TrackStory vs synthwaves.fm
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side โ with what reviewers say about each.
TrackStory
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TrackStory plays music from the Apple Music catalogue. With a subscription you get full tracks; without one, every song still plays as a 30-second preview. No other streaming service is supported. A record player with 200k+ songs in it, spanning 1955 to 2025. Press the needle and it plays one. In Game mode you guess the year. In Playlist mode you just listen. TWO MODES, ONE COLLECTION GAME MODE hides the artist, title and year until you choose to reveal them. Built for guessing along at a table, or on your own. Three difficulty levels, and they are not one global setting. Every genre and every year has its own three levels, worked out from how deep that particular corner really goes โ so Hard in Reggae 1975 means something different from Hard in Pop 2015. Easy sticks to the records almost everyone knows. PLAYLIST MODE shows everything and digs much further down. A slider runs from the year's biggest records all the way to songs almost nobody has heard. Tap the artist for a short biography and everything we hold by them; tap the album to see the full track list with our songs marked. Tap any of those to play it. Playlist mode also searches the whole of Apple Music, not just our collection โ find any song, album or artist and play it. Press and hold a song to queue it up next. BUILD YOUR OWN MIX The Genre Vault holds 13 genres and 25 styles, plus Heavy Rotation for the records that defined each year. Switch on whatever you want and give each one a weight โ the app shows you the share it actually gets, so you can see a genre getting rarer as you add others. Styles sit under their genre and you can run both. Pop plus Synthpop leans synth without giving up the rest of Pop. Set how far back and how far forward to go, anywhere inside 1955 to 2025. SAVE A SETTING AND GET IT BACK Any mix you dial in can be saved under a name โ genres, weights, mode, difficulty and years, all of it โ and restored in one tap. Presets sync across your devices through iCloud, and survive reinstalling the app. NO REPEATS You will not hear the same artist twice for a long stretch, nor two versions of the same song. Game mode remembers your whole session. Playlist mode keeps a shorter memory, because there it is rather nice when a favourite comes round again. ALSO โข Autoplay โ when a record ends, the next one drops on its own โข A dice roll that picks a year inside your range, for deciding where a players game round starts โข Save any record to your Apple Music library or a playlist โข Runs on iPhone, iPad and Mac Drop the needle and start discovering.
synthwaves.fm
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synthwaves.fm is a music streaming app that connects to your self-hosted synthwaves.fm server. Browse your entire library, play music with gapless playback, and download albums and playlists for offline listening โ all wrapped in a retro-futuristic synthwave interface. Your Library, Your Way Browse by artists, albums, playlists, genres, or starred favorites. Search across your entire collection instantly. Create and manage playlists right from your phone. Built for Listening Gapless playback keeps the music flowing. Queue up tracks, shuffle, repeat, and control playback from the lock screen, Dynamic Island, or your headphones. Offline Downloads Download full albums or playlists to listen without a connection. Your music goes wherever you do. Apple Watch Control playback and browse your library from your wrist. Widgets See what's playing and recently played albums right on your home screen with Now Playing and Recently Played widgets. Video Browse and stream video content from your server with picture-in-picture support and resume-where-you-left-off playback. Requires a self-hosted instance of synthwaves.fm to connect to your music library.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is device support: TrackStory at 3 against synthwaves.fm's โ. On price, in-app purchases and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
| Parameter | TrackStory | synthwaves.fm |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | โ |
| Ads | No | โ |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac โ better | โ |
| Requires iOS | 16.6 โ better | 17.0 |
| Further details โ not scored | ||
| Size | 110 MB | 4 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | SMRK | Leo Policastro |
In-app purchases
TrackStory
No in-app purchases
synthwaves.fm
No in-app purchases









