Comparison

BandNavi vs StarTone

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

BandNavi

Discover new bands and music by exploring interconnected musician relationships. Trace networks of band members, features, and collaborations to uncover hidden gems in your music library. Access related music and videos directly from the app.

Highlights
  • Discover bands via musician relationships
  • Trace member changes and collaborations
  • Play music from your iPod library
  • Navigate musician and band networks
  • Search YouTube and iTunes for bands
  • View band member source web pages
Features
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BandNavi enables you to find new bands and music from relations between musicians. Member changes, featuring, collaborations, etc. are common in music bands. Moreover some musicians have relations with a lot of bands in the case that a support member gives a performance, a composer offers a music, or a guest musician appears at a live and so on. You can find new bands and music by iteratively tracing such relational networks with BandNavi. ■How to use■ ・Play a music stored in your iPod library from the "Library" tab. ・Then, the list of the musicians who participated in the band of the music is shown in the "Navigation" tab. ・In addition, when you tap a musician's name, the list of the bands in which the musician participated is shown. ・Musician > Band > Musician > Band ... You can trace the relations one after another. ・If you have the music of the listed band, Play Button(|>) will be shown on the side of the band name. You can play the music any second by tapping the button. ・When you get interested a band, you can search video clips of the band in YouTube or their music in iTunes Music Store by tapping the Option Button(>) shown on the side of the band name. ■About this application■ ・This application connects to the database server. It is NOT possible to use this application without the network environment. ・The band member information is collected from various web pages by using a web mining technology. Therefore, collected information sometimes includes mistakes. You can confirm which web pages gave the member names from the Option Button(>) shown on the side of the member name. ・When the server doesn't have member names, the member names from the MusicBrainz (http://musicbrainz.org/) database will be shown. ・BandNavi has been developed as a part of a research. Please check the following web site for more fine information of the research. Music Information Technology Laboratory -http://gttm.jp/hamanaka/en/ ■Disclaimer■ ・Artist names in your iPhone will be sent to the server automatically (the sent data won't saved in the server). ・The band member names shown in this application are collected by the automatic collection technique from web pages, thus we do NOT ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information which shown in this application. ・The complaint of any damage that occurs by using BandNavi or using its information (buying music in iTunes Music Store, etc.) is not accepted.

About

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.

Highlights
  • 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
Features
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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

BandNavi4 screens
StarTone4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: BandNavi at Free against StarTone's $0.99. BandNavi also leads on iOS requirement (11.0 vs 18.0). StarTone's advantage is rating (4.1 vs 3.0) and update cadence (every 5 weeks vs every 24 months). 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

BandNavi is free to download; StarTone costs $0.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

StarTone holds the better App Store score, 4.1 against 3.0. 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.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

BandNavi ships an update every 24 months, StarTone every 5 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 8, 2026 and September 13, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 4 level
BandNavi versus StarTone: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBandNaviStarTone
PriceFree — better$0.99
Rating3.0 (1 ratings)4.1 (16 ratings) — better
Positive reviews—66.7% of reviews
Number of ratings116 — better
Update frequencyEvery 24 monthsEvery 5 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree — betterPaid
DevicesiPhone, iPodiPhone, iPad, Apple Watch — better
Requires iOS11.0 — better18.0
Further details — not scored
Size3 MB24 MB
Age rating17+4+
Developernewforestar co,.ltd乃波 黄

Customer experience

BandNavi

All ratings1 ratings
Positive0.0%
Neutral100.0%
Negative0.0%

StarTone

All ratings16 ratings
Positive81.3%
Neutral6.3%
Negative12.5%
Written reviews9 reviews
Positive66.7%
Neutral0.0%
Negative33.3%

In-app purchases

None

BandNavi

No in-app purchases

None

StarTone

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is BandNavi free?
BandNavi is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is StarTone free?
StarTone costs $0.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, BandNavi or StarTone?
StarTone is rated higher. BandNavi averages 3.0 out of 5 from 1 ratings, while StarTone averages 4.1 from 16 ratings.
Do BandNavi or StarTone have ads?
Neither BandNavi nor StarTone shows ads.
Which is updated more often, BandNavi or StarTone?
BandNavi ships an update every 24 months, and StarTone every 5 weeks. Most recently, BandNavi was updated on September 8, 2026 and StarTone on September 13, 2026.

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