iPhone I made a new music player with support for Spotify and iTunes!

[Wiencon]

Hi all, I am the developer of Plum Music Player, a replacement a new music player which supports Spotify and iTunes.
No point in listing all of its features here, you can check it out for yourself, it's free to download on the App Store!

Some screenshots

Check out the features on the website

Join the official subreddit at for discussions

Follow me on twitter

Let me know what you think about it!

 

[Paco II]

Does the app have an option to prevent screen lock, by any chance?

Edit: I gave it a download. Overall really nice app. Here are some impressions using it with Spotify:

• No option to prevent screen lock. I'd love something like that. Perhaps when in player view at least
• Playlists don't have an option to sort by date added/created. Is this a limitation of Spotify's API? It would sure be nice to be able to sort playlists like that, so I can easily see newly added and created ones at the top
• When I first installed it, it was on the loading spotify library screen for nearly a minute. That's a long time and I almost gave up.
• As someone that holds their phone in their right hand and navigates with their left, I'd love an option to flip the hamburger menu and play/pause button, or possibly a gesture to activate the hamburger menu. Right now the hamburger menu is 'far' from my left hand.
• In the player view, tapping on artwork brings up the song menu screen. It would be great if swiping on the artwork would allow for changing songs (swipe left for next track, swipe right to go back)
• When using the ellipsis menu, remember the view state of the sort menu. Right now it is always shown collapsed. But 98% of the time I would go to this view is to change sort order. Save me a click by remembering the state of that view (sort list is shown or collapsed).
• In Player view, when listening to songs from a playlist, tapping the artist or album name only works if the song has been saved to your library. Otherwise it just goes to the previous view screen. That is a strange behavior. If a song has not been saved to your library, when tapping artist or album name in this case, perhaps go to the playlist view for that playlist instead?

 

[Wiencon]

Hey, thanks for the feedback. I must say you made some really valid points:
• This is something I didn't think about but seems like a pretty cool feature. I will add it in near future!
• Yes, the first time you log into Spotify it downloads info about your entire library and saves it. It may take long, depending on how many songs you've saved, but next time you open the app it should open almost instantaneously and fetch the newest state of the library in the background
• That's a good point, I will add option for left/right handed interface!
• The swipe gesture is in the works and will appear in near future
• That is also a good point, I will look into it
• Aaand that is a bug

Right now I'm pretty occupied with exams but I'll implement above features as soon as I have a bit more time. If you like the app and have a minute, please write a review in App Store, star ratings are cool but reviews are really helpful

Thanks again!

 

[Paco II]

Good luck with exams.

There is a distinct lack of alternatives to the Spotify app, so this could be a great opportunity for you. You can go through the Spotify forums to see all the things people want in the app. My mention of a feature to prevent screen lock is a great example. Can't do this in the Spotify app, and lots of people want it.

Hey, thanks for the feedback. I must say you made some really valid points:
• This is something I didn't think about but seems like a pretty cool feature. I will add it in near future!
• Yes, the first time you log into Spotify it downloads info about your entire library and saves it. It may take long, depending on how many songs you've saved, but next time you open the app it should open almost instantaneously and fetch the newest state of the library in the background
• That's a good point, I will add option for left/right handed interface!
• The swipe gesture is in the works and will appear in near future
• That is also a good point, I will look into it
• Aaand that is a bug

Right now I'm pretty occupied with exams but I'll implement above features as soon as I have a bit more time. If you like the app and have a minute, please write a review in App Store, star ratings are cool but reviews are really helpful

Thanks again!

 

[bumbo]

Good luck with exams.

There is a distinct lack of alternatives to the Spotify app, so this could be a great opportunity for you. You can go through the Spotify forums to see all the things people want in the app. My mention of a feature to prevent screen lock is a great example. Can't do this in the Spotify app, and lots of people want it.

^ This. There are no third party Spotify apps that I've ever seen and they had an API much earlier than Apple Music, but i know of 4 alternative players for AM.

As mentioned, this is a big opportunity to sweep up all the requests from Spotify users that seem to have no traction to get included

 

[Paco II]

Wow! The new update is amazing! I hope you didn’t blow off exams to work on this!

I have another idea to throw your way: it appears that the Spotify API doesn't provide a way to sort Playlist by when they were added/created. This makes it a little hard to find that newly created or followed playlist.

So I had an idea for a fallback of sorts. Create a sharesheet extension that would allow one to share a Spotify playlist from the Spotify app (or album, etc) directly to Favorites in Plum.

 

[Wiencon]

Wow! The new update is amazing! I hope you didn’t blow off exams to work on this!

I have another idea to throw your way: it appears that the Spotify API doesn't provide a way to sort Playlist by when they were added/created. This makes it a little hard to find that newly created or followed playlist.

So I had an idea for a fallback of sorts. Create a sharesheet extension that would allow one to share a Spotify playlist from the Spotify app (or album, etc) directly to Favorites in Plum.

Nah, I actually passed the most difficult one with flying colors

Hmm, I could do this but the problem is I have to make compromises because of iTunes integration. You're right that Spotify doesn't offer the "follow date" information but I could easily just check when the playlist was added to my internal database. With iTunes I don't store the items in database because they are easily accessible with iOS methods so it would be more difficult to implement this.

The share sheet will be my last resort if I don't figure this one out and thanks for the kind words!

 

[Paco II]

Thanks. And apologies - I forget that it is also for iTunes. I am pretty much 100% Spotify at this point.

Nah, I actually passed the most difficult one with flying colors

Hmm, I could do this but the problem is I have to make compromises because of iTunes integration. You're right that Spotify doesn't offer the "follow date" information but I could easily just check when the playlist was added to my internal database. With iTunes I don't store the items in database because they are easily accessible with iOS methods so it would be more difficult to implement this.

The share sheet will be my last resort if I don't figure this one out and thanks for the kind words!

 

[Paco II]

@Wiencon So it seems that the option to prevent the phone screen from sleeping/locking isn't working. Does the phone need to be on a charger or something? I let it play in the player view and the app in the foreground, and the phone screen is going dark.

 

[Paco II]

Forgot to to follow up on this that I also tried it when the phone is charging, and disable screen lock/sleep is definitely not working.

@Wiencon So it seems that the option to prevent the phone screen from sleeping/locking isn't working. Does the phone need to be on a charger or something? I let it play in the player view and the app in the foreground, and the phone screen is going dark.

 

[Wiencon]

Sorry I did not see your posts, you're right, it's bugged. If you turn 'prevent sleep' option and restart the app it will work correctly, I will fix this soon but for now please use this workaround