HiChord - New Ways Play Music 4+

True Music Lover's MusicPlayer

Zili Zhang

Designed for iPhone

    • 4.8 • 25 Ratings
    • $0.99

iPhone Screenshots

Description

The Coolest Apple Music player. Revolutionary Button-less UI. Dynamic Colors. Beautiful Animation. Album Shuffle. Tracking New Single. Transfer Spotify Playlist. CarPlay.

"The new update is incredible, exactly what I envisioned for a music player app!" - SkyCruz718
"Best third party Apple Music player I ever used" - Dr. Perfecto
"Game changer. As a fan of album shuffle, I have been disappointed that this feature has been discontinued on the iPhone. HiChord changes all that." - Joel

Users love HiChord, especially those who own large music library. HiChord let them enjoy music in its entirety by listening to albums, playlists, artists and genres along with ordinary songs, and convenient to skip the whole collection by just one tap.

Most music players can only handle queue of songs. Collection items like albums will be played by adding the songs individually to the queue, thus can only be managed later at song's level. To skip the album, you have to delete the songs one by one. Some music players like iTunes can support album shuffle, but they can either shuffle by album, OR artist, OR playlist, but not both at the same time. You have to switch from Album mode to another so on and so forth.

HiChord does it in a completely new way. All playable music units, regardless song, album, playlist, artist or genre, are treated equal. They can be added to queue, play and managed. Collection items will have a second level queue. This Deep Queue or 2-level play queue technology enables you to play, shuffle, skip, move back and forth with all kinds of music unit. Album shuffle is done beautifully, you don't have to any setup to make it work. Go to Library, swipe to album list, tap "Shuffle", that's it. Want to change to Playlist Shuffle? Swipe back to playlist lists, tap "Shuffle", done. Browse through your library, play some artist, or genre, or plain songs, just tap the artwork in the list, they will be played, all together with the albums or playlists you just selected to shuffle, together.

HiChord's sophisticated queue technology supports all kinds of operation on the hybrid 2-level queue. You can top one queue item, regardless it is an album or song, change its position, or remove it. You can move a song from album's 2nd level queue outside, or turn on/off Shuffle Inside of a collection item independently — For example you can shuffle all the playlists but keep the songs in some of the playlists in original order. HiChord knows you want song order untouched in Album Shuffle but shuffle inside a playlist in Playlist Shuffle, however if you want the songs inside playlist also in original order, you can do it by long press the playlist queue item and choose "Play in Order".

HiChord is not only for enjoying existing music but also keen to help you to discover new music. For casual music listeners, or even for people who has thousands of songs, the constant craving for new good music is always there. So HiChord is fully integrated with Apple Music API and thus you will have access to millions of songs with Free 3 month trial of Apple Music services. In the Discover page you can search music, browse and play charts, enjoy Apple Music "For You"personalized recommendations and much more.

One more cool thing with HiChord is the "Cocktail Mode". When you are listening music, the App will search new and popular songs by the artist you are listening to and automatically mix into playing. In that way, old and new songs are mixed together to create a wonderful experience, thus called "Cocktail Mode". You don't have to worry any more about missing new releases from your favorites. They are "followed", automatically, through HiChord.

There are many other subtle yet important details in HiChord. Some even are fundamental changes to how music player works. Music player interfaces are basically the same since the age of iPod or Sony walkman. I was not contented with all existing players and started to create something different and better, to change, step by step, the way listen to music and hopefully you will like it too, the HiChord way.

Zili Zhang,
Creator of HiChord, formerly Octa Music

What’s New

Version 1.8.8

* Changing Colors by Music;
* Button-less, Revolutionary UI;
* Shuffle by Album, Shuffle by Playlist, Anything!
* Streaming New Single by your Favorite Automatically;
* Transfer Spotify Playlists to Apple Music.
* Apple CarPlay

1.8.8 Updates
* Fixed: Several play control issues related to cloud base songs
* Fixed: Potential crash and freeze issues
* Fixed: Display issue with artist head shot

BTW, version 2.0 is still in progress. Stay tuned!

What's new in 1.8

1. Colorful
I guess not everyone like the blueish colors of previous versions. HiChord 1.8 introduces a new light colored theme, East Morning Light, along with the blue one, called Manhattan Night Blue. The 2 themes can be switched automatically on day and night changes, similar to the iOS 13 dark mode.
Further more, v1.8 extended the Playing color changes to the entire App interface. When music changes, the colors changes too, which is very cool. If you like some color, you can save it any time.
Set theme modes on initial setup, or later long press on the bottom bar.

2. UI Consistency
Numerous big or small modifications have been made to build a unified look, including page layout, alignments, sizes and colors. It is not just looks better, it is easier to use too. Similar looking means similar operation. The UI logics are closely examined to make sure users know what to do without thinking. For example, in the last version HiChord introduces revolutionary button-less design allowing you to Play/Pause by tapping on the artwork. Now the logic has extended to every page with bigger artwork: album info, Apple Music artist, playlist and import pages. Further more, Tap-Artwork-to-Play evolves into Tap-Artwork-to-Pause. From the same place, tap once to play, one more time to pause. It is very convenient. You won't have to move your finger away to find the pause button.

3. New Features
* Follow Artist
As an enhancement of the New Music On-the-fly feature, HiChord can now actively find new works, not only triggered by what is currently playing. You can enable the feature by tapping "Follow" button on the Apple Music Artist page.

* Relay Repeat
Have recently found a very interesting new album and never get enough with it? You can now play every song for 3 times and move to the next song, another 3 times. This will help you to get familiar with the new friend quickly and better. Tap on the remaining time in the Playing page to switch to this new Relay Repeat mode. The time slider thumb will change to arrow shaped to indicate the mode.

* Play All from Here
Library List Play/Shuffle header was removed for UI consistency. Shuffle button is now on top left corner. You can long press any line in the list to play the rest in listing order. This is better than traditional Play All which allows only from the first line.

Be sure also to check out the new beautiful animation when playing begins. It is fun and informational. I hope you will like this new version. It looks better. It is easier to use. It took longer develop time and endless efforts, because it is not easy job to challenge what has been stalled for so long. But still, HiChord will continue to advance forward, all is to help you to explore the new ways of playing music.

Enjoy!
HiChord

Ratings and Reviews

4.8 out of 5
25 Ratings

25 Ratings

schwitze ,

Game changer

As a fan of album shuffle, I have been disappointed that this feature has been discontinued on the iPhone. OctaMusic changes all that. The app is also much more robust than what I was necessarily looking for, so I look forward to exploring all of its functionality.

When I had a minor issue with the way it was sorting my music, the developer was super-responsive and had a fix for the problem within just a few days.

I’m very pleased and impressed with this app.

Developer Response ,

[updated 20180416] Thank you for you kind review! Enjoy!

[updated message]: 1.2.1 is up. Fix for the reported bug is included. Please evaluate and Thanks!

Hi there!
Sorry I just read your review. Indeed it is a sorting bug!
Because the order of the query results from Apple API could be out-of-order, mostly likely related to the order of syncing, I have to re-sort the results. However I only sort by track number and forgot disc number. Thank you very much for pointing out!
I just fix the bug and managed to submit a new build before Apple review.
This new version 1.2.0 comes with an important new feature of music recommendation based on Apple Music. It is waiting for review now. Hope it will get through very soon.

Thanks and enjoy!
Zili
Apr 8th, 2018

DoctorPefecto ,

Dr.

I was looking for alternative Apple Music player and so far Hichord is the best third party Apple Music player I ever used. Background playing, streaming iCloud Music library, headphone control all works perfectly.
It is easier to navigate than the system music App. The album and playlist shuffle features are cool. I especially like the tracking new songs feature. I was listening to old songs and the next moment the new single is in the mix.
Thumbs up!

Developer Response ,

Thank you very much!

JinnyP999 ,

Highly recommended

Love this app once found the shuffle 3 times option ; ) later found that the HiChord playlist 35 songs opens up my beautiful imagination of songs, not even that but HiChord could even centralize songs from othe app playlists. Just the first day, love it, the founder must make countless efforts in it!!! Thank you deeply!!!

Developer Response ,

Thank you indeed!

App Privacy

The developer, Zili Zhang, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy.

Data Not Collected

The developer does not collect any data from this app.

Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More

Supports

  • Family Sharing

    Up to six family members can use this app with Family Sharing enabled.

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