Droplay!

Introduction

Droplay! is a music player application that was developed to create a new way of thinking about music applications, where Apple Music and Spotify now have too many features and functionality buried in the functionality of just playing music for music lovers. Droplay! was designed to provide simple and instant access to music. From song selection to media control, all on one screen. We also plan to make it possible to drag and drop a circle to play a song, rather than the typical tap to play.

Prototype

The brainstorming and prototype began in 2021 when I was not familiar with SwiftUI and this famous iPod album wheel concept came out My thought then was “What if a music player has a section only for navigation and song selection?” iPod has the wheel to control, but it is meant to be physical, so it should take more direct-manupilation approach in iPhone, so I divided screen into three sections: Screen, Controls, and Docks.

Drag and Drop

The first prototype looked great, but in 2023, I trained my SwiftUI skills and wanted to go further with the concept to explore the possibility of interaction, so I went “What if you drag and drop a CD-shaped object into screen to play a song?” It is just like a physical CD player. As a result, it was a successful and somehow brought a joy of playing music before digital players came out.

Pull-To-Back

The other interaction that went great was pull to back, which is another type of pull-to-action. The most famous one is Pull-to-refresh. Since Droplay! only does not transition in the navigation, the space for control was pretty limited, so I had to come up with non-intrusive and intuitive way to go back and forth from artists to songs.

Conclusion

Droplay! was a bit experimental project, but got to see the other possibility of iOS app but document-based app such as Flashback or Subault. I have some features in my mind to add to Droplay! in the future and hopefully can make the viable.

Meanwhile, you can try download Droplay! on AppStore for free. Here is the product page for the link and privacy policy.