amazing app 5/5
did exactly what i needed it to do. i was recently listening to my chill mix provided by apple music, and i didn't realize that the “Love” feature doesn’t actually add the songs to a smart playlist unless that song is already in your library. my chill mix updated soon after, and i thought i lost the songs forever… this app showed me every song and i e be more pleased! amazing work!
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nearly there
as a longtime Cs/Cesium user, i pulled the trigger on SongOwl without hesitation. and i LIKE it! still no chance for viewing or changing the queue, but that’s on Apple and their ridiculous rules.
this is a simple, intuitive app and i feel like it’s a good path forward. that said, there are a couple features i might like to see. it would be nice if, in addition to the long press, one could get info on a track with a right swipe to expose the i button. it would also be nice if there was a way to advance to the next track when on the get info screen, rather than having to close the screen then long press on the next track.
it would also be nice if i could set SongOwl to reopen at the last view. as it is, if it has to relaunch the app it defaults to the Library view. i have my music organised in playlists, so it would be nice if i could set it to open in the playlist view. if that makes sense?
anyway, thanks for another fantastic music player! i’m looking forward to seeing where SongOwl and Cs go from here!
this is a simple, intuitive app and i feel like it’s a good path forward. that said, there are a couple features i might like to see. it would be nice if, in addition to the long press, one could get info on a track with a right swipe to expose the i button. it would also be nice if there was a way to advance to the next track when on the get info screen, rather than having to close the screen then long press on the next track.
it would also be nice if i could set SongOwl to reopen at the last view. as it is, if it has to relaunch the app it defaults to the Library view. i have my music organised in playlists, so it would be nice if i could set it to open in the playlist view. if that makes sense?
anyway, thanks for another fantastic music player! i’m looking forward to seeing where SongOwl and Cs go from here!
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Been looking for this for years
The ability to sort within my playlists by Artist makes it so I can essentially make many smaller music libraries. This is so helpful I struggle to put it in words. Thank you for this app!
Lyrics support
Hi mike, Great music app, really love it. Just wondering whether lyrics will be supported in the future?
Thanks SongOwl!
I love SongOwl! Making stats-based playlists is super easy. I especially appreciate integrating playback controls.
Best music app
I have tried a number of music apps and this is the best. Much less crashes. I only wish I could delete songs directly from a playlist.
Fixed my problem with Apple Music on iOS 14
Apple broke Apple Music with iOS 14. This app fixes that! On iOS 13 I was able to shuffle songs from specific artists (including songs they were featured in). We are unable to do that on iOS 14. This app just saved Apple Music for me! Thank you so much! I would love a toggle for the Artwork-Themed player. I would love it to be just black like on iOS 13. Other than that I love this app! Great job!
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Pretty, but doesn’t play
Surprised. Finally set this up and tapping on a song doesn’t play it. Maybe I’m missing something, but if I need to lookup an online instruction manual to figure out how to start a song in a music player, it’s already dead in the water.
Also, I have a bunch of random garbage I purchased (mostly free from Starbucks) years ago and I don’t want to see anything but the songs I sync from computer. However, even after turning off the “cloud” toggle, these cloud purchases still show up.
Also, I have a bunch of random garbage I purchased (mostly free from Starbucks) years ago and I don’t want to see anything but the songs I sync from computer. However, even after turning off the “cloud” toggle, these cloud purchases still show up.
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Response from developer
Did you delete the stock player from your device? I know it sounds silly, but unfortunately hiding Music.app from your device disabled the playback API necessary for Apple Music support. Reinstalling should resolve the issue.
Doesn’t work with Smart Playlists
I listen to my music almost exclusively through Smart Playlists, and unfortunately SongOwl is useless for them due to a bug: as soon as I enable any sorting (e.g. by album) in such a playlist, it shows almost the entire library instead of just what’s in the original playlist. Just by looking at the number of songs in the playlist, it somehow depends on how I sort. Miximum doesn’t have this issue.
As an example, I have a playlist of the last 200 songs I’ve added to my library. When I group it by album, it suddenly contains 6304 songs. By artist, 6036. By album artist, 6021. By composer, 1817. By genre, 4236. Clearly, dark magic is at work.
As an example, I have a playlist of the last 200 songs I’ve added to my library. When I group it by album, it suddenly contains 6304 songs. By artist, 6036. By album artist, 6021. By composer, 1817. By genre, 4236. Clearly, dark magic is at work.
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Response from developer
Thanks for the feedback! There is some dark magic to contend with in regards to smart playlists (and more so, smart playlists limited by track count or duration. “Unlimited” lists seem to behave correctly). I can make some improvements. Stay tuned!
Great!
I like that Cs 6.0 wasn’t discontinued and continued on to this app. Any plans to add last.fm scrobbling?
Powerful sorting tools
Very powerful sorting tools. Doesn’t support landscape which is what I was looking for when I bought it.
Great app
Being able to customize the sorting of my music to this level is great and something I’ve wanted Apple to do for a long time, I just wish I would have bought this sooner. I wasn’t sure I’d need this after using CS Music Player for so long but now this is my go to app for music, unless I need lyrics.
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Great Music App, needs 2 things to be perfect
This is a great Music app replacement. Simple, clean, intuitive, flexible.
I’ve found only two things I wish it could do:
1) Deal with multi-artist compilation albums properly. I.e, for such albums, create a virtual artist labeled ‘Various’ that then fits into the album sort at the top of an alpha sort. JRiver and others take this approach and it works well.
2) Be able to Group Multidisc albums using the Disc# field, so the discs are clearly delineated when viewing an album grouping
3. Provide an in app ‘Contact Support’ link so issues/questions/feature requests don’t have to be left in a public review like this.
Other than that, awesome!!
I’ve found only two things I wish it could do:
1) Deal with multi-artist compilation albums properly. I.e, for such albums, create a virtual artist labeled ‘Various’ that then fits into the album sort at the top of an alpha sort. JRiver and others take this approach and it works well.
2) Be able to Group Multidisc albums using the Disc# field, so the discs are clearly delineated when viewing an album grouping
3. Provide an in app ‘Contact Support’ link so issues/questions/feature requests don’t have to be left in a public review like this.
Other than that, awesome!!
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Great organizational app.....
I really like the way it looks and acts after it’s set up to my preferences. Since my library is somewhat disorganized, due to the way iTunes has separated my albums, this is helping me get them separated properly because of the way it shows album artwork and lets me see which albums some of the disorganized is supposed to be. Great job and I looking forward to the future with this. Also have Cs and love it but probably won’t open much anymore since this is available 😁
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So far so good mostly
An improvement from Cesium. Developer needs to post link to bug reporting location.
Interesting, but not there yet
Stick with Cs Music, this app still needs work. The UI is clunky & the full screen mode is ugly.
Not as amazing as it was hyped up to be.
As a long time CS music user, I was interested in Song Owl as the developed claimed it was, in a way, CS next gen. After a week of use, I couldn’t tell what the advantages of the app were. I listen to playlists, not albums and most of those are Smart to begin with, so sorting and browsing isn’t relevant to me, which is what this app seems to be designed for, sorting and browsing - actually listening being an afterthought. At least CS music allows you to change star ratings from the Now Playing view, a feature not present in Song Owl.
FYI, if you use Miximum, by the same developer, you will lose the ability to specify CS as your default player after changing it to Song Owl, even if you delete Song Owl.
Overall, I don’t know what Song Owl was / is supposed to do that his other apps weren’t doing. I’m disappointed that I paid money for it, as the developer’s other apps are functional and well written.
FYI, if you use Miximum, by the same developer, you will lose the ability to specify CS as your default player after changing it to Song Owl, even if you delete Song Owl.
Overall, I don’t know what Song Owl was / is supposed to do that his other apps weren’t doing. I’m disappointed that I paid money for it, as the developer’s other apps are functional and well written.
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Response from developer
Thanks for the feedback. Sorry to hear it’s not a great match, but that’s partially why SongOwl is a separate app and didn’t become the new Cs direction. FYI in Miximum you can use “csmusic://“ in the player url scheme option to continue launching Cs 👍
Great interface but no real Queue control
I’ve used CS music player for years and this is basically a polished bug-free version of the same thing. A lot of great features and it looks great - Personally I love having access to all the metadata and play count info for my music. Unfortunately there is still no way to see or manage your up next/now playing list. It seems to be a limitation of iOS, but it makes it a little bit incomplete nonetheless.
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Response from developer
Thanks for the feedback! Directly accessing the system playback queue isn't supported, which makes this definitely problematic. Stay tuned – I am looking at exploring some "pre-queue" type functionality that will hopefully address most of the feature gap.
Best iOS Music Player. Period.
No-frills music player. Smooth UX. The ease of use of the "paths" feature takes the cake. Lightweight, unencumbered by bloated features found in many music players. The only thing missing is a dark mode.
Response from developer
Thanks for the review! Works with the iOS system dark mode 😎
The one feature I want
Please please please include in the next update the ability to pick up in the middle of a song even if you don’t use the app for several hours at a time. It is super frustrating to have to go back and relaunch and hunt to where I was listening to before, especially during longer songs in live albums. This also goes for the Cs Music app.
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