Origin Story
Sometimes it’d be nice to go back. Before the internet poisoned our politics and stranded us in silos built by black box algorithms. Now more than ever, Adorno’s dictum rings true: we’re given “the freedom to choose what is always the same.”
So I decided to build an altar for the holy format of the MP3.
Renting music from Spotify is stupid and iTunes has become a sluggish beast. Other music players don’t work how I want. I craved a dead-simple widget that:
- Allows me to share a library with C so we can passive-aggressively delete songs from each other's playlists
- Displays nice album artwork and doesn’t feel like managing a spreadsheet
- Automatically sends playlists to my telephone before I go for a drive or a run and requires as little management as possible
- Runs on bulletproof XML rather than proprietary mysteries in the ether
I asked some friends if they’d like to help me build this. They wished me luck. “To hell with them,” I told C. “I’ll build it anyway and destroy Spotify and Apple.” C smiled and said spite was an interesting reason to make something.
Features & Conditions
- Apple only. Requires iCloud for telephone sync.
- Supports all the good extensions: mp3, aac, m4a, wav, aiff, flac, and opus.
- A streamlined interface that keeps artwork big and playlists central.
- Add custom artwork for your playlists and dig the harmonious accent colors.
- Everything you like is fantastic, so there's no need for hearts or stars—just a delete button to ruthlessly clear out the cruft.
- XML is the way. No cords. No hidden clouds. Playlists live in a folder you can see.
- Think of the iOS app as a portable version of the playlists you lovingly assembled at home. I want to spend as little time as possible looking at my telephone. Playlists ambiently download whenever iCloud syncs.
- Works with CarPlay.
- Deepen your relationships (or ruin them) by sharing your music folder. Everything the other person adds or deletes will affect you and vice versa. It's a good conversation starter.
- Spite is free forever if you install it before March 1. Then it'll cost $10 after a 30-trial.
- No subscriptions, ads, data harvesting, accounts, freemium bullshit, or passwords. Ever.
Icon
This fragmented head of a colossal boy from two thousand years ago captures today’s psychic shred and shear more than anything else I’ve seen.
