• Requires a Mac with Apple Silicon.
• Upgrades the optional Smart Cleanup on Apple Silicon with Apple Intelligence, fully on device. It now understands explicit and chained spoken corrections and keeps only your final choice, and remains off by default.
• Makes speech recognition strictly on-device with no cloud fallback, removing the unnecessary “Prefer On-Device Recognition” toggle.
• Fixes advanced-mode volume commands that could be acknowledged without updating an already-running Spotify Desktop player.
• Replaces the menu-bar’s washed-out hollow system symbol with the original-color Carthios red ring.
• Fixes push-to-talk dictation occasionally continuing after the home button was released.
• Adds a clear Car Thing home-screen warning when the Mac app is offline or reconnecting.
• Makes the Pomodoro timer easier to read with stronger numerals, clearer states, and a wider progress bar.
• Fixes the Mac app taking several seconds to quit while Car Thing is connected.
• Makes every dictation result clear on Car Thing, including automatic insertion, manual paste fallback, permissions, no speech, and recording failures.
• Adds a corrected, large-text, three-step Dictation walkthrough covering push-to-talk, USB microphone requirements, Accessibility and clipboard fallback, punctuation, and on-device recognition, with every step visible without scrolling.
• Redesigns the Car Thing welcome as a readable three-step introduction to music, live information, dictation, USB and Bluetooth behavior, coding assistants, and personalization.
• Removes the old full-screen rainbow dictation outline while keeping the clearer voice status card.
• Fixes the Mac Dictation Guide overlapping window controls or clipping its navigation buttons.

Also includes technical improvements to Spotify backend verification, menu-bar artwork reliability, dictation session ordering and status coverage, server shutdown, Car Thing rendering performance, and arm64-only release-package integrity checks.

Carthios 2.0.0 is a major reliability and usability update with steadier music controls, stronger Bluetooth and USB recovery, Codex support, a refreshed visual identity, and a more accessible Car Thing interface.

One-time upgrade note: Carthios 1.x users need to install 2.0.0 manually from the official website. Automatic updates resume from 2.0.0 onward.

Highlights

• Added a persistent Claude Code/Codex selector for the coding dashboard.
• Added Spotify Desktop mode for Now Playing and core controls without a separate Carthios Spotify login.
• Fixed the brief false-pause flash that could appear while music was still playing.
• Reworked Bluetooth pairing, reconnection, and power-only startup behavior.
• Added automatic ADB installation and recovery from the Mac app.
• Added working Car Thing screenshots plus clearer, more reliable voice dictation.
• Added intelligent punctuation and on-device recognition preferences for dictation, with an automatic fallback when needed.
• Restored the original slim volume rocker with ten precise steps, faster command delivery, and reliable local Spotify fallback.
• Paused album artwork now fades to black and white and returns smoothly to color when playback resumes.
• Added an animated first-launch Car Thing welcome that introduces the major features and can be replayed from Advanced settings.
• Redesigned time settings so Mac sync, reconnection, offline fallback, and manual time are easy to understand.
• Added privacy-safe Send Feedback from the Mac menu.
• Added instant cached Transit results with a visible refresh time.
• Added nearby MTA bus departures alongside subway arrivals when an MTA Bus Time key is configured.
• Added Mac Transit Settings for securely saving and managing the developer keys required by MTA buses and key-backed agencies.
• Keeps the selected screen visible during inactivity instead of switching to a clock.
• Added an animated red-ring ignition screen and standardized the Carthios identity around the red ring.

Music and Now Playing

• Now Playing, play/pause, skip, seek, volume, shuffle, and repeat can control the Spotify Mac app without another login.
• Queues, playlists, likes, and Spotify Connect remain available through the optional advanced Spotify connection.
• Music metadata no longer waits for remote album artwork, and the Mac menu shows truthful local Spotify and Automation-permission status.
• Fixed transient Spotify responses incorrectly making a playing track look paused.
• Fully clears stale song details when playback actually ends.
• Prevented older playback results from overwriting newer music state.
• Restored music updates automatically after restarting the Mac server.
• Kept progress accurate across navigation, play, pause, seek, skip, and reconnects.
• Track changes now reset progress immediately instead of animating backward from 100% to the new track.
• Album artwork in basic Spotify mode now recovers from temporary download and startup-order failures.
• Paused playback now fades album artwork to black and white instead of leaving the active full-color presentation on screen.
• The original slim left-edge volume rocker is back with ten exact dial steps, much lower control latency, protection from stale polling, and a local Spotify fallback when the optional advanced API rejects a volume request.
• Stopped disconnected controls from leaving behind pretend play, pause, seek, sync, or like changes.
• Rapid follow-up music and volume controls now roll back correctly if the connection drops before they send, without overwriting newer Spotify state.
• Prevented delayed like results from affecting the next track.
• Reduced unnecessary Spotify background requests and smoothed client transitions.

Bluetooth and wireless use

• Fixed pairing failures caused by repeated service restarts and stale pairing attempts.
• Made pairing recovery survive normal Car Thing reboots.
• Starts wireless recovery when the Mac app opens while Car Thing is already on power-only USB.
• Enabling Bluetooth on power-only USB now takes effect immediately, while a data-capable cable intentionally prefers USB and stops Bluetooth.
• Wireless failover waits for stale USB sessions to close, and the client keeps probing USB after a failed Bluetooth fallback.
• Prevented the first macOS Bluetooth permission request from freezing the menu bar app.
• The one-time macOS Bluetooth privacy prompt now appears before background pairing begins.
• When Bluetooth access is pending or denied, the Car Thing menu links directly to the correct macOS privacy pane.
• Added bounded pairing retries and automatic recovery from failed targets.
• Made personalized Bluetooth names persist through setup and reconnects.
• Bluetooth controls now stay truthful when pairing, connecting, renaming, scanning, or radio changes fail and show a useful recovery message.
• Bluetooth scanning now recovers if macOS rejects a scan start, and fresh boots retry adapter discovery instead of requiring a service restart.
• Brightness controls and auto-brightness now work directly on Car Thing during wireless use without requiring ADB.
• Prevented false Connected states and fixed the final session handoff after Bluetooth connects.
• Recognizes Car Thing recovery mode separately and pauses Bluetooth until a normal boot is available.

USB, ADB, and device tools

• Automatically installs and validates Google Android Platform Tools when needed.
• Uses one shared ADB connection for setup, screenshots, brightness, voice input, and device controls.
• Targets Car Thing specifically when other Android devices are attached and keeps retrying a slow USB startup until the reverse connection succeeds.
• Added hard timeouts so stuck device commands cannot block Carthios indefinitely.
• Improved automatic recovery after a Car Thing reboot or USB watcher failure.
• Fixed physical Car Thing screenshots and made capture status accurate.
• Voice dictation now explains permission problems, recording failures, no-speech results, and successful text insertion on Car Thing.
• Fixed quiet, clipped, and byte-swapped microphone recordings by restoring the physical PDM input, correcting raw-audio byte order, removing conflicting pre-amplification, and safely normalizing speech before recognition.
• Dictation now inserts text directly into the Mac app that was active when recording began. If Accessibility access is declined, the transcript is copied automatically so the user can press Command-V instead.
• Dictation preferences now include intelligent punctuation and preferred on-device recognition, with a safe automatic fallback when the Mac cannot complete on-device recognition.
• Dictation no longer shows a false listening animation while disconnected and immediately explains what is wrong.
• Bluetooth-only sessions now explain that dictation needs a USB data connection instead of failing after showing a listening animation.
• Fixed rapid consecutive dictation holds interfering with each other.
• Prevented button mappings, modal editors, and browser reloads from interfering with dictation.
• Added a recording safety limit so a lost button-release event cannot leave the microphone running.

Transit

• Added nearby MTA bus stops and live or scheduled departures alongside NYC subway results when an MTA Bus Time key is configured.
• Added Transit Settings to the Mac menu for securely saving, replacing, and removing transit developer keys.
• Shows the resolved transit authority beside the city in the Mac menu, such as New York, NY (MTA).
• Keeps the latest arrivals in memory so returning to Transit is immediate.
• Counts ETAs down locally and shows the last refresh time plus cached/stale status.
• Retains useful data through brief agency outages while removing departures after they pass.
• Clarified current coverage: MBTA supports its major modes; MTA supports subway plus key-backed buses; WMATA, BART, CTA, and SEPTA are rail-only; SF 511 covers a few Muni stops plus San Francisco Caltrain; and TriMet currently has limited stop coverage.

Claude Code and Codex

• Added a Claude Code/Codex selector to the coding page and dashboard settings.
• The session list, activity feed, status counts, top-bar summary, and notifications follow the selected provider.
• The selection persists after a full Car Thing reload.
• Improved live-session ordering and large Codex history performance.

Interface and accessibility

• Updated launch, browser/PWA, fallback, and Mac app icons to the Carthios red ring.
• Added a smooth reduced-motion-aware red-ring ignition animation and a startup watchdog so the logo cannot remain stuck forever.
• Fixed launch-logo sizing and centering on the physical 800×480 display.
• Removed automatic inactivity screen changes and the unused screen-saver controls.
• Completed setup no longer flashes the Welcome or legacy DeskThing screen during a restart.
• Brightness and page-specific dial gestures no longer also change volume, and dial direction is consistent.
• Rapid brightness changes no longer allow an older queued ramp to replace the newest value.
• Color settings remain synchronized when they change elsewhere.
• Standardized the dashboard footer on the Carthios red-ring identity.
• Fixed Welcome navigation and scalable logo rendering.
• Added a polished one-time welcome screen for new installations, with a red-ring animation and an overview of Music, Transit, Mac controls, dictation, Codex, and Claude.
• Added a developer preview of the welcome screen without resetting completed setup.
• Replaced the browser-native Bluetooth reset prompt with a styled Carthios confirmation sheet.
• Removed Chromium’s default selection, tap-highlight, and focus artifacts from the welcome screen and controls while retaining an explicit Carthios focus-ring opt-in.
• Redesigned the time page with clear synced, syncing, reconnecting, offline, and manual states.
• Manual time remains available as an offline fallback and yields to authoritative Mac time when the connection returns.
• Fixed manual time near midnight in the selected timezone.
• Added accessible switch names, keyboard brightness controls, and explicit Carthios focus styling for controls that opt in.
• Named playback controls and enlarged small touch targets.
• Disabled button mappings now remain inactive across physical keys and overlay controls.
• Hardware-key releases no longer activate the page underneath after closing an on-screen keyboard or modal.
• Ignored unmatched hardware-key releases that could unexpectedly open the clock even with the screen saver disabled.
• Verified all hardware-key destinations at exactly 800×480 without horizontal overflow.

Mac app experience

• Fixed the Mac menu closing by itself during live playback and Bluetooth updates, including while hovering over Car Thing actions.
• New, unpaired installations now open a guided first-time Car Thing setup automatically.
• The setup window reliably reopens, starts at the correct step, and offers a direct retry after USB setup failures.
• Setup completes after provisioning and naming; the separate advanced Spotify connection is optional.
• Added a prefilled Send Feedback email with useful privacy-safe diagnostics.
• Fixed launching Carthios directly from Xcode.
• Improved first-launch responsiveness and background-service startup.
• Healthy launches no longer restart the Car Thing browser unnecessarily.
• Fixed healthy Car Things being unnecessarily re-installed on later Mac app launches, including transient setup-verification misses.
• Same-version dashboard fixes are now installed automatically instead of being skipped when the version number already matches.
• Scheduled updates leave a clear menu-bar reminder while Carthios runs in the background.
• Reduced repeated location failures after permission is unavailable.
• Kept Mac app, Car Thing client, and device versions aligned at 2.0.0.

Technical improvements

Improved transport lifecycle management, state synchronization, concurrency, input handling, process cleanup, Car Thing boot services and mount-state verification, embedded-client compatibility, packaging, privacy-manifest validation, signing, notarization, Sparkle publication, dependency safety, automated testing, and Chrome 69 release validation.