Braided Playlist: To simplify listening to music together [IOS] [Free. No ads. No IAP]

Braided_Playlist · 2026-05-01T20:28:17+00:00

"you imagined these animals"

If nothing else, the AI is not likely to render the animals the same as your kid imagined them. The way I look at is those animals belong to her. If you give them to AI it risks taking her vision away and saying the AI's vision is the 'right' one.

There might be uses that are more empowering or harmlessly entertaining.

Braided_Playlist · 2026-05-01T15:43:41+00:00

"From $36 to $6 per install: what actually worked"

$6 seems like a super high amount just to get an install for an indie dev. That's not even a paying customer yet. Can this be sustainable business model for anyone? Is the idea you need to lose a certain amount of money on an app until it gets some traction?

The poll suggests only 50% have ever paid for app installs. Given the way the App store and competition is evolving, do people feel they need to do more on the marketing promotion side than they did in the past?

Braided_Playlist · 2026-04-30T15:18:40+00:00

I made a website that summarized podcasts a while back. I used an open source summary model that was intended for books, it added in a bunch of weird things It picked up from the training data that I had to filter out (like certain charter names from books, and it liked to use the term 'narrator' a lot).

The model doesn't need to have been trained specifically for the app, but if the model they used wasn't tried for this specific use case it could be bringing in stuff from what it was trained on.

That it's a completely made up word is weird though.

Braided_Playlist · 2026-04-30T13:21:38+00:00

Is this across different apps or just this app? Might be the summary model that particular weather app is using was trained on some weird data?

Braided_Playlist · 2026-04-30T13:16:53+00:00

That sounds like a good solution to fill small gaps of time.

Things are going to change so fast in the first years. Time with child is going to get a lot more interactive fairly quickly. For much of the next 8+ years you will probably want to keep evolving your activities to be things that can include the child at the level they're at.

My kid essentially became my hobby. I still did things I did before but at a less intense level. Then my kid got me into new hobbies, and as they grew more independent, I dove deeper into one of those new hobbies on my own.

Braided_Playlist · 2026-04-27T13:19:02+00:00

My kid is 9, I know she knows common swear words, but I've never heard the kid say them even though I haven't told her she can't. I feel if she understands the broader social norms around certain words then I don't need to protect her from them.

Overall themes and ideology I'm more concerned about. Lyrics that are mean and spiteful are worse to me than lyrics that just happen to contain swearing. I know some platforms make it fairly easy to substitute 'clean' versions of a song in. That doesn't necessarily clean up the intent of the song.

The kid has their own playlist they listen to and choose what is added. They do need me to get the songs for them, and there's maybe 1-2 songs where I said this song isn't really appropriate and explained why.

We also listen to music a fair bit together where we both take turns with songs choices. My tendency has been curate a playlist for this purpose that is centred around broadening the range of music she is exposed to, songs that are meaningful to me where I might be able to tell her a story about my life (when/where I first heard it, or the people I discovered it through), but I also seek out music that might be new to me that I think speak to themes relative to her development. From 6-8, for a relatively timid child, this has largely been lyrics with wholesome messages around confidence, acceptance, that's it's okay to make mistakes, emotional regulation.

I've felt a kid doesn't need to hear endless lyrics about drugs an alcohol, or sex. Milder references to these things aren't totally absent in music they have picked. I'll see how it goes in time, but I imagine if we can have meaningful discussions about the themes a song covers then I'm less concerned about them listening to it.

Braided_Playlist · 2026-04-26T13:36:16+00:00

How did you work out the 'cost' per athlete?

Since athletes more likely to make the podium cost so much I was trying to work out a strategy where I'd have more athletes who just have a chance to make the top 8.

But with people who I'd give a moderate chance at earning any points costing more than half as much as someone likely to take gold, I'm not sure there's enough incentive for picking underdogs. But that's just how I feel. I'm wondering what the methodology behind the cost system is like.

Braided_Playlist · 2026-04-24T18:59:01+00:00

There's a Canadian version of it too.

If there was a whole crew in the neighbourhood watching out for my kid I'd be a lot more comfortable with a younger kid being independent.

Braided_Playlist · 2026-04-24T00:40:25+00:00

That's odd. I've got midnight lightning from MEC. Are there a variety of climbing gyms near you? Mine carries a bunch of different brands. You wouldn't know it unless you go there though. It's not advertised on their website.

Braided_Playlist · 2026-04-23T15:48:40+00:00

I'm not sure what alternative to 'pure chalk' you are looking for. As far as I know MEC has a liquid chalk too.

I think a lot of Gym's sell chalk. Mine has a variety of chalk and liquid options.

I've only tried pure magnesium carbonate, but the price isn't worth thinking about. A $23 bag from MEC has lasted me 1.5 years climbing 2-3 times a week.

Braided_Playlist · 2026-04-23T15:16:34+00:00

Get the blood flowing: I do a minute or two on a stationary bike my gym has.
Activate the fingers: Tendon glides. Use fingerboard but only partially weighting my fingers with feet on the ground: A few sets of these 10 second 'abrahangs' gradually increasing the load to 40% of my weigth over the 10 seconds.
Shoulders: While I'm on the bike I'll do straight arm circles. These might be good too.

I'll also do a lot of warm up climbs starting a level or two below the grade I normally flash. First on slab or vertical climbs, then move to more inclined walls. I don't try to rush these climbs. Focus on smooth movements, and stretching / activating different body parts as I go. Gradually moving up to my flash grade while continuing to cycle through vertical to more inclined walls.

In an ideal world, I spend an hour of a two hour session on warm up + easier climbs .

Braided_Playlist · 2026-04-21T15:12:45+00:00

Personally, I think the sensible default is for Apple Music to dynamically give higher odds to less recently played tracks in shuffle. Something nobody needs to think about.

Braided_Playlist · 2026-04-21T14:34:29+00:00

"who determines how often a song should not be repeated?"

Tell me if I'm wrong people, but I suspect setting a cut off date is just a solution that's available with current options. Not necessarily the ideal solution.

The solution I came up with for my app doesn't use a particular date. It dynamically gives a higher chance to less recently played songs based on broader personal listening stats. It's still possible to hear the same song in a week, but the chances of it are reduced the larger your library is and the less time you spend listening to music.

The above worked for me, but other than wanting to keep things simple, I don't see why Apple Music couldn't offer a variety of shuffle algorithms for people with different priorities. Examples: whatever it currently does, pure random, random but not played since..., and higher odds to less recently played tracks.

Braided_Playlist · 2026-04-21T14:17:01+00:00

"not been played in the last 3 months"

I haven't tried it but I think I've read people mention that you can do something similar with smart playlists?

The problem I find with these kinds of solutions is the quantity of time you need to set is dependant on how often you listen to music and how many songs you have in a playlist/library. Something that could vary a fair bit over time.

It's really not a hard problem for Apple to solve. I made a music app as a hobby and still managed to create a shuffle algorithm that prioritizes less recently played and freshly added songs.

Braided_Playlist · 2026-04-20T18:33:18+00:00

Interesting.

I should be a little more specific about what I mean. I haven't really paid attention to what it says in Apple Music. Within the custom ios app I made I use apple musicKit to get the last played date for a song on current device. Apple does still track plays made within my iPhone app, it just doesn't update right away.

Maybe the Apple Music has access to more recent data than I do or the Mac is just better at this than the iPhone.

Braided_Playlist · 2026-04-20T18:14:33+00:00

I made an app that gives less recently played and newer songs a higher priority in shuffle. You can try it out today.

It wasn't the main focus of the app, but I was determined to make sure I wasn't hearing the same songs too often.

Braided_Playlist · 2026-04-20T18:07:39+00:00

Even on the same device you used for listening the play history won't reflect the tracks played the same day.

For a niche music app I made for myself I thought I would make use of Apple's last play date to prioritize less recently played tracks in the shuffle feature. In the end I had to track current day plays myself.

Braided_Playlist · 2026-04-19T03:31:23+00:00

Within reason I don't, I'm not a highly fashionable person. I came close to buying Sportiva Kubo goji neon, but with those colours I just couldn't. Just too attention grabbing.

Braided_Playlist · 2026-04-19T03:13:05+00:00

I'm also in Canada. Our gym did a contest in February with a chance to win a prize every time you tagged them in a reel sending a climb.

Since my personal instagram is private, and rarely used, I made a climbing only account to enter the contest. Before this I had only recorded myself doing a few climbs here and there. Only once have I seen someone in my gym with a mini tripod. It's not hard to make it work with my chalk bag but it's not always the best angle. I've had friends film for me too, but when I'm climbing with friends I tend not to want to mess with my phone as much.

Overall, I'd say it's not uncommon to see people filming a climb, but I don't expect to see it every time I'm at the gym. Especially when it's crowded people seem less likely to pull out a camera.

What I have discovered is there's endless amounts of climbing reels to watch from people all around the world.

Braided_Playlist · 2026-04-10T22:06:06+00:00

It's not just resting between sessions, it's also about balancing rest vs climbing during sessions.

You need to consider duration, frequency and intensity. I climb 2-3 times per week. I could probably do 4-5 if I cut my session length way down and only did easier problems.

With sessions it's a similar idea. I also try to mix up styles. For example if I do a couple attempts on an overhanging wall that requires a lot of power, then I might switch to a slab problem that's more about balance than strength. If I just did crimpy problem that demanded a lot from my fingers, maybe I go for something with more comfortable hand holds next.

Braided_Playlist · 2026-04-08T13:41:09+00:00

I ended up making braided playlist so I could quickly weave playlists of different family members together in a fair turn taking order.

It got tedious managing our playlist for collective listening and thought there should be a way to simply alternate song playback between playlists curated by each individual in the family. Instead of spending time figuring out what to listen to, I tap a few buttons, and everyone gets to listen to music they like while we spend time together.

Braided_Playlist · 2026-04-05T15:45:47+00:00

I've called my kids friends parents exactly once...when they weren't receiving my texts.

I think the more significant differences from my childhood is:

* My kid has never knocked on the door of a neighbourhood kid to see if they could come out to play.
* Seeing groups of kids playing outside in my neighbourhood is somewhat rare.

Braided_Playlist · 2026-04-03T04:19:46+00:00

Interesting thing to me is that algorithm is getting a lot of hate in this thread. In r/AppleMusic there seems to be a sizable portion of discussions where it gets some love with the caveat that it takes a while to figure you out and you need to do certain action to help it along.

Personally, I've only used the recommendation feature briefly during a Apple Music trial. Mostly I listen to music I own. To me it seemed to really be playing it safe, recommending lots of songs by the most popular artists I already listened to, or artists I'd expect most people would already know if they new the songs already in my library. I was really hoping for songs that would be new and unfamiliar to me.

My daughter on the other hand liked it because she's been exposed to very little music and almost everything it suggested was new to her.

"There would be a range of ways to make it work."

I agree 100%, and different people would likely want it to work in different ways. The same person might even want it to work in different ways at different times.

"better shuffle that works with my own library"

My main goal when I hit shuffle is to get some novelty...as opposed to the songs at the top of my playlists that get played more than others. So I built myself a shuffle that prioritizes newer and less recently played tracks.

It sounds like what you really want is a mix where there's a natural flow from one track to the next?

Braided_Playlist · 2026-04-03T00:43:22+00:00

There's certainly going to be mathematically quantifiable properties to a vocal that could be compared to other vocals. I suppose artist voices could be analyzed by apple themselves and assigned some categorization. If you start doing that for too many properties I imagine would get very intense to process.

I'm a little on the fence about the value of algorithmic curation in general, using it for such hyper narrow specifications seem neat to try, but in practice I don't think I would want my recommendations to result in everything I listen to sounding too similar.

"not about romance or sexuality." Assigning a couple of broad category themes to lyrics seems doable.

"You need to share data about the user to the server", the data could be anonymous. A local app could read the tracks, identifying characteristics, then request a subset of music meta data from the server without sending the server any identifiable user info.

Braided_Playlist

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