StarTone vs MusicBottle
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
StarTone
This music player allows you to rate songs with stars and love statuses directly from your device's library or audio files. It offers convenient rating options via widgets and Apple Watch, with iCloud sync for your ratings.
- Rate music with stars and love statuses
- iCloud sync for ratings across devices
- Rating support on Today Extension and Apple Watch
- Play and rate common audio formats including Flac and MIDI
- Embed lyrics and support for .lrc files
- Smart playlist creation
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StarTone is a music player which can play songs in your "Music" library and audio files stored in your device, including common format like mp3 and lossless format of Flac, also it support MIDI playback and support customize sound bank. StarTone was came out for rating music with stars and "love" statues. The rating bar stands out in the main page, so it just need one touch to make the rating, no need to open many submenus. In addition, StarTone provides Today Extension and Watch app, so you can also make music ratings on the Widget Screen and your Apple Watch. StarTone now also equips some handy features to make the music listening easy and happy. Please try to play with them. Features: 1. Quickly set star and love ratings for music on your local library, Apple Music or audio file. 2. Sync music ratings with other devices or iTunes via iCloud on the go. 3. With iCloud Sync enabled, love / dislike rating are available. 4. Support rating on today extension (widget). 5. Share music ratings with family and friends. 6. Support embed lyrics, .lrc lyrics file and online lyrics. 7. Support automatically play when launch the app. 8. Support star music rating on Apple Watch. 9. Play and rate audio files of general format and Flac lossless format. 10. Support MIDI playback. 11. Smart playlist for both Music Library and audio files. 12. Play audio files on Apple Watch. 13. Scheduled music playback.
MusicBottle
Explore your personal music library by starting with a single song. Easily navigate to related tracks, albums, or songs within the same genre. This app offers a streamlined way to discover music without intrusive overhead.
- Play music from your library
- Navigate music from a selected song
- Expand to full albums
- Discover songs in the same genre
- Find songs with similar names
- Ad-free music exploration
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An app for playing music from you music library. Pick any song and then easily navigate your music from that song. Start with one song and expand to either a full album, other songs in that genre, or songs with a similar name. Explore your library without a bunch of annoying overhead!
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: MusicBottle at Free against StarTone's $0.99. MusicBottle also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.1) and iOS requirement (13.0 vs 18.0). StarTone's advantage is update cadence (every 5 weeks vs every 19 months) and ratings volume (16 vs 1). On ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
MusicBottle is free to download; StarTone costs $0.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
MusicBottle holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.1. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: StarTone has 16 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.
StarTone ships an update every 5 weeks, MusicBottle every 19 months. The most recent releases landed on September 13, 2026 and September 9, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | StarTone | MusicBottle |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.1 (16 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 66.7% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 16 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 5 weeks — better | Every 19 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 13.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 24 MB | 1 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | 乃波 黄 | Low Step Productions |
Customer experience
StarTone
MusicBottle
In-app purchases
StarTone
No in-app purchases
MusicBottle
No in-app purchases
