Immortal

A custom home-screen layer for discontinued Meta Portal devices — a play on Portal, and on keeping it alive after Meta wound the platform down. Immortal turns a Portal into a device you own: your launcher, your screensaver, and an app store that installs a curated catalog on-device, with remote self-update so it improves over time without a cable.

Package: com.immortal.launcher · Target: Meta Portal — Android 9 (API 28: the 2018 Portal / Portal+ and the Portal TV) and Android 10 (API 29: the 2019 and 2021 models), arm64, no Google services. Touch models and the remote-driven Portal TV are both supported.

What's in it

• Launcher (HomeActivity) — a fullscreen app grid with a clock/date/weather header and an optional charge indicator (shown only on Portal Go, which has a battery). A photo-style Screensaver button sits top-left; a Manage button bottom-right. Manage mode lets you remove apps (tap the ✕) and organise the grid into folders by dragging one app onto another — name them, rename them, and drag apps back out, just like a phone. A green Calls tile bridges to the stock dialer/contacts for WhatsApp and Messenger calling.
• Screensaver (PhotoDreamService / PhotoFrameController) — a photo frame with stock-style clock/battery/date/weather widgets. Point it at a folder of your own photos and videos, or use the keyless built-in feed (Lorem Picsum, Unsplash-ready); weather is keyless Open-Meteo + IP geolocation. It cooperates with the Portal's presence sensor so it runs as a permanent frame while someone's around (and on mains power), and on the battery-powered Portal Go an optional "sleep when nobody's around" setting saves power. Swipe to change photos, tap to exit.
• App Store (StoreActivity / StoreCatalog) — a hosted JSON catalog (catalog.json, schema v2) rendered with app icons, search, per-app detail pages (author, source, website, credit), device-compatibility badges, and an "Updates" section for installed apps. F-Droid entries resolve the current APK at install time so the catalog never goes stale; your own apps use a direct apkUrl. The store is open to community submissions — every catalog PR is CI-validated. Built a Portal app? Get it listed.
• Help tour (HelpActivity) — a friendly, non-technical walkthrough on a Help tile (and once on first launch), so anyone can pick up a revived Portal.
• Portal TV support — full remote/D-pad navigation across the whole UI, a Calls tile that bridges to the TV's stock home, and an Immortal tile that appears on that stock home so you can hop back.
• Universal installer — on the Gen-1 Portal+ (Android 9) the built-in Android installer dialog is broken (renders with no buttons), so sideloading normally fails. Immortal ships a shell-privileged silent-install daemon (started by the kit) that fixes this for the whole device: the store and self-update use it, an "Install with Immortal" handler (ApkInstallActivity) catches any APK you open from Chrome or a file manager (set it as the default and those installs go silent), and an "Install an APK" browser (ApkBrowserActivity) lists APKs in your Downloads. The kit also repairs the stock dialog itself by disabling the Meta display overlay that renders it white-on-white — a change that, unlike the daemon, survives a reboot — so even with the daemon down a Gen-1 falls back to the now-visible system installer. For Play-Store apps via Aurora Store, use Aurora's Shizuku installer together with Shizuku (provision.sh --shizuku) — see Play-Store apps on a first-gen Portal below; Aurora's own Session/Native installers can't get past the broken Gen-1 dialog. Newer Portals have a working installer and don't need any of this.
• Self-update (UpdateManager) — Immortal polls version.json; when it advertises a higher versionCode, it downloads and installs the new build over itself. No cable, no laptop.
• Provisioning kit (provisioning/) — one double-click per device: installs Immortal, optionally sets it as the home screen and screensaver, and can freeze OS updates so the setup sticks. Fully reversible (Restore-Portal / --restore).

Install on a Portal

The easiest path is the provisioning kit: connect the Portal over USB-C with ADB enabled, then double-click Provision-Portal (macOS/Linux) or Provision-Portal.bat (Windows). It fetches the latest release automatically.

To build from source instead:

./gradlew :app:assembleDebug
adb install -r app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk
adb shell am start -n com.immortal.launcher/.HomeActivity

On first-gen Portals (Portal+ Gen-1, Android 9)

Immortal runs on the original Portal+ too — launcher, screensaver, and app store all work. There's one quirk worth knowing up front, because it's a quirk of that hardware's older software, not a fault in Immortal:

The first-gen Portal's built-in Android installer is broken (it opens a dialog with no buttons), so apps can't be installed the normal way. Immortal works around this with a small helper that the provisioning kit starts over USB — after that, the app store, "Install with Immortal," and sideloading all install silently with no dialog.

That helper can't survive a reboot on this generation (a limitation of running without root on Android 9 — the same reason tools like Shizuku need re-starting). To keep installs working across reboots anyway, the kit also repairs the Portal's own installer dialog: the blank-with-no-buttons screen is caused by one of Meta's display overlays re-theming it white-on-white — a great community discovery by u/keremimo on r/FacebookPortal — and disabling that overlay (cmd overlay disable) brings the normal dialog back. Unlike the helper, that change is remembered across reboots — so after a restart, the app store, "Install with Immortal," and sideloading fall back to the now-visible system dialog with no reconnect needed. (The silent helper is still the nicer path when it's running — no dialog at all — so reconnecting to restart it is still worthwhile, just no longer required to install anything.)

If you'd rather leave the stock dialog untouched, set DISABLE_INSTALLER_OVERLAY=false in config.env; then a rebooted Gen-1 with the helper down pauses new installs until you reconnect and re-run the installer — a 30-second step — and Immortal shows a clear note in the store so it's never a mystery. Either way, everything else keeps working across reboots: your home screen, screensaver, and every app you've already installed.

The Portal TV is the same generation (Android 9), so the same install mechanics apply. It has no touchscreen, but Immortal is fully driveable with the TV remote — the home grid, folders, App Store, and screensaver settings all navigate with the D-pad.

Newer Portals (Portal Go, Mini, gen-2) have a working installer and don't need any of this — though their silent-install helper also stops after a reboot, so a new app installed then goes through the system dialog (and some Play-Store split apps won't parse there) until you re-run the kit. The store shows a note when that happens.

Play-Store apps via Aurora on a first-gen Portal

Aurora Store lets you install Play-Store apps (Spotify, etc.) without a Google account. On the Gen-1 Portal+ its two default installer modes — "Session" and "Native" — both run into the broken stock installer, and unlike a file you download in Chrome, Aurora keeps its APK in private storage where Immortal's helper can't reach it. The path that does work is Aurora's Shizuku installer, which installs through the same privileged channel Immortal uses.

The provisioning kit sets most of this up for you: on a Gen-1 Portal it installs Shizuku and starts its server automatically (it skips this on newer Portals, which don't need it). So all that's left is to point Aurora at it, a one-time, two-tap step:

1. Install Aurora Store from the Immortal App Store.
2. In Aurora → Settings → Installation → Installation method, choose Shizuku installer. The first install prompts "Allow Aurora Store to access Shizuku?" — tap Allow all the time.

After that, Aurora installs Play-Store apps silently, including split APKs — no dialog, no broken installer (verified end-to-end on a Portal+ installing Spotify). Shizuku's server, like Immortal's own helper, doesn't survive a reboot; the kit restarts it on its next run, or run ./provision.sh --shizuku (provision.ps1 -Shizuku).

Simpler alternative: skip Shizuku

Shizuku's server can fail to stay up on some Gen-1 firmware (Android 9 may kill it right after launch — the kit now detects this and tells you instead of falsely reporting success). You can skip Shizuku entirely: Aurora's Session installer hands its APKs to Immortal's own silent-install daemon, which just needs Aurora to hold REQUEST_INSTALL_PACKAGES.

When you install Aurora from the Immortal App Store, the daemon grants this for you automatically (it runs as the shell user, so it can set the app-op). After that, set Aurora → Settings → Installation → Installation method → Session and installs work — no Shizuku, no broken dialog (community-verified on a Gen-1 Portal+, including split APKs).

If you installed Aurora some other way (so the daemon never saw it), grant it once manually:

adb shell appops set com.aurora.store REQUEST_INSTALL_PACKAGES allow

Releasing

Hosted from this repo:

• version.json — the self-update manifest. Bump versionCode/versionName, build a signed release, and attach it as immortal.apk to a GitHub Release; devices update on their next check.
• catalog.json — the app-store catalog. Edit and commit; clients pick it up on next open (a bundled copy ships as the offline fallback).

Release builds must be signed with the same key every time (in-place self-update is signature-checked). Signing is configured via keystore.properties, which the build looks for first at the repo root (git-ignored) and then at ~/.immortal-signing/keystore.properties — the recommended home, since nothing in a git working tree can be considered safe from cleanup. Keep that key backed up safely (e.g. iCloud) — losing it means devices can no longer self-update.

Limitations (the honest list)

These are hardware/firmware limits of the Portal itself, confirmed on-device — not things a future Immortal release can fix:

• No Google Play Services. The Portal never had them, and they can't be added (it would need Google's own signed software, or system-level write access we don't have). Aurora Store installs plenty of apps that work fine, but anything that depends on Google for sign-in, push notifications, or DRM may be limited or won't run. microG isn't an option either — the firmware has no signature-spoofing support.
• The bootloader can't be unlocked, so there's no root. Meta ships the standard "OEM unlocking" developer toggle, but the bootloader hard-refuses (Flashing Unlock is not allowed) even with it enabled, and there's no manufacturer unlock program. This is why the first-gen install helper can't be made permanent — root was the only path, and it's welded shut.
• USB-C thumb drives don't mount reliably. On the Portal Go the port switches to host mode and a drive powers up and enumerates, but the storage stack doesn't bind it, so it doesn't appear as a folder. Put screensaver photos on the device's own storage instead (e.g. copy them across while it's plugged into your computer).

Disclaimer

Immortal is an independent community project — not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Meta. "Meta Portal" and "Portal" are trademarks of Meta Platforms, Inc., used here only to identify compatible hardware. Provisioning modifies device settings and is use-at-your-own-risk (reversible, but no guarantees; may void warranty). See DISCLAIMER.md for the full text and privacy notes.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.