# Holon — Explore Cities With Musical AR

> Location-based augmented reality music synthesizer that turns cities into instruments. (iPhone/iPad app by Holonic Systems Oy.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/holon/id1352687747 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [Holonic Systems Oy](https://appshunter.io/developer/1172474856)
- Category: Music, Lifestyle
- Price: Free with in-app purchases (on sale, was $0.29)
- Rating: 4.50/5 from 14 App Store ratings · 12 written reviews indexed
- Age rating: 4+
- Requires: iOS 12.0 · 144 MB
- Languages: American English
- Released: 2018-05-27
- Data updated: 2026-08-05
- Monetization: paid
- User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/holon/id1352687747/reviews.md

## What is Holon?

Holon makes the city your instrument. It turns your movement in the environment into a synthetic, interactive score that reflects your context, supports your activities and alerts you to changes in the surrounding area. 

Holon uses physical computing and a geospatial dataset to synthesize music on the iPhone in real time from your data - no streaming or AI involved, just pure DSP and logic. 

What Holon Does:

* Human powered music. Every action generates dynamic, improvised synth music in real time.
* Encourages outdoor activities. Holon doesn’t work in your apartment or by shaking your phone around. Move through streets, parks, and transit systems to make the music happen.
* Stays out of your way. Zero UI means less screen time, no distractions. 
* Uses places and spaces to modify the music you make. The environment isn’t background - it’s the score.
* The more and further you move, the more things happen in the music. Use your musical agency instead of skipping and swiping.

Why Holon Exists:


Music has been reduced to a commodity and a background activity for consumerism. Holon isn’t here to help you chill when you swipe, scroll and buy more stuff, or improve your focus when working for the Man. 

Holon is here to break away from the static, one-way relationship of streaming services and to put the human in the loop - yourself. Forget emoting celebrities with their false sincerity, throw overproduced passive soundscapes and statistical algorithms on the dung heap of history. Holon turns listeners into performers and unlocks the musical potential of places.

How to Use:

* Go outside - Holon needs space to function, just like you. Different districts, parks, bridges, shops, street furniture - all contribute to the musical output. Strolling around your apartment or shaking your phone won’t do.
* Put the phone in your pocket or on your dashboard. 
* Walk, run, drive - the world is now the interface, space is the machine.
* Use the big button in the middle to power Holon off when not in use - Auditory AR can be a battery-intensive process!
* Optional Apple AirPods support for head-controlled musical interactions!
* Optional Apple Watch support for heart rate-synced music (biofeedback) *the Watch app may take a moment to install*

Requirements:


* Available in over 1000 regions in more than 100 countries. 
* Check coverage or request a new area at holonic.systems/holon. 
* Best experienced with headphones. Ensure adequate battery level for extended use. 
* A data plan is required to access our geospatial engine but use of data is low. 

Holon: Become part of the circuit and… Become Sound™

## Key features

- Human-powered music generation
- Encourages outdoor activity
- Zero UI for minimal distraction
- Environmentally responsive music
- Real-time synth music creation
- Optional AirPods and Apple Watch integration

## Pricing and in-app purchases

Base price: Free.

**One-time purchases**

| Purchase | Price | Type |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Apple Watch support | Free | one-time |
| Movesense Support | Free | one-time |


## Recent user reviews (10 of 12)

All indexed reviews: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/holon/id1352687747/reviews.md

### 5/5 — Sounds interesting

*2024-08-18*

All of a sudden I feel my phone vibrate with a sound that I could only hear if I put my head up to the phone. I wonder if this could be used in the future to talk to people who do not share a language. If I could describe the sound if I may. It was huuuuum dita dita dita dita dit. Then higher huuuuum...dit dit dit. It was almost like I was listening to a humming person.

**Developer response:** Hi Gwen, thanks for the review! Yes, sometimes the data feeding the synthesis creates these kind of emergent events. This is a good example of how music really happens inside our heads and why live music is so powerful.

### 5/5 — My background music form now on lol

*2024-03-15*

I'm impressed-this app lets you interact with the invisible musical ethereal space within which sound itself awaits papered to be drawn out of the world through the interaction of consciousness and action..... Connect to your loved ones and hear the music echoes of themselves, in realtime? whenever you feel too far distanced!!!!! Awesome!!!

**Developer response:** Thank you very much! Our next update - out soon - has even more real-world musical interactions and several new presets to explore, hope you enjoy them!

### 5/5 — Effortless MiRack integration - pure affordance

*2024-01-18*

Open up you patch and listen to data streams guide the sounds. A wonderful river of auditory 1’s and 0’s awaits. It’s essential to use this with the holon.ist app and well worth the purchase price.

### 1/5 — Just a gimmick.

*2022-07-03*

As it stands, Holon is little more than a gimmick. It doesn’t output anything useful like midi and even with Holon.ist was pretty well worthless. It does make some nice sounds but these are limited to the iPhone speaker. Needs more work as does Holon.ist.

**Developer response:** Hello and thanks again for the review. I writing to inform you we have developed our platform further and Holon now supports user created patches made in miRack. Our editor app, Holon.ist, contains several templates snd examples to get started. Both Holon and Holon.ist support our new musical geospatial computing features. I hope you can try these new features and the many presets that showcase them. Perhaps you would be willing to revise your review if you find the changes favourable. 
kindly, Holonic team

### 5/5 — Super cool app to convert your data into music!

*2021-04-19, version 1.0.5*

Definitely love it, it is a great app to experience music production done with data collected from your daily iPhone user life. Check-out Holonist app to start making your music triggered by your daily movement data, you can take full control of the many sensors that your iPhone already have!

### 5/5 — Maria

*2020-08-24, version 1.0.0*

Amazing app for interactive audio. Best in market with difference. Highly recommended

### 3/5 — Fun app but useless for music creation

*2019-07-05*

Love playing with the iPhone version, but for sound design it is worthless, no way to get sound out through USB-C. I’d like to route sound to Logic Pro but doesn’t seem possible.

**Developer response:** Thanks again for the review. We have developed our platform and would like to let you know that you can now use miRack to create patches that can be played back in Holon. For Logic Pro, we recommend using miRack as an AUv3 plugin with an instance of our Holonic Source plugin to receive data from the Holonist editor. I hope this improvement is of interest to you and that you may revise your review in the light of this development. 

kind regards, 
Holonic team

### 5/5 — Wow!!! Great app!

*2019-06-19*

This app is so unique! I couldn’t find any app quite like this! It’s so cool how you can just move the phone in different ways and make music! I do have a few suggestions though. You should include a manual explaining which way you have to move your arm to make a certain song. That is pretty much the only thing this app needs to become the best Ar music app!

**Developer response:** Thank you for your review and kind words. We’d like to help but the complexity of our music engine is such that we ourselves cannot completely fathom it’s workings. Holon is very much about exploring the features first hand and some results are not always replicable, as the factors behind them involve the weather, time of day, distance traveled and so on. Our editor, Holon.ist, on the other hand, is a fully configurable meta-instrument. We wish you many happy moments with Holon.

### 5/5 — Awesome

*2019-02-26, version 0.7*

It changes the sounds while you move! Pretty nice! I guess anyone who likes experimental music or EDM is gonna freak out with this app!

### 4/5 — Wow

*2019-01-04*

Very, very cool concept and execution. Would love Audiobus support.

**Developer response:** Thank you very much! It’s possible that we could include Audiobus and AUv.3 support, but it’s more likely to be available sooner for our editor, Holon.ist, which already has MIDI out. You’re welcome to try the beta: http://bit.do/holonist

## Frequently asked questions about Holon

### What is Holon?

Holon is an augmented reality application that transforms your movement through cities into a dynamic, real-time musical score. It uses your physical location and activity to generate interactive synth music, encouraging outdoor exploration and turning listeners into performers.

### How does Holon encourage outdoor activities?

Holon is designed to function best when you are moving outdoors in streets, parks, and transit systems. It requires physical movement to generate music, making it an incentive to explore your surroundings rather than using the app indoors or by shaking your phone.

### Does Holon have ads?

No, Holon does not contain advertisements. It is a paid application that focuses on providing an uninterrupted musical experience without any commercial interruptions.

### What are the requirements to use Holon?

Holon is available in over 100 countries and requires a data plan for its geospatial engine, though data usage is low. It is best experienced with headphones and requires adequate battery for extended use. It is compatible with iPhone, iPad, iPod, and Apple Watch.

### Can I use Holon with headphones or a smartwatch?

Yes, Holon offers optional support for Apple AirPods for head-controlled musical interactions. It also supports Apple Watch for heart rate-synced music through biofeedback, though the Watch app may take a moment to install.

### How does Holon use the environment to modify music?

The app uses a geospatial dataset and physical computing to synthesize music in real time based on your location and surroundings. Different districts, parks, bridges, and street furniture contribute to the musical output, making the environment an integral part of the score.

### What is the update frequency for Holon?

Holon was last updated on April 18, 2025, indicating regular maintenance and potential feature additions. The current version is 1.2.9.

### What is the user sentiment for Holon?

Holon has received positive user feedback, evidenced by its rating of 4.5 stars from 14 ratings. This suggests that users generally find the app to be a valuable and enjoyable experience.

## Version history (last 5 releases)

### 1.2.9 — 2025-04-18

It's time to say goodbye to Bose AR. This feature was already deprecated when Bose sold the patent to Amazon in 2020. The latest version of Swift does not support this framework anymore. Thanks for showing us the future of musical spatial computing. 

Some other dependencies have been updated to the latest version.

We also removed Apple Vision Pro support until we can get it to work properly.

### 1.2.8 — 2024-12-02

- Improved responsiveness in automotive mode: Adaptive clock reacts dynamically to slow speeds while discouraging speeding
- New set of miRack-powered musical presets that further demonstrate the geospatial computing features of the Holonic platform!
- Expanded geographical coverage, including all of San Francisco! See current areas at www.holonic.systems/holon and send a request for yours

### 1.2.7 — 2024-08-22

- Fixed a bug that caused Holon to close after a while if using Apple Watch.
- Improved scripts
- Extended coverage areas

### 1.2.6 — 2024-06-07

Holon's following new features and enhancements are set to elevate your interactive musical journey:

- Reinstated Apple Watch support: Responding to popular demand, Holon now integrates with Apple Watch. Your motion data and biosignals, such as heart rate, are used to influence the music, creating a more personalized and immersive experience. Try pulse sonification biofeedback when stationary! 

- Improved Spatial Intelligence for interactive journeys: Our curated geospatial dataset is updated for more defined and varied interactions. Enjoy new musical responses to various elements, such as road networks, railways, bridges, tunnels, stairs, rivers, canals, paths, trails, cable cars, zip lines, ski lifts, ferry routes and much more!

- Expanded coverage areas: We have vastly increased the number of covered areas, adding new regions and geospatial data points to ensure a richer and more diverse auditory environment.

- Inferred LULC: Advanced Land Use / Land Cover features now work in many more areas. LULC works best in the areas marked red on the map available at holonic.systems/holon.

- Set of 10 all-new Ubiquitous Music presets that showcase geospatial nodes (POIs) and land use in different ways. Powered by miRack!

PLEASE NOTE: 

For Holon to work correctly, you'll need to be in one of the 1000 supported regions, see coverage and request yours at: holonic.systems/holon 

Auditory Augmented Reality is a CPU and power intensive task. Ensure you have a full battery and keep the phone cool and well ventilated. To conserve battery, turn Holon off when not in use (swipe up from the bottom of the screen and swipe away the app).

Please send any feedback to info@holonic.systems

### 1.2.5 — 2023-11-14

- Fixed missing cables in a couple of patches

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## More apps by Holonic Systems Oy

- [Holon.ist](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/holonist/id1359763686)

All apps by Holonic Systems Oy: https://appshunter.io/developer/1172474856

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-05.*