Comparison

Crankshaft vs Reverie.fm

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

Head to head
About

Crankshaft

This music app learns your taste by analyzing how you listen, not through manual input. It creates personalized music stations based on your volume adjustments, skips, and playback duration, offering a unique way to explore your library and discover new music.

Highlights
  • Learns taste from listening behavior
  • Personalized music stations
  • Explores Apple Music catalog
  • Discovery dial for new music
  • On-demand album picks
  • Parent Mode for separate profiles
Features
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Crankshaft learns your taste from how you actually listen — how you move the volume, when you skip, what you let run to the end. Full CarPlay support, which is where it makes the most sense: hands busy, eyes on the road, so what you do to a song actually means something. Requires an active Apple Music subscription — Crankshaft plays through your existing Apple Music library. No separate account, no sign-up, and Crankshaft never sends your listening data anywhere. It stays on your device unless you choose to export it. Most music apps only know what you tell them. Crankshaft takes that too — crank a song you love, freeze one you never want to hear again — and then it reads everything else: the volume you reach for, the song you kill at four seconds, the one you let run all the way to the end. Those signals cost you nothing to give, and nearly every other app throws them away. Every session shapes a living profile of your taste that gets sharper over time. Give it real sessions and you'll feel the difference within a week. The app is free, you just bring your own Apple Music. The data is all yours, so there's no risk to you. HOW IT WORKS Crankshaft sits on top of your Apple Music library. Hit Ignite and it plays from your personal affinity ledger: a behavioral map of every song, scored by how you actually interacted with it. Crank the volume on a song you love and it learns. Skip something in the first ten seconds and it learns that too. Let a song play to the end and that quiet signal counts. Five behavioral zones, from instant skip to full completion, score every track on a curve. Buttons when you want them, physics the rest of the time. IT PLAYS LIKE A STATION YOU CAN STEER Crankshaft doesn't shuffle. It holds a mood — an era, a genre, an energy — the way a great radio station does, and keeps it there until you signal you want to move. Skip to steer: nudge it toward a different sound and it follows you down the rabbit hole; leave it alone and it holds the vibe. It's built to walk you around your own library, not loop your ten favorites. REACH BEYOND WHAT YOU OWN Declare the artists you love — even ones your library never captured — and Crankshaft opens their catalog and works them into your rotation. A single discovery dial sets how adventurous the engine gets, from comfortable and familiar to wide-open exploration. FEATURES The Crank — Turn up the volume with intent and Crankshaft feels it. That one gesture tells it more than a like ever could. Affinity Ledger — Every song earns a score from real listening behavior. Scores rise and fall with your habits, not just your clicks. CarPlay — Full CarPlay integration with Crank, Freeze, Up Next and Parent Mode controls on the dash. Station & Drift — Crank a song and Crankshaft builds a station around that vibe, holding it and drifting naturally through your library and the Apple Music catalog. Declared Artists — Name the artists you love and Crankshaft reaches their whole catalog, even music you don't own yet. Discovery Dial — Blend new and unfamiliar music into your rotation at exactly the level you choose. Pick an Album — On-demand album picks drawn from your affinity ledger, weighted toward what you love with a wildcard from deep in your library. Parent Mode — A completely separate universe with its own ledger, scoring, and visual theme. Your kids' listening never touches your profile. Road Trip Mode — A pre-cached 60-track queue built for long drives. Works offline. PRIVACY BY DESIGN Your data stays on your device. Crankshaft has no cloud sync, no ad targeting, no social graph, and no tracking pixels. Your affinity ledger lives in your app's local storage and never leaves your phone. Built on Apple MusicKit.

About

Reverie.fm

Map your life's soundtrack by pinning songs to specific locations. Capture the mood, year, and people associated with each musical memory. Relive these moments by tapping on pins to play songs and revisit locations.

Highlights
  • Pin songs to locations
  • Add mood, year, and notes to memories
  • Explore Apple Music catalog
  • Relive memories with one tap
  • Browse and filter by song, place, mood, year
  • Offline and local-only storage
Features
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Reverie transforms the story of your life into a beautiful soundtrack. Some songs are forever linked to specific places. Think about that track that accompanied you on a late-night drive, the album that defined an unforgettable summer, or the song that played in the city where you fell head over heels. With Reverie, you can pin those songs to the exact locations where they resonated, creating a vibrant map of your cherished memories. Just long-press anywhere on the map, search for a song, and drop a pin. Add your personal touch by including details like the mood, the year, the people who were there, and a note about that special moment. Over time, your map will come alive, turning into a personal atlas of all the places where music has touched your heart. Pin songs to places Explore the entire Apple Music catalog and link any song to a specific spot on your map. Capture the whole moment Label each memory with a mood, a year, the friends who shared it with you, and your own reflections. Relive it in one tap Tap on any pin to revisit the song, the location, and the emotions, then play it back in Apple Music or jump right to it on the map. See your life take shape Watch as your map fills up with album art, reflecting your growing collection of memories. You can browse, search, and filter everything by song, place, mood, or year. Built for Apple Music Quickly find any track and turn your memories into playlists that you can treasure. Completely private, completely yours Reverie is designed to be offline and local-only. Everything stays on your device—no accounts, no sign-ups, no cloud, and no tracking. Your memories are yours and yours alone.

Screenshots

Crankshaft4 screens
Reverie.fm4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Reverie.fm at daily against Crankshaft's every 9 days. Crankshaft's advantage is ratings volume (5 vs 1) and iOS requirement (17.5 vs 26.5). On price, rating, ads and in-app purchases 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

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Crankshaft against 5.0 for Reverie.fm. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Crankshaft has 5 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Crankshaft ships an update every 9 days, Reverie.fm daily. Both last shipped on October 31, 2026.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Crankshaft versus Reverie.fm: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterCrankshaftReverie.fm
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (5 ratings)5.0 (1 ratings)
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings5 — better1
Update frequencyEvery 9 daysDaily — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS17.5 — better26.5
Further details — not scored
Size7 MB3 MB
Age rating12+4+
DeveloperCrankshaft LLCJeffrey Edmondson

Customer experience

Crankshaft

All ratings4 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews2 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Reverie.fm

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

Crankshaft

No in-app purchases

None

Reverie.fm

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Crankshaft free?
Crankshaft is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Reverie.fm free?
Reverie.fm is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Crankshaft or Reverie.fm?
Crankshaft and Reverie.fm are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 5 and 1 ratings respectively.
Do Crankshaft or Reverie.fm have ads?
Neither Crankshaft nor Reverie.fm shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Crankshaft or Reverie.fm?
Crankshaft ships an update every 9 days, and Reverie.fm daily. Most recently, Crankshaft was updated on October 31, 2026 and Reverie.fm on October 31, 2026.

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