Can't Get Spotify Wrapped? This Ingenious Apple Music App Is Even Better

Spotify Wrapped is a tool that tallies up users’ most listened to songs of the year. On Thursday the company released this data to all of its subscribers so they can share and view their friends’ musical preferences. As the playlists filled social media threads, Apple Music users were pretty jealous.

That’s because the Cupertino-based company’s music streaming service doesn’t provide the same kind of year-end feature, leading droves of Apple Music subscribers to take to Reddit to voice their gripes. But amongst all of the salty comments, one shining iOS hero emerged: App developer Lucas Klein, who took it upon himself to create an Apple Music version of Spotify Wrapped called snd.wave. In an interview with Inverse he explained how it’s even more comprehensive than Spotify’s version.

“I tried to put my own spin on it,” he says via a Reddit message. “Spotify’s feature is more of a marketing tool, snd.wave is a platform for music stats, and I think my next update 2.0 will establish that further snd.wave has more features and can show more stats than Spotify’s version.”

In Klein’s view, Spotify’s tool is essentially a flashy, data-driven slideshow, whereas snd.wave is meant to be more of a hub that lets you see every detail about your Apple Music library and listening habits. For example, you can see how many minutes you’ve listened to a particular artist or subgenre regardless of whether or not they’re your rankings. Plus, it’s also easier to share your results.

The stats are also updated every week, so you have constantly fresh data about your music habits at your fingertips, too. No need to wait until the end of the year to see how many times you’ve listened to Ariana Grande’s “thank you, next.”

As Apple Music users tried to join in on the playlist party, Klein’s app quickly became a hit, garnering 14,000 downloads on Thursday alone. That’s an incredible spike considering that it averaged 800 weekly downloads since he first coded the app in 2017. He also revealed that the second version of snd.wave is in the works and that it should hit the App Store during the first week of January.

Unlike the plethora of comments complaining about Apple not rolling out its own version of Spotify Wrapped, Klein see this as an opportunity for the community to get involved.

“I think it’s smart on Apple’s part,” he said. “Firstly it leaves a space open for people like me to innovate. Secondly, Apple doesn’t have to spend time supporting it, which could cost them a lot of money.”

You can download the current version of snd.wave in the App Store now, and start pulling your Spotify-like stats.