play:Sub Music Streamer app for iPhone and iPad


4.0 ( 8080 ratings )
Music Entertainment
Developer: Michael Hansen
4.99 USD
Current version: 2024.1, last update: 3 months ago
First release : 26 Mar 2015
App size: 21.28 Mb

Stream your Subsonic-server-hosted music to your iOS or CarPlay device, Chromecast device or Subsonic Jukebox.
Enjoy your music everywhere, anytime, in the quality you decide!

play:Sub supports playback of most audio formats like FLAC, MP3, AAC and more.
Lossless and gapless playback is supported, as well as crossfading between tracks.

Use the 10-band fully customizable equalizer to get the right sound.
The equalizer has presets for common genres and scenarios.
Apply crossfade and replay-gain for the perfect listening experience.

Browse your music your way, be it by folder, artist, album, decade.
Control playback using gestures, buttons or remote controlled from you headset.
Play on anything: builtin speaker, headphones, Bluetooth connected headphones/amp/speaker/car-stereo or AirPlay devices.

play:Sub streams your music over any connection, and caches songs for when connectivity is bad.
Played songs are cached automatically, and you can manually cache individual songs or entire folders, artists or albums.

SERVER SUPPORT
• Subsonic, AirSonic, Ampache, Madsonic, Funkwhale, Libresonic, Navidrome
• Supports multiple servers and easy switching between them
• Any Subsonic 4.8+ compatible server should work
• You may need to enable Subsonic API on some server types

USER INTERFACE
• Dark and light UI themes
• All orientations, incl. iPad multitasking support

AUDIO
• FLAC, AAC, ALAC, MP3, MP4, OGG, WAV, AIFF, WEBM and more
• Plays most audio formats without transcoding
• Lossless playback (wo transcoding)
• Gapless playback
• 10-band equalizer
• Crossfade
• Replay Gain
• HI-rez digital up to 24bit/192kHz
• Variable playback speed (0.5-2x)

PLAY ON
• Any iOS device
• CarPlay
• Chromecast
• Jukebox

DISCOVERY
• Artist radio.
• Artist top songs
• Similar artists
• Be inspired by random artist, album or songs
• Play random songs in a genre

BROWSE YOUR MUSIC ANY WAY YOU LIKE IT
• Artists, Albums, Songs
• Folders
• Playlists, Favorites, Genres
• Podcasts, Audiobooks, Bookmarks
• Decades
• Filter by Subsonic mediafolder

INTERNET RADIOSTATIONS
• Server configured / shared internet radiostation.
• 20000+ radiostation directory powered by radiobrowser,info

PLAYLISTS
• Create, update and delete playlists
• Personal and shared playlists
• Cache complete playlists to device
• Full playlist support in both online and offline mode

FAVORITES
• Starring of artists, albums, tracks and folders
• Starring works in both online and offline mode
• Items starred when offline is synced at first chance
• Easily filter lists for starred content

GENRES
• View All, Random or Starred albums from a genre
• View Random or Starred songs from a genre

CONTEXT MENU EVERYWHERE
• Long-press any item to show relevant actions
• Easily navigate between associated artist, album, tracks and folders
• Add tracks, albums, artists or folders to playlists
• Swipe-to-reveal shortcuts

CACHING
• Automatic caching of played tracks, pre-cache upcoming tracks
• Manually cache selected folders, artists, albums or tracks
• Upgrade cached audio to better bitrate when available

SEAMLESS OFFLINE MODE
• Play cached music when connectivity is bad
• Show only cached content
• Same user interface in online and offline mode

INTEGRATION
• AirPlay, Bluetooth, remote control, lock screen & control center integration
• Support iOS’ sleep timer
• Resumes music after being interrupted by phone calls
• Background downloads

CONNECTION
• SSL, self-signed certificates
• Secure authentication for Subsonic 5.3+ servers
• cellular/wifi dependent bitrate; override settings for slow/fast WiFi networks

SCROBBLING
• Scrobbles to last.fm if configured on the server
• Updates Now Playing on the server
• Updates server-playcounts when playing cached content
• Music played while offline is scrobbled when online again

NOTE: a licensed installation of Subsonic 4.8+ is required.
Some features need a higher server version (Top Songs, Artist Radio, Similar Artists, Last.fm Imagery, Album Info)

Pros and cons of play:Sub Music Streamer app for iPhone and iPad

play:Sub Music Streamer app good for

A year and a half ago, iSub was the best you could get, and it always did a great job for me. Unfortunately, its no longer maintained and is starting to feel a bit clunky. play:Sub picks up the torch with all of iSubs features and more, and a prettier/fresher interface. Theres not really another viable Subsonic client on the Canadian Store today. Believe me kids, this is the future.
I got all the apps able to work with Subsonic server... It is the ONLY one that I use, its very perfect, also when traveling, in 4G, 3G and in edge also the app is always able to reproduce music without any stop. Great app, well done! Im just waiting for the genres ;)
Agree with the first reviews sentiments. Tried a few apps for Subsonic and this is the easiest, and sleekest one. Could use some nice features which hopefully it will get along the way. If youve got a Subsonic server with music, this is the app to us on your iPhone to access.
Very configurable, highly responsive and nice developer. This is the subsonic client Ive been looking for!
Love the ui everything looks and work great. The cross fade option is unique

Some bad moments

App works great and has a slick UI, but tragically doesnt support playlists. Seriously?! I would give it 5 stars but without playlists it’s basically useless for me. Hopefully will be added in the future.
Subsonic will stop working if you dont pay every month for Premium. So the app is worthless. I want my money back.
I have a large library, this app takes a long time to load my music. Once it opens, the search feature is non responsive. May have potential with further development.
An excellent first start. I had been wavering between two other apps but play:Sub (change name to to PlaySub?) has quickly become my app of choice. It is not currently quite as full-featured as the presumed best but that app is barely maintained, if that. So I have hope PlaySub will develop. It *does* have the requisite features. I give it a full 5 stars as it is/does what it says it will and does so flawlessly and intuitively. Plus, the developer is as responsive as any I have ever communicated with.
I have tried many of the "sub" apps for the iPhone. We run a very large music server, and none could handle the load. This was true of play:sub as well. Upon contacting the developer, he took the time to listen and understand the difficulties of our situation. He immediately created a beta version and made sure he addressed our needs. Im happy to report that ver 1.1 has addresses the small problems, and I look forward to even greater updates in the future. Try this, you wont be disappointed.
Upon looking at the screenshots, I observed that the UI was extremely simple made up of basic components. Coming from iSub, it was weird to have it be so simple. But this app has nearly everything I need, a developer that is quick to contact, and a roadmap for planned features.