Ferric vs Music Flex Player

Ferric brings back the cassette tape as a real music player for your iPhone. Not a gimmick, not just a skin over your library. A full cassette experience where you build the tapes, curate the tracks, and watch the reels spin while your music plays. MAKE YOUR TAPES Start by picking a shell. Chrome, midnight black, amber, clear, oxide brown, electric blue, or retro. Each one has its own look and feel. Give your cassette a name, then fill both sides with songs from your music library or Apple Music. Side A and Side B are real. Flip the tape during playback just like you would with a physical cassette. The progress carries over correctly, the reels spin the right direction, and the tape fills up as you listen. DECORATE THEM Every cassette has a drawing surface you can paint on. Use the pen tool to write labels, draw art, or scribble whatever feels right. Swap between colors, adjust the brush size, drop in stickers, or grab the eraser. You can decorate the front, the back, and the top spine. It is your tape. PLAY YOUR MUSIC The player shows your cassette up close with both reels animating in real time. The supply reel shrinks and the takeup reel grows as the tape runs, using the same physics as a physical cassette. The reels spin faster near the end of the tape and slower near the start. Tap forward or back to skip tracks. Hold to seek. The speed ramps up the longer you hold, so scrubbing through a long tape stays quick. Lock screen controls and background playback work the same as any music app. BUILT-IN WEAR Every cassette accumulates wear as you listen. Scratches and surface marks appear gradually, placed deterministically based on each cassette's own wear pattern. No two tapes age the same way. Heavy-use tapes start to show it. YOUR LIBRARY All your cassettes live in a grid view. Tap any one to see its track listing in a style that mirrors the J-cards that used to come inside cassette cases. From there you can flip to the other side, launch the player, or open the drawing editor. WHAT FERRIC IS NOT It is not a streaming service. It does not generate playlists or make recommendations. It is a deliberate, analog-feeling way to organize and play music you already own or have access to through Apple Music. Building a cassette takes a minute. That is the point.

Music Flex is a music player for people who own their music, and want an EASY way to put it on their iPhone. Organize your music files as you like. Your files stay exactly where you put them, in the folders you chose, and they play whether or not you have a signal. Everything lives on your device. Files view shows your organized music in the app. Organizing by folders gives you the flexibility to create your music catalog in any way you want. Of course, there are the usual Artists, Albums and Playlists views as well. Getting music on is the easy part Open Wi-Fi Connect and Music Flex shows you a web address. Open it in a browser on any computer and drag your music straight in — whole folders at a time. From that same web page, you can browse, rename, move, download, and even play your library through the browser over local network. Alternatively, you can add files through the Files app, or with a cable through Finder. Put music into the Music Flex folder and the app automatically recognizes the additions. A real player Play, shuffle and repeat, create unlimited playlists, lock-screen and headphone controls, and background playback are all here. Everything you'd expect from a music player — geared toward the person who wants to control their own music library. Plays MP3, M4A, FLAC, AAC, WAV and AIFF. No tracking. No analytics. No account. Free to try with 25 songs. One optional in-app purchase unlocks your whole library — buy once, no subscription.