Comparison

Ear Engineer Mobile vs Swiftly Player

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

Head to head
About

Ear Engineer Mobile

Features
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YOUR EARS ARE THE INSTRUMENT Every plugin, every monitor, every room you will ever work in sits downstream of one thing: your hearing. Ear Engineer trains it. HOW IT WORKS Pink noise plays once, for five seconds. Somewhere inside it a single ISO third-octave band is lifted by 6 dB: the noise fades in, the boost swells and settles back, the noise fades out. Then the room goes quiet and the question appears. Which band was it? One replay per round. Ten rounds per set. Score 8 or better and you move up. FIVE LEVELS, FROM OBVIOUS TO BRUTAL Level 1 offers three options a decade apart, 100 Hz against 1 kHz against 10 kHz. You will get it right, and that is the point. You are calibrating, not guessing. Then the options close in. Two octaves. One octave. Two thirds of an octave. And finally Pro, where all 31 ISO bands sit on screen and the boost could be any one of them. The options are never the same twice. Every round draws a fresh ladder from a random anchor, so level 1 asks 100 Hz / 1 kHz / 10 kHz on one round and 80 / 800 / 8000 on the next. You learn the frequencies, not the layout of the buttons. THE DETAILS ARE THE PRODUCT The filter Q never changes. It is a one-third-octave bell on every level and every round, narrow enough that 1 kHz and 1.25 kHz stay clearly tellable apart. Bandwidth is never part of the test, so you only ever train one variable at a time. The analyser does not cheat. It shows the material breathing across the spectrum, but it is tapped before the equaliser, so it can never draw the bump and hand you the answer. The moment you answer, it draws the real filter curve exactly where the boost was. That is when you see what you just heard. The noise plays once, not on a loop. One pass, one decision, the way it works when a client is sitting behind you. LOW BANDS, ON OR OFF Training on the move without headphones? Switch the low bands off and everything at 100 Hz and below leaves the game, so a phone speaker never costs you a point. Switch them back on with headphones and the full 20 Hz to 20 kHz grid is in play. BUILT FROM YEARS OF TEACHING IT This is not a toy built around a random number generator. It is a training method that has been run with real students for years, put into an app: the same intervals, the same progression, the same insistence that you name the band rather than wave at the general area. PROGRESS YOU CAN SEE Every level remembers your best set, so you can watch the day 250 Hz stops being a coin toss and starts being obvious. Every level is unlocked from the start, so you can drop into Pro whenever you feel like being humbled. FOR MIXERS, LIVE, MASTERING, POST AND BROADCAST Anyone who has swept a parametric hunting for a resonance knows the feeling of finding it by accident. This is how you stop doing that. A few minutes a day and you start reaching for the right band first, on instinct, while everyone else is still sweeping. Your ears are the one piece of gear you cannot upgrade. Maintain them. No ads. No account. No internet connection required.

About

Swiftly Player

Stream your Jellyfin media library without transcoding. Seamlessly resume playback across devices, download content for offline viewing, and enjoy features like skip intro and picture-in-picture.

Highlights
  • No transcoding required
  • Cross-device playback resume
  • Offline downloads
  • Picture-in-picture support
  • Multiple server support
  • Skip intro/credits
Features
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Swiftly plays the films on your Jellyfin server just as they are. Most apps have the server rebuild a film while you're watching. Swiftly leaves it alone — and tells you beforehand that it will. If something ever does have to be converted, you'll see which part of the file was responsible. Picture in Picture is built in, so a film can carry on in the corner while you get on with something else. RESUME ON THIS DEVICE Something playing on the Apple TV turns up as a button on your iPhone. One tap and it carries on here, at the second you left it. It works in every direction between iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV. SERVERS AND ACCOUNTS Add more than one Jellyfin, stay signed in to all of them, and switch from your profile without typing a password again. DOWNLOADS Take episodes and films with you. Swiftly downloads the original file, so what you watch offline is the same quality as what you stream. MORE • Request what your server doesn't have yet, through Seerr, without leaving the app • Skip Intro and Skip Credits, via the Jellyfin plugin • People pages: tap a name in the cast for a biography and everything of theirs you own • Your home screen in your order — rows off, rows moved, genres as rows or as chips • Custom headers per server, for Jellyfin behind Cloudflare Access, Authelia, Authentik or Pangolin • Collections and each library, straight from the Movies and Shows title • Sign in with a Quick Connect code instead of a password • Lock screen and headphone controls, plus background audio • Your audio and subtitle language, chosen once • Next episode on its own, sleep timer, playback speed • Watchlist, filters and search • English and German Swiftly brings no films of its own — it simply shows what's already on your server. And it collects nothing: no analytics, no advertising, no account with us. Your viewing position goes to your server and nowhere else. You'll need a Jellyfin server of your own, 10.8 or newer, on a secure (https) address, and an iPhone or iPad with iOS 18. Uses VLCKit and libVLC by VideoLAN under the LGPL 2.1 or later. Licenses and source code: https://swiftlyplayer.com/licenses/ SUPPORT - All features are free, for everyone. - Optional Supporter extras (app icons, accent colours, a heart in About): Monthly 1.99 EUR per month, or Lifetime 19.99 EUR once. Optional tips: 1.99, 4.99 or 9.99 EUR. Monthly Supporter is an auto-renewable subscription (1.99 EUR per month). Payment is charged to your Apple Account at confirmation of purchase. The subscription renews automatically unless you cancel at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Your account is charged for renewal within 24 hours before the end of the current period. Manage or cancel in your Apple Account settings. Lifetime is a one-time purchase and lasts for as long as Swiftly Player exists, on all your devices. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://swiftlyplayer.com/privacy.html

Screenshots

Ear Engineer Mobile3 screens
Swiftly Player4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Swiftly Player at Free against Ear Engineer Mobile's $9.99. Ear Engineer Mobile's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 5) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 18.0). On update cadence, ads 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

Swiftly Player is free to download; Ear Engineer Mobile costs $9.99 up front. Swiftly Player sells 5 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month. Ear Engineer Mobile asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Ear Engineer Mobile ships an update weekly, Swiftly Player every 6 days. The most recent releases landed on October 29, 2026 and October 30, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Ear Engineer Mobile versus Swiftly Player: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterEar Engineer MobileSwiftly Player
Price$9.99Free — better
Rating—5.0 (2 ratings) — better
Positive reviews—100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings—2 — better
Update frequencyWeeklyEvery 6 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
Monetization—Free
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV — better
Requires iOS15.0 — better18.0
Further details — not scored
Size43 MB61 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developersebastian rivasPaul Herter

In-app purchases

None

Ear Engineer Mobile

No in-app purchases

5 purchases

Swiftly Player

Subscriptions1
  • Supporter$1.991 Month
One-time4
  • A coffee$1.99
  • Coffee and cake$3.99
  • A movie night$8.99
Show 1 more
  • Swiftly Supporter Lifetime$17.99

Questions

Is Ear Engineer Mobile free?
Ear Engineer Mobile costs $9.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Swiftly Player free?
Swiftly Player is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Ear Engineer Mobile or Swiftly Player have ads?
Neither Ear Engineer Mobile nor Swiftly Player shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Ear Engineer Mobile or Swiftly Player?
Ear Engineer Mobile ships an update weekly, and Swiftly Player every 6 days. Most recently, Ear Engineer Mobile was updated on October 29, 2026 and Swiftly Player on October 30, 2026.

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