WiseJNRS is on the App Store, and here's Licorice
Two things landed this week that I have been working towards for months. The WiseJNRS apps are on the App Store for iPhone, Apple Watch and Apple TV, and there is a new album to play on them.
Get the apps
- iPhone and Apple Watch: WiseJNRS on the App Store. The watch app is inside the iPhone app; install one and you get both.
- Apple TV: WiseJNRS TV on the App Store.
They are free, and you do not need an account to press play. Sign in with Apple, Google or Facebook if you want likes and playlists to follow you between devices.
Licorice
Licorice is the album I put together for the launch. It is not a studio record. It is 43 demos from the shelf, the ones I kept liking when they came around on shuffle, in the order I would play them to you. The name and the cover came from a single idea, the dog wreathed in black licorice and allsorts, and the rest followed.
Here are the first two tracks.
The full album is at wisejnrs.net/music, and in all three apps under Albums.
What the apps do
iPhone. The whole catalogue, background playback, a full player with waveform scrubbing and Up Next, the blog, and the shop. WiseJNRS Radio shuffles everything, and if you are on mobile data there is a lighter stream so it does not stutter on 4G.
Apple Watch. Plays on its own, from the wrist, with the same Radio shuffle, the blog, and a link screen so your likes follow you from the phone.
Apple TV. Built natively in Swift for the big screen. Cover art fills the display, the Top Shelf on the Home screen shows Artist Picks and Albums straight from the site, and the radio card shows what is playing.
Everything the apps play is my own recording, served from my own CDN. Nothing is pulled from Apple Music, Spotify or anywhere else, which is also why the review took a few rounds and a signed rights declaration. That story is a post on its own.
How it was built
The iPhone and watch app is Expo and React Native, with the watch target embedded through Apple's native tooling. The TV app is Swift and SwiftUI. Both talk to the same site, so a track added on wisejnrs.net shows up everywhere without a new build, and the Top Shelf on Apple TV updates itself. Builds go through EAS and GitHub Actions, and review submissions were driven through the App Store Connect API where it allowed and the web where it did not.
And a shirt
The Liquorice artwork is on a tee in the store, printed on demand: Liquorice tee.
If you listen to Licorice, tell me which track you would put first. The order is mine, but I am not precious about it.
