Ever noticed how even the simplest apps want access to everything?
I just wanted to play music — not hand over my call logs.
Even lightweight music players come loaded with creepy permission requests. Contacts? Call data? Overlay access? Just to hit play on a song?
It didn’t sit right with me.
So I decided to build my own.
1: Why I Chose to Build My Own Music App
I’ve always had a very specific music taste — mostly soulful tracks, spiritual sounds, and some of 90s nostalgia.
Sure, I could stream them on Spotify or YouTube like everyone else. But I’ve always preferred keeping my own MP3 collection — offline, in my control, with zero interruptions.
The real issue began when I started noticing how these music apps behave.
They demand weird permissions.
They push random ads. That I understand, I'm fine with it.
Last week, I finally snapped. I figured — why not just make my own app?
I’d been meaning to learn mobile development anyway, so this felt like the perfect excuse.
After checking out a few frameworks, I settled on Flutter — lightweight and flexible. My laptop isn’t built for Android Studio (tried that once, it basically gave up), so I kept things minimal.
Set up took an hour or two. I plugged in my phone, enabled developer mode, and got my first “Hello World” up and running.
From there, it just flowed — I picked up Dart, started testing small things with help from AI, and slowly began to see my idea take shape.
2: Only Building What I Actually Needed
Once I had the basics working, I tested it out with a single MP3 file. Just dropped it into the assets folder and tried playing it through the app. It worked.
That small win gave me the push to go further.
Next up — scanning local storage for all my saved music files. I added logic to pull out MP3s from the phone’s directories, and once that was done, I layered in the essentials:
Play / Pause
Skip
Auto-play
Total duration
Current time tracking
No recommendations. No suggestions. No sneaky tracking.
Just clean, simple playback — the way I wanted it.
The UI is still very barebones, and honestly, that’s fine for now. I’m slowly working on polishing it up. But I’m clear on one thing:
It’ll stay lightweight. No junk. No shady permissions.
Just a music player that respects your privacy — and plays your songs.
3 : What’s Next
For now, I’m just refining the app to suit my personal use. Clean UI, maybe dark mode, and a couple of nice-to-have touches that I actually care about. I might upload it to the Play Store at some point — not because I want to compete with big apps, but just to share something that feels simple and respectful of users.
Honestly, building this was fun. More than that, it felt right. I got to learn, create, and finally use an app that doesn’t ask me for things it shouldn’t.
But now I’m curious…
Have you ever felt weird giving an app permission to read your call logs just to play music?
What problems have you run into?
And hey — do you still listen to local MP3s, or are you all-in on streaming?