TapTunes vs StarTone
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
TapTunes
Explore your music collection through interactive visual displays and gesture-based controls. Rediscover forgotten tracks and enjoy a more intimate connection with your audio library.
- Visual album browsing
- Gesture playback controls
- Home screen widget
- Seamless audio switching
- Personalized settings
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With TapTunes, you will experience your music collection like never before. Touch, tap, drag, shake, swipe, pinch ‒ you've never been this close to your tunes! By presenting albums visually in a random order, TapTunes brings you much closer to your music than you'd ever get by scrolling through an alphabetical list of artist names. You'll soon find yourself rediscovering old favorites and listening to those forgotten gems lurking around the edges of your music library. After all, if a picture is worth a thousand words, why let words alone do all the talking for your music? Features * Five unique browse displays * Gesture playback controls * Home screen widget, app icon choices, light and dark themes, Shortcut support * Seamless switching between music, audiobooks, and podcasts * Highly personalized, with over 40 settings and counting * And more...
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.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: StarTone at 4.1 against TapTunes's 3.1. StarTone also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 1) and update cadence (every 5 weeks vs every 4 months). TapTunes's advantage is iOS requirement (16.0 vs 18.0). On review sentiment, ratings volume, ads 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
TapTunes costs $1.99 and StarTone $0.99 up front. TapTunes sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. StarTone asks for nothing beyond the download.
StarTone holds the better App Store score, 4.1 against 3.1. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 23 and 16 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 60% of TapTunes's written reviews are positive against 67% of StarTone's.
TapTunes ships an update every 4 months, StarTone every 5 weeks. The most recent releases landed on July 21, 2026 and September 13, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | TapTunes | StarTone |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $1.99 | $0.99 — better |
| Rating | 3.1 (23 ratings) | 4.1 (16 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 60.0% of reviews | 66.7% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 23 — better | 16 |
| Update frequency | Every 4 months | Every 5 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases — better | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 7 MB | 24 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | David Blundell | 乃波 黄 |
Customer experience
TapTunes
StarTone
In-app purchases
TapTunes
- Stacked Mode$0.99
StarTone
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is TapTunes free?
Is StarTone free?
Which has better reviews, TapTunes or StarTone?
Do TapTunes or StarTone have ads?
Which is updated more often, TapTunes or StarTone?
Other comparisons
