TunesCloud vs Photon Player
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
TunesCloud
This app allows you to play your existing music library stored in Google Drive with a familiar interface. Stream music over the network, download tracks for offline listening, and manage your collection with features like star ratings and background playback.
- Connect Google Drive
- Browse by albums, artists, tracks
- Stream with queue and Now Playing
- Download for offline play
- Rediscover collection on Home
- Use star ratings
- Play on iPhone, iPad, Mac
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TunesCloud plays the music you already own in Google Drive, with a native Apple music-player feel. Connect your Google account, pick the folders that hold your library, and browse albums, artists, and tracks on your terms, not inside someone else's streaming catalog. Stream over the network, download songs and albums for offline listening, and keep going with background audio, lock-screen controls, and a queue built for real listening. WHAT YOU CAN DO • Connect Google Drive and index your own audio folders • Browse by albums, artists, and tracks with artwork from your files • Stream with seeking, a queue, and Now Playing • Download songs or albums for offline play • Rediscover your collection on Home: recently played, newly added, highly rated, and more • Use star ratings to surface the music you care about • Play on iPhone, iPad, and Mac WHO IT'S FOR If your collection lives as MP3, M4A, or AAC files in the cloud, and not as a Spotify or Apple Music subscription, TunesCloud is the player for that library. PRIVACY-MINDED BY DESIGN TunesCloud reads only the Drive folders you choose. Your music stays yours. Note: A Google Drive account is required for cloud library features. An internet connection is required for streaming and syncing.
Photon Player
This app unifies your media library from various servers, cloud storage, and live TV subscriptions into a single, accessible interface. Enjoy seamless playback with support for high-quality formats and offline downloads.
- Connects to Plex, Jellyfin, Emby, and more
- Supports SMB, NFS, FTP, WebDAV, and UPnP shares
- Live TV with EPG and channel lists
- Dolby Vision and HDR playback
- Offline downloads with Pro subscription
- Handoff and Spotlight integration
- Cross-platform support (iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS)
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Photon is a native player for the library you already own. Connect your media servers, your cloud and network storage, and your Live TV subscription, and everything you can watch appears in one place — on iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and Mac, from a single purchase. YOUR OWN LIBRARY, TOGETHER • Works with Plex, Jellyfin, Emby, Photon and Silo • Connect a server free, or as many as you like with Pro. Home and Search bring them all together; the Library tab keeps each source's own shelves separate, so you can still ask what is on one server. • Play straight from an SMB, NFS, FTP or WebDAV share, a UPnP server on your network with no media server at all • Live TV from an Xtream Codes subscription, M3U: a full programme guide, favourites, and a channel list built for thousands of channels • Open a video from Files or the Finder and it becomes a title like any other — with a resume point, artwork and a name you can match against your servers AS IT WAS MADE • Dolby Vision and HDR, with AVPlayer driving the display for real HDR output • MKV and 4K play as they are. Nothing is quietly downscaled or re-encoded behind your back. • Subtitles drawn as overlays, never burned into the picture • Standing choices for audio language, subtitle language, and when subtitles should come on at all • Skip intros and credits, and go straight into the next episode EVERYWHERE YOU WATCH • Download for offline with Pro. Transfers carry on while you are elsewhere, with a Live Activity on the Lock Screen and a notice when a title lands. • Handoff picks a film up on the next device at the frame you left it • Spotlight opens a title directly • Top Shelf on Apple TV, a real menu bar on the Mac, and one design across all four platforms BUILT FOR THE PLATFORM Written in SwiftUI for iOS, tvOS, macOS and visionOS, with full Dynamic Type, VoiceOver labels on every control, and Reduce Motion respected throughout. There is no account to create and no service of ours in the path: Photon talks to your servers and to your own iCloud, and to nothing else. PHOTON PRO The free app is the whole player: one media server and one Live TV subscription, every drive and network share, and every format — 4K, MKV, Dolby Vision, TrueHD and DTS — with browsing, search, Handoff and SharePlay, no advertising and nothing to sign up for. Pro adds: • Every source at once: as many servers and Live TV subscriptions as you like, together in Home and Search • Downloads, for watching offline • AirPlay to an Apple TV or any AirPlay screen • Your servers, settings and the way you have arranged Home, on every device you sign in on Available monthly, yearly, or as a one-off Lifetime purchase, with a free week on either subscription. One purchase covers iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and Mac. Photon plays the media you already have on servers and storage you control. It is an independent client and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Jellyfin, Emby or Plex. Terms of Use (EULA): https://photon.oliverwalton.uk/terms/ Privacy Policy: https://photon.oliverwalton.uk/privacy/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: TunesCloud at none against Photon Player's 3. TunesCloud also leads on iOS requirement (17.0 vs 26.0). Photon Player's advantage is device support (5 vs 2). On price, rating, ratings volume and ads 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
Both are free to download. Photon Player sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month. TunesCloud asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for TunesCloud against 5.0 for Photon Player. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 1 and 1 respectively.
| Parameter | TunesCloud | Photon Player |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (1 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) |
| Number of ratings | 1 | 1 |
| Update frequency | — | Daily |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free — better | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, Vision Pro — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 — better | 26.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 48 MB | 37 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Mt. Aden | Oliver Walton |
Customer experience
TunesCloud
Photon Player
In-app purchases
TunesCloud
No in-app purchases
Photon Player
- Photon Pro Monthly$1.991 Month
- Photon Pro Yearly$14.991 Year
- Photon Pro Lifetime$49.99









