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Show HN: I wanted better offline music on the iPhone, so I made Doppler
- dewey 8y agoWhich features did you miss from the stock app / Apple Music?
- hellofunk 8y agoI find Apple's music app on iOS terribly hard to use. It didn't used to be this way. I struggle to do basic things, like just playing the songs in order on an album! Sounds silly, but there are so many buttons that sweep away to different screens, and it's not at all clear what you are doing. Now I just use GoodReader to store and play back all offline albums, since it's just a file directory and I can just play the tracks in the order they are stored.
- JustSomeNobody 8y agoI have this problem with Apple's podcast player[0]. They really didn't make it intuitive at all. [0] Pocketcasts solves that problem, though.
- colomon 8y agoWhat the heck, why did I think Pocket Casts wasn't available on iOS? I've used it in the browser and on my Android phone for years...
- OberstKrueger 8y agoWhen you're looking at an album in Music, there's a play button right above the song list that will play it in order and should disable any previously enabled shuffle mode. It just goes off of whatever iTunes metadata is setup, so if that is correct, it'll play in order.
- chrisseaton 8y agoWhere do you get the music from though?
- edwellbrook 8y agoAt the moment it imports from the Music.app (so whatever you've synced with iTunes). Adding more providers in the next few months
- chrisseaton 8y agoI didn't realise you could have standalone music files in the Music any more! I thought it was all streaming Apple Music now. I wouldn't even know where to get standalone music files from.
- tempodox 8y agoJust drag the music files from your library to your plugged-in iDevice in iFumes on the Mac. You can also buy and download them on-device with the iTunes Store app.
- themihai 8y agoThe old way?
- chrisseaton 8y agoCDs? I don't own a CD drive any more and doubt many people do either.
- themihai 8y agoYou can still buy and download music files.
- dewey 8y agoYou can still buy them from Bandcamp, Qobuz or even buy it on iTunes. What are you trying to imply?
- minikites 8y agoHave you considered adding support for Subsonic? http://www.subsonic.org/pages/index.jsp http://www.subsonic.org/pages/index.jsp Manually choosing songs to load onto my phone is a significant chore and my phone can only fit a subset of my collection.
- edwellbrook 8y agoHaven't heard of Subsonic before. Will see what I can do. Cheers!
- luigi23 8y agoSupports your favourite speakers and headphones Doppler works with AirPods, HomePod and any Bluetooth or AirPlay enabled speaker But it doesn't require any setup - it comes out of the box. Or put it in another way - I don't see any music app that does not support that.
- pryelluw 8y agoIt's good marketing to outline the fact for a slight competitive advantage.
- dawnerd 8y agoI pretty much said “oh come on” out loud when reading that.
- vincnetas 8y agoIt's like putting "Asbestos FREE" on chips bag. It will definitely stand out on the shelf. And it's true also.
- mosselman 8y agoLucky Strike... it's toasted
- teekert 8y ago0 calories water baby! Still, as a non-iPhone user I actually expect Apple hardware to only work properly with Apple software, I was never able to use airplay on any other software than iTunes (in Windows), it always broke after some time when I did find something that worked on Linux. So perhaps it's not so bad to mention it.
- oscarteg 8y agoDoes it support casting to chromecast? This is something that is really missing in the native app. If this is supported I would buy.
- edwellbrook 8y agoGreat idea! I'll add to the roadmap, thanks
- ssfrr 8y ago+1 - I have a couple Chromecast Audios that I use as a poor-man's Sonos and it works pretty well, but the Spotify iOS app's Chromecast streaming is pretty half-assed. It can only adjust volume when the app is in the forground, and sometimes not even then, sometimes forgets it's streaming and loses sync.
- evanb 8y agoDoes "Import your music and playlists" means it will use my synced iTunes library? I would love this. But I tried to click to find out more, only to find that almost nothing on that landing page is a link.
- edwellbrook 8y agoYep that's right!
- ainiriand 8y agoLike I always say when I see a music related app submission: Get a lawyer. It looks pretty awesome by the way, any plans for android?
- martin-adams 8y agoI'm genuinely curious why you say to get a lawyer for all music apps as I can't really see why this one would necessarily need a lawyer. Are you talking in terms of music licensing issues or patent violations, or other?
- ainiriand 8y agoLicensing rights, because if you develop an app that makes money out of playing music it is gonna make some people uncomfortable, even if it the music of the owner of the app. There's gonna be C&D letters even if the app proves to be licit.
- opencl 8y agoThis makes no sense, there are no licensing rights involved because no music is being provided. It just plays files provided by the user. Are people sending C&D letters to Sandisk for selling MP3 players, or the hundreds of music player apps for Android?
- ainiriand 8y agoAgree, it makes no sense, lets see if the OP can tell us if this happens in the future or not. Maybe I'm just scared.
- opencl 8y agoThere are already a huge number of apps out there doing the exact same thing, as far as I am aware zero have been sued/threatened out of existence over this.
- 8y ago
- RobertDeNiro 8y agoDoes apple still reject third party apps that are too similar to existing first party apps?
- taylodl 8y agoHow does Doppler compare with Cesium? I've been using Cesium for the past couple of years and have been pretty happy, though like with any app improvements can be made. I agree with you the iTunes app is not good for simply playing music.
- primitur 8y agoI guess this is going to be a much better upgrade from my current non-Apple/-cloud music-player, VLC ..
- zakk 8y agoI don't know if it is technically possible, but a polished, fast app for Apple Music is badly needed!
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Aaargh20318 8y agoWhat is this 'offline' thing I keep hearing about ? Is it something US-specific ?
- jamix 8y agoIt's the good old MP3s that you download and send to your phone with iTunes.
- Aaargh20318 8y agoBut why would I want to if I can just stream them ?
- lozenge 8y agoIf you can't just stream them.
- Aaargh20318 8y agoBecause that happens.
- lolsal 8y agoIt happens several times a week when I'm out working in my fields.
- JustSomeNobody 8y agoSome people don't have unlimited bits.
- gm-conspiracy 8y agoor connectivity.
- Xylakant 8y ago
- lloeki 8y agoThis looks great, I'll try it out, congrats! Now, questions: Any chance of supporting BS2B (Bauer stereophonic-to-binaural), which VOX player supports? Do you plan to add, if at all possible, Spotify or VOX Music Cloud as providers? Do you plan to support 3D Touch? I found the use of Peek on songs (+slide and release on menu options) very useful in Apple Music, and I definitely miss that in Spotify.
- hisabness 8y agofunny thing is that apple used to have good offline music support that it has since butchered.
- ig0r0 8y agoI think the offline claim should be explained a bit better. Like does that mean I can get my old MP3 files to the app without stupid iTunes sync? Does it support "File sharing" so the app is shown in iTunes and I can drag and drop my MP3 files to its storage?
- linkmotif 8y ago> I can get my old MP3 files to the app without stupid iTunes sync? Does it support "File sharing" so the app is shown in iTunes and I can drag and drop my MP3 files to its storage? That’s what I want to know too. My biggest problem is having iTunes in the middle.
- thrav 8y agoLook into waltr: https://softorino.com/waltr/ https://softorino.com/waltr/ It’s perfect at what it does.
- linkmotif 8y agoThank you!
- clay_the_ripper 8y agoThis looks great. I actually wood prefer a third party app though because using the stock apps means that audio auto plays when connecting to some Bluetooth devices. It drives me insane that every time I get in my car some audiobook I was listening to starts auto playing.
- dvfjsdhgfv 8y agoActually, that's why I bought an Android device. I got enough of this iTunes bs and searching for 3rd party apps to do something as simple as copying an MP3 file or e-book from my computer. And still, I have to buy and install some software as Apple want to make it as difficult as possible not to have them as the intermediary. So now I carry two: iPhone for general use and Android for listening to music, reading e-books and many other things.
- tempodox 8y agoDoes it also display lyrics for songs that have them?
- granjoz 8y ago+1 for Best of Omar S playlist
- Invictus0 8y agoI have a large mp3 library and have used Marvis for over a year. Marvis is great and extremely customizable, but it has a few bugs and the developer has abandoned the app. I won't use any music app that doesn't allow shuffling by album. It sucks that Apple bastardized the main music app to promote Apple music; I think that app was at it's best around iOS 7.
- OberstKrueger 8y agoThe Apple Music parts can be disabled in Settings. It's not quite as nice as it was back in the day, but I've found that doing that helps to make it closer to how it was.
- taylodl 8y agoYou should check out Cesium. I've been using it for the past couple of years. It accesses your music library, so all your music and playlists are there. You can play by album (and shuffle the music) or even play by artist (and shuffle all songs by the artist). You can even play by genre if you so desire. Of course it provides all the typical music queue management facilities as well, but I don't tend to use those too much. I like it's extreme simplicity.
- walden789 8y agoWould be great if one could skip using iTunes alltogether....like being able to just import Mp3, Flac and m4a files from cloud storage into the app. Is/will this (be) possible with doppler?
- gkanai 8y agoVLC for iOS can do that now afaik.
- edwellbrook 8y agoI have importing mp3/flac etc working but needs a bit more work before I can release it. Coming very soon!
- fitpolar 8y agoDefine "better offline music". I'm sure it has a great UX, but Apple's music app already gives me a pretty decent experience. Honestly, I'll continue using that unless "better" is substantial.
- peterburkimsher 8y agoI use iTunes 10.6.3 and sync to an iPod. That keeps track of play counts on both devices, lets me make smart playlists and playlist folders, and syncs music, contacts, and calendars all over USB without any cloud services prying into my personal data. Apple went from being a leader in the music-listening industry with excellent UX to trying to compete with Spotify and YouTube, who are frankly not even that great (e.g. trying to keep playing a song in the background). Flash memory was small when the iPhone came out in 2007, so everything moved to streaming. Now the capacities are finally big enough again (e.g. 128GB iPhone SE), Apple's broken their sync services. I like having play counts, ratings, and playlists, and I like that I've continually built up my music library since the days of Soundjam MP for the Rio 600. Doppler is trying to put a new theme on Finder's MP3 playing feature, but it's not the syncing library manager that I need.
- dsr_ 8y agoI have a standalone MP3 player the size of a matchbox. (Anybody remember matchboxes?) The battery is good for 15 hours of play, it takes a 128GB microSD card, and it can play FLAC as well as MP3. The buttons are real and tactile and oriented so that you don't have to look at it to figure them out. It appears as a USB mass storage device with a FAT32 filesystem, so every computer I've used in the last 20 years can put music on it. If you put music in directories, it will navigate the directory structure. If you build m3u playlists, it will use those. You can ask for a random shuffle of all tracks or inside a directory. It doesn't have play counts or ratings. If you have a USB3 microSD reader, that's faster than updating directly through the USB2 interface. Also, it's running an open-source alternative firmware called Rockbox.
- runarberg 8y agoPlease, I have been looking for a descent music player for a while (since my Creative Zen had a hard drive failure). Did you get yours new or used (if so, which brand? how much money? where from?), did you hack it together your self (if so how)?
- soylentcola 8y ago
- nuopnu 8y agofoobar2000 on the App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/foobar2000/id1072807669?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/foobar2000/id1072807669?mt=8
- jedimastert 8y agoWhat about it?
- nuopnu 8y agoA "better offline music on the iPhone".
- scblock 8y agoThis app page says nothing. It's just a few screenshots and some generic text. Your "support page" is an email address, and doesn't actually contain any information on the app. If you're going to show us something and ask us to buy your app, then put a little more care into your launch.
- kall 8y agoYou should consider opening the 'Now Playing' drawer with an actual, direct gesture instead of a trigger on a detected swipe. The way it is now feels weird for iOS. I really missed the album artwork color extraction from iTunes and seeing album covers in a reasonable size, so thank you for that.
- khazhoux 8y agoFLAC support?
- lolsal 8y agoI sincerely cannot tell how this is different from the Music app that I already use on my iPhone other than the color-matching background stuff. - Minimal design: The 'now playing' drawer in the screenshot looks nearly the exact same as the Music 'now playing' drawer. If anything it has more text for buttons than the Music app. - Adapts to my music: The background color changes? - Import my music: Ok, but with Music app I don't have to do that. - Search artists, albums and songs: Ok, but I can already do that with Music app. - Edit and reorder listen queue: Ok, but I can already do that with Music app.
- azinman2 8y agoMy thoughts exactly.
- thefounder 8y agoYou no longer have that banner("Sign up to Apple Music") everywhere. Since the streaming service was launched the Music app became unusuable.
- banku_brougham 8y agoThere is a wealth of comment online and here on HN about the inadequacies of the native music app. If you are enjoying the iOS music app you probably dont: - sync the library to a local machine - have any songs in your library that are unavailable via streaming service - use custom playlists that are organized on a desktop machine - listen to music by Genre - don’t mind authenticating all the time
- coldtea 8y agoAll of the above features are available in the Music app -- and the last one is not an issue.
- coldtea 8y ago>I sincerely cannot tell how this is different from the Music app that I already use on my iPhone other than the color-matching background stuff. Especially since the Music app already does "the color-matching background stuff": https://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/how-to-create-colored-backgrounds-for-playlists-albums-in-itunes-12 https://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/how-to-create-colore...
- mychael 8y agoI bought the app. A few ideas: - When importing, it would be great to see that "importing" is not a copy of the exact same data, but rather a reference or link (like a symlink). I have 40 gb of music on my iPhone. I don't want to double that by using your app. - Needs a nicer looking app logo. - Needs a cooler app name that is more original than "Doppler".
- radutzan 8y agoSo I've been making a music player app called 'Doppi' for years now, I wonder if it served as inspiration? https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/doppi-offline-music-player/id1002899671?ls=1&mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/doppi-offline-music-player/i...
- jakecopp 8y agoAndroid users: I build some tools to Rsync your iTunes library to your phone over WiFi and it's absolutely bulletproof, works great! https://github.com/jakecoppinger/android-itunes-rsync https://github.com/jakecoppinger/android-itunes-rsync
- mixmastamyk 8y agoWould like something like VLC, but with a better interface. I copy media to its folder, and then play it. One pet peeve, on iOS the audio transport buttons are in a different location in music apps than they are on the lock screen. Leading to more fumbling around than needed.
- walterbell 8y agoGoodReader on iOS can synchronize offline files via SSH and play audio/video.
- matt_the_bass 8y agoI’d love to have a way to sync my google play music files with apples app. The reason I’m interested in apples app is so that I can fully control it with Seri. This way in the car I can just tell seri what song, artist, album, genre to play.
- gabrielcsapo 8y agoThis is gorgeous, thank you for caring about my life. purchased
- command 8y agoIs there a Linux (or wireless) solution for transferring music to my iPhone yet? VLC Player allows for wireless sync via web browser, but it lacks way too many features to be used regularly just for music.
- YTGRK 8y agohttps://youtu.be/I2l8xkjTUh4 https://youtu.be/I2l8xkjTUh4