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Alternatives to Music app

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With iOS 12 looming I’m curious about how third party music apps will work. I’m sure Cesium will be updated and have no significant issues.

I suppose what I’m particularly curious about is Marvis. Are there any users of that app who’ve used the iOS 12 beta? I use it on an iOS 11 device and have no significant issues but I know between major iOS updates they often screw with the music app and is hate to give up this app.

It’s unfortunate that Aditya, Marvis’ talented developer pulled the U.S. app from the App Store. I only realized two months ago when I recommend it to another. I stand by it is the most functional and customizable app I’ve used, music or otherwise.
 
I don't know about iOS 12 because I haven't been on the betas, but I noticed the other month on iOS 11 that you can sync your iTunes library without having the Music app installed now. Not sure when that went into effect.
 
Do you know why the app was pulled and is it available outside?
IronWaffle said:
With iOS 12 looming I’m curious about how third party music apps will work. I’m sure Cesium will be updated and have no significant issues.

I suppose what I’m particularly curious about is Marvis. Are there any users of that app who’ve used the iOS 12 beta? I use it on an iOS 11 device and have no significant issues but I know between major iOS updates they often screw with the music app and is hate to give up this app.

It’s unfortunate that Aditya, Marvis’ talented developer pulled the U.S. app from the App Store. I only realized two months ago when I recommend it to another. I stand by it is the most functional and customizable app I’ve used, music or otherwise.
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gaanee said:
Do you know why the app was pulled and is it available outside?
Click to expand...

I have my theories but it’s ultimately just speculation. A genuine shame but I hope the dev has moved on to bigger and better things, even if not in this platform.

Jessica Lares said:
I don't know about iOS 12 because I haven't been on the betas, but I noticed the other month on iOS 11 that you can sync your iTunes library without having the Music app installed now. Not sure when that went into effect.
Click to expand...

Very interesting. I’d love to get rid of it but it still has some handy utility that hasn’t made it to third party apps. Namely the ability to delete tracks or albums without digging into settings. I have deeply frustrating sync issues since iOS 10 that makes this handy. For some reason, iOS will sync files and even show them normally BUT random ones are playable. So far in a library of 29,000 songs I’ve spotcjexked and fixed 600 instances. It makes listening to favorite albums deeply frustrating. I contend music has been a mess since the iOS 7 overhaul.

They also seem unwilling to allow third party apps to nest playlists. That itself would be my favorite update.

I have installed Marvis on an old phone I just acqurespd. Will probably update iOS this week and test it on the dozen songs I’ve addes to it.
 
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VIU app is a good alternative too. It also gives a free opportunity for streaming. Celebrity pages feature is good stuff too in there. It allows making searching for favorite music and videos much more convenient. The system of recommendations is rather cool unlike other apps of that type. Here is the description of this app. I also tried Marvis and Vox. The second one is better.
 
Damn, Cesium lost its ratings widget :mad: Now you can only rate within the app (if you enable it). The widget was so convenient, hopefully it returns someday.
 
Jessica Lares said:
Cesium recently got renamed Cs because of some trademark issue.

Anyone using the new version of Marvis Pro? :D I know Aditya updated the thread awhile ago, but only just noticed the new app the other week... Today it got a customizable Home screen which is pretty great! Huge departure from the original version though.
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Yeah, it’s quickly become my main app Phenomenal. I didn’t know I needed the Home screen until he introduced it! Can’t wait for the next update. I’ve been having a field day customizing it to my taste. Knowing @Aditya Rajveer, I’m sure exciting stuff is in store for those of us who still sync music.
 
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Have you used it, how is the UI, Does it integrate with your local Music library on iPhone or you have to import songs into this app?
I am looking for a music app that would integrate into your local iPhone library and add sound effects to individual songs.
There was one app called Earprint by Psyx which offered such a functionality but it was never updated since 2015 or so and it's gone from the Appstore now.

T-Bob said:
This is on sale now:

https://itunes.apple.com/app/id766858884

Neutron is a music player for advanced formats and EQ.
Click to expand...
 
Neutron has a relatively awful UI (on both iOS and Android), but the sound is crystal-clear. Neutron finds the iTunes folder on my iPhone automatically, so using the library should work.
 
Jessica Lares said:
Cesium recently got renamed Cs because of some trademark issue.

Anyone using the new version of Marvis Pro? :D I know Aditya updated the thread awhile ago, but only just noticed the new app the other week... Today it got a customizable Home screen which is pretty great! Huge departure from the original version though.
Click to expand...
I have recently discovered Marvis Pro aswell and it's pretty fantastic. Love the way it looks and its' interface in general, and that you can get a blurred album cover or photo as a background, which reminds me a lot of the playback screen of the stock music app a few years ago where the background of the playback screen adapted to the color of the album art. I also like how it can put your playlists or the Apple Music stuff right on the first page when you launch the app (I don't think the "Recently added" screen in the stock music app is a very good launch screen for the app), how it has a landscape mode and how much customizability there is in general.

It does have some unfortunate restrictions, but most of them seem to be down to the lack of API-support from Apple, i.e. no radio station support, you cannot remove songs or downloads of songs from the library, can't rearrange the "Up Next" list, can't create or change playlists (I think this one is partially possible with the API, so it might be coming), and can't control the native HomePod playback like with the stock music app (but it can control them when streaming via AirPlay 2). Also missing an iPad version of the app sadly.

Another solid but still fairly new app that I can recommend for this list is Soor. It takes a similar approach like Marvis Pro with bringing all the different types of library and AM categories into a single launch screen, but it generally takes a different approach with its' interface and visuals, and it has some interesting unique features and a lot of attention to detail. It does have somewhat less customizability than Marvis Pro, so considering that the two apps are similarly priced I would personally still recommend Marvis Pro over Soor, but then again Soor is still pretty new and seems to get updates on a regular basis, so there's probably still a lot of stuff coming. It's definitely one of the better Music app alternatives. May be worth adding it to the list.
 
afir93 said:
I have recently discovered Marvis Pro aswell and it's pretty fantastic. Love the way it looks and its' interface in general, and that you can get a blurred album cover or photo as a background, which reminds me a lot of the playback screen of the stock music app a few years ago where the background of the playback screen adapted to the color of the album art. I also like how it can put your playlists or the Apple Music stuff right on the first page when you launch the app (I don't think the "Recently added" screen in the stock music app is a very good launch screen for the app), how it has a landscape mode and how much customizability there is in general.

It does have some unfortunate restrictions, but most of them seem to be down to the lack of API-support from Apple, i.e. no radio station support, you cannot remove songs or downloads of songs from the library, can't rearrange the "Up Next" list, can't create or change playlists (I think this one is partially possible with the API, so it might be coming), and can't control the native HomePod playback like with the stock music app (but it can control them when streaming via AirPlay 2). Also missing an iPad version of the app sadly.
Click to expand...

Glad you’re enjoying Marvis. Just wanted mention that supporting Apple Music Radio is not a limitation, it’s coming in v3.1 very soon and so is Adding Songs to Playlists or Creating New Playlists.

I agree about the other limitations. Just hope Apple opens up more APIs in future versions of iOS.

An iPad version is planned as well, will be working on soon after some other feature updates for iPhone, mainly localisations, more themes and few other things. Hoping to begin working on it by first week of June.
 
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Aditya Rajveer said:
Glad you’re enjoying Marvis. Just wanted mention that supporting Apple Music Radio is not a limitation, it’s coming in v3.1 very soon and so is Adding Songs to Playlists or Creating New Playlists.

I agree about the other limitations. Just hope Apple opens up more APIs in future versions of iOS.

An iPad version is planned as well, will be working on soon after some other feature updates for iPhone, mainly localisations, more themes and few other things. Hoping to begin working on it by first week of June.
Click to expand...
Didn't expect the developer themselves to respond to me, that's a nice surprise. Thank you for the insight. I'm looking forward to the upcoming features, particularly to the iPad version. I also hope for you that Apple expands the MusicKit capabilities; it's a shame that we have to constantly switch back to the official Music app for things as simple as moving a song we like higher up in the "Up next" list, removing a song from the library and the like. Would be great to fully switch to Marvis one day, right now I'm forced to return to the Music app regularly for all these little things.

If I can maybe use this opportunity for a small feature request: is there any chance you could implement an option to adjust how much the chosen background (i.e. the album art) shines through in the background of the Now Playing screen or library? I like how we can set the background to a blurred version of the album art instead of just the plain, boring white like in the official Music app, this is one of the features that I always missed from the earlier Music app that we had in iOS 8 or so, but I think the album art colors shined through much more in the old iOS 8 music player compared to Marvis at the moment; the dominant background color in Marvis is generally still either dark gray or white. Maybe we could have different levels of transparency to choose from in terms of how much the background image shines through?

Also another minor thing: maybe we could have "Play" and "Shuffle" buttons at the top of a playlist or album, like in the official Music app? Or an option to have those there, at least? I know we can tap the "x songs" button to access those, but it'd be nice to hit "Shuffle" right within a playlist or album.

There's probably more feedback I could provide if you're interested, but I'll leave it at that for now as I don't want to annoy you with it either.
 
afir93 said:
Didn't expect the developer themselves to respond to me, that's a nice surprise.
Click to expand...
I've been quite active on MacRumors before. But after a few months, I was told not to provide direct customer support as it's against forum rules. Due to that, I will not mention anything more here. But if you could contact me via Marvis Settings or Twitter. I'd be happy to talk to you about these and other feedback of yours.
 
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IronWaffle said:
I contend music has been a mess since the iOS 7 overhaul.
Click to expand...

If I were ever to indulge in a tattoo, that might be the sense of the phrase I'd ask the artist to add to his sketchbook of custom offerings in the section for "iconic utterances" after stringing it around my ankle in some nice font.

Or maybe I'd just have a tattoo of the short-short form of that that, muttered after having tried out the Music app in each successive iOS upgrade: "Not quite there yet". Needs a couple rolleyes emoji tacked onto it for full effect.

I have grown tired of tacking on "... although it's a little better."

Your long form belongs in deeply carved italics over the doors on the facade of wherever Cupertino's in house app designers come and go from the job. Someone should lock them in there with some food and coffee and tell them don't come out without a better way of letting us handle our music.

I too have been messing around with alternate music apps including Marvis Pro on a spare iPhone, and rediscovering some old fave music in the process. Not the sort of thing I'd usually spend time on in late spring, but the weather is still stuck on late winter half the time so.... talk about rolleyes.... only the weeds are winners this season in my garden, so I'm trying to make hay out of something else, settled on improving the capability of my mobile devices to let me appreciate my music collections.
 
I'm a big fan of Roon "the most superior interface currently on the market".

https://www.soundandvision.com/cont...layback-management-system#KGRV5htuQU18TSLk.99

Plays everything, including DSD. Integrates iTunes media, Tidal and qobuz into one interface. Plays on all of my devices: Mac, IOS, HomePods (mono only for now), media player. I can just transfer a zone if I would rather listen to my HomePods rather than my main speakers which is really interesting when comparing speaker quality. As it integrates my iTunes library with Tidal it comes up with recommended playlists/titles from both locations. Shows thing like the signal path which is useful when play MQA 96 kHz content.

There is so much more that I haven't explored yet.

Drawbacks: requires a server, which can be on a NAS
very expensive
playlists from Tidal and iTunes are imported automatically, but changes
are not exported
remote access requires firewall configuration

Screen Shot 2019-05-24 at 23.33.26.png

Screen Shot 2019-05-24 at 23.32.06.png
Screen Shot 2019-05-24 at 23.32.30.png
 
HDFan said:
I'm a big fan of Roon "the most superior interface currently on the market".

https://www.soundandvision.com/cont...layback-management-system#KGRV5htuQU18TSLk.99

Plays everything, including DSD. Integrates iTunes media, Tidal and qobuz into one interface. Plays on all of my devices: Mac, IOS, HomePods (mono only for now), media player. I can just transfer a zone if I would rather listen to my HomePods rather than my main speakers which is really interesting when comparing speaker quality. As it integrates my iTunes library with Tidal it comes up with recommended playlists/titles from both locations. Shows thing like the signal path which is useful when play MQA 96 kHz content.

There is so much more that I haven't explored yet.

Drawbacks: requires a server, which can be on a NAS
very expensive
playlists from Tidal and iTunes are imported automatically, but changes
are not exported
remote access requires firewall configuration

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Click to expand...
Looks kind of interesting, but I immediately lost my interest when I saw the price. $119 subscription fee for a year, or $499 for a lifetime license? In other words, I'd have to pay twice as much of a continuous fee to use this software than I do for Apple Music ($60/year as a student)? Plus the additional costs of having to buy and run a server? Yeah, I'm gonna be fine without it, no thanks.

I'm all for paying money for high-quality software and supporting hard-working developers, but this is far out of the reach of what I'm willing to pay for a good iTunes/Music app alternative. Maybe it's more directed at audio/music professionals or wealthy audiophiles for who these features are super-important and for who money isn't an issue, but me personally as more of an average music-listener who's always on the lookout for cool new Music app alternatives (and very willing to spend a few bucks on them if I like them), I don't see anything remotely worth that gigantic cost If I'm honest. It's just not for me.
 
A cryout to @CesiumDev

I have backed up copies of Cesium versions starting from version 4.0.6 up to 5.0.8. I payed for the app. And none of them are able to install on my iphone. I tried both iTunes and iCloud backups, the app simply isn't being copied. The modern version of Cesium demands iOS 13 and there's no "Would you like to download the last compatible version" dialogue. And I'm not updating to iOS 13.

It is still installed and working on SE on iOS 10.2.1 however wouldn't copy to the SE on iOS 10.3.2 for some reason.
High Sierra, iTunes 12.6.5.3.

I would really appreciate your help.
 
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If you’d like to find similar songs on an app try ditto.town. Ditto learns from users and looks very promising.
 
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