Isai started as a player for my own music: the FLAC rips, the Hi-Res downloads and the DSD files scattered across MEGA, Dropbox and a NAS in the cupboard. Now the App Store Editors have featured it in Great apps on iPhone Duo.
The collection sits under From the Editors with the line “Favourite finds from App Store Editors.”
For a one-and-a-half-man studio, that is a big deal. Thank you to the editors, and to everyone who has been playing their own records through Isai.
A music player for people who own their music.
01What is Isai?
Isai is a hi-res music player for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Android that plays the music you already own, in the quality you bought it in. You connect a source once — MEGA, Dropbox, any WebDAV server such as Nextcloud or a Synology NAS, or a folder on the device — and Isai reads the tags, builds a proper library with albums, artists and artwork, and streams straight from the files.
Nothing goes through a server in between. Nothing is transcoded on the way. There is no catalogue to subscribe to, because the catalogue is yours.
The name is Tamil: isai (இசை) means music.
| App Store name | Isai: Hi-Res Music Player — Bit-perfect FLAC, WAV & DSD |
|---|---|
| Made by | ARRcade (Anand Raj R), an independent studio in Singapore |
| Platforms | iPhone, iPad and Mac (App Store); Android (Google Play); iPhone Duo layouts |
| Sources | MEGA, Dropbox, WebDAV (Nextcloud, ownCloud, Synology, pCloud, Koofr), local files, and your Apple Music library if you subscribe |
| Formats | FLAC, ALAC, M4A, WAV, AIFF, MP3, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, Opus, and DSD (DSF and DFF, including DST) |
| Sound | Gapless playback, Signal Path inspector, bit-perfect output on the Mac, DSD as DoP or high-quality PCM |
| Price | Free for music on your device; Isai Pro $9.99 one-time for cloud sources and Play On |
| Privacy | No account, no ads, no analytics, no servers of ours |
02Why Isai suits iPhone Duo
iPhone Duo is a phone you hold folded and a small tablet when you open it. A music player has to be good at both, and has to move between them without making you start over.
An immersive player, folded or open
Folded, album art fills the cover screen from edge to edge and every page takes its colours from the cover. When an album ships with animated artwork, it plays in motion behind the title. A slim rail beside the camera holds Home, Library, Settings and Search, so nothing sits on top of the artwork.
Open the phone in the middle of an album and the page widens in one continuous move. Nothing reloads, the artwork keeps playing, and the left screen fills in with the tracklist, About This Record (format, bit depth, sample rate, label and where the file lives) and more from the same artist. Now Playing does the same, adding Up Next, Lyrics and the Signal Path on the left.
Pure Music Mode: a Walkman, a Discman and a turntable
Pure Music Mode turns Isai into the machine you grew up with. Fold the phone and the cover screen becomes a cassette player with keys to press and reels that turn, a portable CD player with your album cover printed on the spinning disc, or a turntable with a 33/45 knob and a Turn over button for side B. Open it and your albums become a shelf of cassette cases, jewel cases or record sleeves beside the deck.
It only changes how Isai looks. A 24-bit FLAC sounds exactly the same on the cassette deck; it just looks like a tape. The whole story, with all the decks, is in Pure Music Mode: a Walkman, Discman and vinyl experience on iPhone Duo.
03Honest about the sound
The subtitle the editors saw — Bit-perfect FLAC, WAV & DSD — is a promise Isai backs up on screen. Tap the quality badge and the Signal Path shows what happened between the file and your ears: the source, the decoder, any processing, the output device, and a verdict.
On the Mac, BIT PERFECT means exactly that: Isai can take exclusive access to your DAC, match its sample rate and word length to the file, and read the settings back from the hardware before it says so. On iPhone and iPad, Isai asks an external DAC for the file’s native rate and reports whatever the system actually gives it. If the equalizer is on or the samples were resampled, the verdict tells you.
- Bit perfect
- Native rate
- Resampled
- Lossy source
- FLAC
- WAV
- DSD
- Gapless
Around that: a ten-band equalizer, synced lyrics from embedded tags and .lrc files, an A/B loop, album editions that keep the FLAC, the MP3 rip and the Apple Music copy of one record together, downloads that keep the original bytes, iCloud sync of your library across devices, and Play On, which lets one copy of Isai drive another over your Wi-Fi with no account. Everything Isai does is on the Isai page.
04What’s next
Isai is built by one person, with a lot of listening. If you came here from the App Store story: welcome. Tell me what your collection needs at anandrajramamoorthy@gmail.com or on X at @kingofbliss_.
05Questions
Is Isai featured by Apple?
Yes. In October 2026 App Store Editors featured Isai: Hi-Res Music Player in Great apps on iPhone Duo, a From the Editors collection of “favourite finds from App Store Editors”.
What is Isai?
A hi-res music player for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Android by ARRcade. It plays music you already own, streaming it straight from MEGA, Dropbox, any WebDAV server or local files, with nothing transcoded and no server in between.
What is the best music player for iPhone Duo?
If your music is your own files, Isai is the player the App Store Editors chose for iPhone Duo. It has an immersive player that carries on from folded to unfolded, and Pure Music Mode, which turns the phone into a cassette player, a CD player or a turntable.
Does Isai play FLAC, WAV and DSD on iPhone?
Yes: FLAC, ALAC, M4A, WAV, AIFF, MP3, AAC, Ogg Vorbis and Opus, plus DSD as DSF and DFF (including DST). DSD goes to a capable DAC as DoP, or is converted to PCM with a 96-tap FIR and a Kaiser low-pass. Playback is gapless.
Is Isai bit-perfect?
On the Mac, yes, and it checks: Isai takes exclusive access to the DAC, matches the file’s sample rate and word length, and reads them back from the hardware. On iPhone and iPad it requests the native rate on an external DAC and the Signal Path reports exactly what the system delivers.
Is Isai free?
Isai is free for music on your device. Isai Pro is a one-time $9.99, with no subscription, and unlocks MEGA, Dropbox, WebDAV and Play On on every device signed in to your Apple Account.
What does Isai mean?
Isai (இசை) is the Tamil word for music.
Where can I download Isai?
On the App Store for iPhone, iPad and Mac, and on Google Play for Android. The Android version does not include Play On or Apple Music.