I made a fully native Twitch app for macOS called Kulve, now on public TestFlight
Hey r/macapps! I've been building Kulve, a fully native macOS app for watching Twitch streams, and I just got approved for public testing. I'm looking for testers who want a faster, cleaner alternative to watching streams in the browser. What makes Kulve different: Smooth, lag-free playback with minimal CPU usage Native macOS UI (no Electron/web wrapper) Clean, distraction-free viewing experience It's still early, so I'd really value feedback on performance, bugs, and features you'd want to see added going forward. This test build is focused on the core viewing experience, so some features like search/navigation are still in progress. Feel free to give it a shot via TestFlight. I also set up a Discord for feedback and bug reports.
Collected discussion
I have a turbo subscription, does this forward that authentication to Twitch so that I don't get ads in the player? Looking forward to testing it out.
yes! if you're a turbo subscriber, you won't get any ads :) works the same for channel subs, but since you're turbo you're covered across the entire platform.
This is sick!
The ui looks cool!
Thank you! I've spent a lot of time on it so that's great to hear.
been waiting for something like this tbh. every twitch "app" on mac is just a web wrapper pretending to be native. does it support chat or is it stream only for now?
Does it handle multi-stream layouts or is it single stream only for now?
single stream for now but multi stream is definitely doable
How do you achieve the transparent bg. It looks cool!
hey! so I actually create the entire app window myself right down to the stoplight buttons (those are custom buttons). so essentially, the app window starts out as literally nothing and I assign a Liquid Glass NSView to it as its root content. I'm basically able to paint whatever I want wherever I want in the window.
Can you pls link me your wallpaper? Looks nice, like the app
I feel like the transparency is a bit much for me, is there a way to turn it down?
yes! if you click your profile picture in the toolbar you can enable "Reduced transparency". let me know how that works for you.
Does this support 7tv emotes?
This is a promising start! The UI looks a little "big" but I'm sure you'll be tweaking it over time. One feature I miss very much from the mobile app when using my Mac is an audio-only mode. There are sometimes streams I want to listen to but not see video (e.g., when you have a poor connection, are in a workplace, etc.). Please consider adding it if it is straightforward. P.S. How does this differ from the version already released in the App Store? https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kulve/id6476389316
hey, audio only is very possible! and this differs from the App Store version because it's fully updated to support macOS 26 while the current App Store build does not and will crash on startup. Under the hood, the TestFlight build has been quite literally rewritten from scratch to move completely off of Swift and SwiftUI in favor of Objective C and AppKit, so the performance and stability has been massively improved. and yes, the UI is still very much evolving. at some point I'll have it so users can adjust the UI scale, but for right now, I have more baseline features to keep building out :)
oh hey, I think I just figured out what you might have meant by "big" UI lol. I just had a user send a screenshot of Kulve on an ultra wide monitor and it was ridiculous. I had a bug with the display scaling that I believe should be fixed now and will be pushed in the next TestFlight update.
That looks awesome! Do you plan (or already have) Frankerfacez or 7TV support?
sure do! Kulve has full third party emote support. for testing it's completely free but I do plan to make it a pro feature on AppStore release.
Did you write this in swift or use something like electron ?
This is nice, the UI is clean!
It could be native, but it doesn't feel anywhere native. It works tho. Any progress on releasing it?
hey, yes it's on the App Store now. and in what way does it not feel native?
Looks nice but it requires macos 26+ and as long as possible I won't upgrade further than Sequoia. this is the first app that's actually told me I need it.
does the AppStore version support your OS?