HiChord - New Ways Play Music

"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