files. The app still reads in English; the German translation follows in a later release.

Fixed

• On the first-launch stats screen, a tap just below "Opt in" counted as "No thanks". The two buttons’ touch areas overlapped. They no longer do, and the same kind of overlap is fixed elsewhere, including under Browse’s filter chips, where a tap could remove the wrong filter.
• The title font never actually showed. Titles meant to use the app’s display font had been falling back to the phone’s default font since it was introduced. They now look as designed.
• Opening a shared palette link while another palette was open could show one palette’s name over another palette’s colours.
• Signing in with no signal said you had cancelled. The app now checks the connection first and says "Network unavailable" instead.
• Saving while offline now says you’re offline instead of reporting a generic save failure.
• A failed load no longer pretends there’s nothing there. Unreadable projects no longer show "No projects yet", and the competition screens now tell apart "no competition right now", "can’t reach the server" and a real error, instead of showing a blank card.
• Pull-to-refresh now keeps its spinner until the new data has arrived, and competition screens no longer load everything twice when they open.
• "Rate now" opened the wrong Google Play listing. It now opens the app’s own page.
• The last row on Home could never be scrolled into view.
• The Report option on comments was shown to signed-out users, who then got an error after filling it in. It now only appears when you can actually file a report.
• A commentary made only of spaces showed an empty gap instead of "No commentary added.", and clearing your commentary didn’t actually clear it. Both fixed.
• The palette help gave the wrong number for a strong match (87%). It now shows the real threshold, 70%.
• Large text layout fixes: a palette card’s mood tag no longer overlaps its paint count, paint collection headings are no longer cut short, and palette tags are no longer clipped on palette details.
• Spacing: 16 screens lost an empty band under their header, and the palette pager now sits directly on the tab bar.
• Wording: "1 paint", "1 brand" and "1 day left" instead of "1 paints", "1 brands" and "1 days left", and the app’s own name is spelled consistently in Settings.
• The anonymous stats switch in Settings showed up twice for screen readers, once without a name. It is now a single, named control.

Removed

• The app no longer asks for microphone access. It only ever took still photos, but a photo-picker component had been adding a microphone permission it never used.

Security

• Photos you enter in a competition no longer leave copies on your phone. The temporary files the app made while preparing your photo are now deleted as soon as they’re no longer needed. Your gallery is never touched.
• Leftover image files from interrupted uploads are now cleaned up from our storage automatically.
• Release builds are cleaner. A developer-only debugging switch and the build computer’s network address are no longer included in the app. New build checks keep weak encryption, insecure storage and similar risks from coming back.

v2.5.3 2026-06-29

Small polish.

Changed

• A light vibration when you pick a feedback type, send feedback, or switch a Browse filter.
• Loading and empty screens look the same everywhere, including Browse, Projects and Community stats.

v2.5.2 2026-06-29

Polish on the competition screens.

Changed

• A light vibration confirms a successful action such as submitting an entry, saving your commentary or display name, voting, or posting a comment.
• Consistent loading, empty and error states across all competition screens. When something fails to load, you now see an error message instead of a blank screen.
• No more double titles. Seven screens repeated their title right below the header; the repeat is gone.

v2.5.1 2026-06-29

Visual consistency pass.

Changed

• Competition status badges are easier to read thanks to better colour contrast. Error messages and delete confirmations now look the same throughout the app.

v2.5.0 2026-06-29

Talk about the entries.

Added

• Comments on competition entries. Once voting opens, and after a competition ends, signed-in painters can comment on any entry. Everyone can read comments, no account needed. You can delete your own comments at any time.
• Report an entry or a comment. Pick a reason (spam, offensive, off-topic or other) and add an optional note. Reports are private; a moderator reviews each one.

Changed

• "Closest across brands" no longer suggests paints you already own. When none of your paints is a close match, the list now shows alternatives you could buy.
• Privacy policy updated to v6.1 covering comments and reports.

Fixed

• The keyboard no longer covers the comment box or the report form.

v2.4.0 2026-06-10

The competition gets competitive: voting is here.

Added

• Vote for your favourite entry. During the voting window, signed-in painters get one vote per competition. You can move it to another entry, but not to your own.
• A ranked Top 3. Past competitions show gold, silver and bronze winners, and the Hall of Fame shows each winner with their vote count.
• Vote counts on entry cards, plus a marker on the entry you voted for.

v2.3.0 2026-06-09

The monthly palette competition is here. Paint the month’s palette, share a photo, and see what everyone else made.

Added

• A Competition card on Home shows this month’s palette and where the competition stands: open for entries, voting, or finished.
• Enter in three steps. Pick a photo of your painted mini, add optional commentary, and submit. While entries are open, you can edit your commentary or withdraw your entry.
• Browse this month’s entries and tap any entry to see the photo full size.
• Hall of Fame. Past competitions and their entries stay viewable after they end.
• Choose your display name. Under Settings → Account → Edit display name you can replace your Google name with one of your own (3–40 characters). It’s the name shown on your entries.

Changed

• Privacy policy updated to v6.0. Competition entries (your photo and optional commentary) are public to all app users.

Fixed

• Photo uploads now work on real phones. The upload path added in v2.1.0 failed on real devices.

v2.2.0 2026-06-08

Behind-the-scenes groundwork for the monthly palette competition. No visible change for regular users.

Changed

• Privacy policy updated to v5.0, disclosing that a moderator can review uploaded photos before they become public.

v2.1.1 2026-06-07

Sign-in polish.

Changed

• Account screen. Added a short helper note below the "Sign in with Google" button explaining the brief supabase.co address you see during the OAuth round-trip — and that data is stored in the EU (Frankfurt).

Fixed

• Google sign-in attaches to your existing in-app identity instead of creating a duplicate account on first sign-in. Users who first signed in during v2.0.0 or v2.1.0 are handled by a fallback that signs them in as their existing account.

v2.1.0 2026-06-05

Foundation for an upcoming community-photo feature. Wired but not yet exposed in the UI.

Added

• Photo upload pipeline. The full path is in place under the hood: photos get EXIF metadata stripped on your device before they leave your phone, are resized to a thumbnail (~50 KB) and a mobile-sized version (~500 KB), and stored in the EU (Frankfurt) with a moderation gate. Per-account limits are 5 uploads per 24 hours and 50 total. No UI consumes this in v2.1 — the upload surface lands in a later release. The privacy policy already covers the full behaviour.

Changed

• Privacy policy bumped to v4.0 covering the new photo pipeline (EXIF stripping, two-size storage, quotas, moderation, cascade-delete on account deletion, explicit "no AI / no face recognition / no third-party sharing" clauses).

v2.0.0 2026-06-03

Optional Google sign-in lands. Foundation for upcoming community features.

Added

• Account sign-in (Settings → Account). Optional sign-in with Google. Every existing feature continues to work without an account — signing in is opt-in and reserved for upcoming community features like a monthly palette competition. Apple Sign-In code is included for the future iOS build but the Android v2.0 build only shows the Google button.
• Account → Delete account. Hard-deletes your account, profile, and all local data on the device, satisfying GDPR right-to-erasure. Two-step confirmation: open the modal, type DELETE, then confirm. A dedicated Account deletion page describes the flow in detail.

Changed

• Privacy policy bumped to v3.0 covering OAuth data (display name, email, avatar URL) and the new account-deletion path.
• Existing users continue using all v1.x features unchanged. If you never open Settings → Account, you see zero behaviour change.

v1.9.3 2026-06-03

Internal build and CI hardening. No user-visible behaviour change.

v1.9.2 2026-05-29

Removed

• Stripped a stray Android "draw over other apps" permission that was leaking from a debug-only manifest into the production build. Result: a shorter permissions list on the Play Store install screen and one less sensitive-permissions surface.

v1.9.1 2026-05-26

Changed

• Palette Browser filter chips now show a cumulative match count (e.g. Cold (12)). The count updates as you tap chips so it’s clear which selections widen vs. narrow the result set. Chips that would yield zero matches stay disabled and show (0).

v1.9.0 2026-05-22

The big one. We’re out of closed beta — The Mini Colorbench is now live on Google Play for everyone.

Added

• Your Stats screen, expanded. The single stats card is now split into two: a Collection card (most-owned brand, total paints owned, distinct brands, palettes saved across projects, most-saved palette) and an Activity card (most-viewed palette, palette views this month, current streak — consecutive days you opened a palette — and a "closest to complete" mini-list of the three palettes nearest to having every paint owned).
• One new palette, bringing the catalogue total to 106.

Changed

• Production launch. No more closed test — anyone can install The Mini Colorbench directly from Google Play.
• Upgraded the underlying app framework to its newest stable release. You shouldn’t notice anything except faster cold-start and fewer crashes.

v1.8.0 2026-05-19

Plumbing for a future share-and-jump-to-palette feature.

Added

• Foundation for deep links — opening a palette URL (from a future share sheet) will jump straight to that palette inside the app. Not user-visible yet; ground-laying for the next share feature.

v1.7.0 2026-05-10

Added

• New palette set: "Hanseong" (Korean palettes).

Changed

• Cleaner Android install screen. Removed two stale permissions (overlay / draw-over-other-apps and external-storage read/write) that the app didn’t actually use. Means banking and password-manager apps no longer refuse to coexist, and the Play Store install screen shows a shorter permissions list.
• Internal architecture cleanup — no visible difference, but several screens got faster and smaller behind the scenes.

Removed

• Two unused feature stubs (mix-recipe and project-photo scaffolding) that never shipped. If either lands in a future release, they’ll come back with a proper changelog entry.

v1.6.2 2026-05-10

Polish on top of v1.6.1.

Added

• Animated splash screen. The launch screen now plays a subtle three-chip cycle in the brand colours instead of the static stack. Honours your "reduce motion" system setting.

Changed

• Long palette names now wrap to two lines on Browse cards instead of being cut off mid-word.
• App launcher icon label corrected to "The Mini Colorbench". Existing installs keep the old label until cleared; fresh installs see the corrected one.
• Trimmed the About screen copy to match what actually ships — removed a couple of bullet points that promised features the app doesn’t have.

Fixed

• Feedback submissions now record the correct device model. Prior versions accidentally stored the app version string in the device-model field, making bug triage harder.

v1.6.1 2026-05-09

A new About screen, a way to share the app, and one important fix to the feedback form.

Added

• About screen. Settings → tap "The Mini Colorbench" to open a dedicated About page: studio identity, the mission behind the app, key features, the current version’s changelog, and a link to the full changelog.
• Settings → Support → Spread the word. Opens the system share sheet with a one-line pitch and the Play Store link.
• Telemetry consent re-prompt. If you opted out, the consent screen reappears every seven days so you can change your mind without digging through Settings.
• One new palette: "Strohwicht’s Tea Towel Terror No. 69."
• Refreshed reference images and a few corrected hex values across palettes 226–242.

Changed

• Settings → "Your stats" relabelled "Your stats (local only)" so it’s obvious at the entry point that nothing about that card leaves your phone.
• Settings ABOUT row reorganised — tapping the project name now leads into the new About screen; the separate "Built by Pixel Paladin" row is folded in.

Fixed

• Feedback form submissions failed silently in v1.6.0. The form said "thanks" but the message never reached us. v1.6.1 restores the path. If you sent feedback on v1.6.0 and got no reply, please try again.

v1.6.0 2026-05-08

A bigger one. Two new Home cards and the first features that talk to the internet — both opt-in.

Added

• "Your stats" card on Home. A quick personal snapshot — most-owned brand, most-viewed palette, palette views this month. Computed on your phone; nothing leaves the device.
• "Community" card on Home. Opt-in. If you tap "Opt in" on the consent screen, the app shares anonymous, counts-only data once a day so we can show the top community paints. Default is off; turn it on or off any time from Settings → Share anonymous stats.
• In-app feedback form. Settings → Send feedback. Pick Bug / Idea / Other, type a note, hit Submit. Faster than a mailto.

Changed

• Privacy policy v2.0 covering both new opt-in features. Default behaviour is unchanged: nothing leaves your phone unless you explicitly opt in.

v1.5.6 2026-05-08

Plumbing release. No visible changes — but paints now have permanent IDs so future updates can never break the paints you’ve marked owned.

v1.5.5 2026-05-08

Added

• Citadel and Vallejo catalogues expanded with previously missing paints.

Changed

• Settings tab header now sits at the same height as every other tab — small but it bothered us.
• Bottom sheets are now properly announced as dialogs to screen readers.

v1.5.4 2026-05-07

Added

• 20 new palettes (251–270) filling underrepresented mood and genre combinations.
• Swipe between palettes on Palette Detail — left/right swipe walks the current filtered list.
• Pinch-to-zoom on the hero image with double-tap to reset.

Changed

• Refreshed reference photos for palettes 205 (Goff Black), 245 (Sigil & Ash), and 249 (Smasha Forge).

v1.5.3 2026-05-07

Added

• Save-to-project confirmation toast. A small "Saved" pill so you know the tap actually did something.

Fixed

• "No projects yet" empty state now lines up correctly.

v1.5.2 2026-05-05

Fixed

• Palette Detail no longer crashes on cold start when opened from Palette of the Day.
• Paint suggestions no longer hide the best matches when one of your owned paints is a poor match.
• Palette ownership badge (X/5) now matches what you see in detail view.
• Project Detail recovers gracefully if a project’s data is malformed.

v1.5.1 2026-05-04

Fixed

• Cold-start crash on release builds.
• Tip jar showed "Couldn’t load tip options" on Play-installed builds.

v1.5.0 2026-05-03

Added

• In-app tip jar. If the app is useful and you’d like to support it, you now can. Optional, never nags.

v1.4.1 2026-05-03

Fixed

• The soft keyboard no longer floats in front of the text field you’re typing in.
• The Projects tab now always opens to the project list.

v1.4.0 2026-05-02

Added

• 8 new palettes (243–250).
• Pro Acryl and The Army Painter — Warpaints Fanatic ranges added to the catalogue.

Removed

• Citadel "Dry" range removed (the line was discontinued by GW).

v1.3.0 2026-04-27

Added

• Help button with onboarding tips for first-time users.

Changed

• Browse palettes now sort alphabetically by name (was: catalogue order).
• Home screen header redesigned to a brand mark.
• Palette browser cards now show the reference image.
• Palette reference images converted from PNG to WebP — smaller download, same quality.
• Palettes screen now respects the device’s top safe area.

Removed

• "Painting style" filter dimension (it overlapped too heavily with mood and genre).

Fixed

• Help button no longer crashes the app on Android.

v1.2.0 2026-04-27

Added

• Palette of the Day. One curated palette surfaced on Home each day.
• Paint Detail cross-brand matches. See the closest paint in every other supported brand.
• Hero reference image on Palette of the Day.
• Tappable saved palettes in Project Detail — jump straight to the palette.
• Haptic feedback on key actions.
• Mood pill on Browse cards for at-a-glance scanning.
• 8 new VIP palettes (235–242).
• Square colour chips and a more consistent main-screen header across tabs.

v1.1.0 2026-04-24

Added

• Palette reference photos on every palette card.
• Paint catalogue expanded to 7 brands (added Reaper MSP/HD/Pro, Formula P3, Coat d’Arms, Two Thin Coats).
• Paint Collection screen — mark which paints you actually own.
• Project Detail screen.
• Credits screen.
• "Contribute palette images" entry in Settings.

Removed

• Metal-colour palette entries (didn’t reproduce well in print or on screen).

Fixed

• Palette Browser brand filter chips behave correctly.
• Palette Detail now reflects owned paints reliably.

v1.0.0 2026-04-22

First public release. Closed beta on Google Play (Android).

Added

• Palette browser — 65 curated palettes at launch.
• Palette detail with colour breakdown and metadata.
• Paint collection with three founding brands (Citadel, Vallejo, Scale75).
• CIEDE2000 match engine finding the closest paint you own to a target colour.
• Projects for grouping palettes and paints.
• Random Draw for the indecisive.
• Settings screen, splash screen, bottom-tab navigation, and signed Android release build.
• Local-first persistence — everything stays on your phone.
• Initial privacy policy.