Foldman - CD player

Foldman - CD player turns a book-style foldable into a portable CD player. Open the phone to pick a disc from the CD bag. Shut it, and the cover screen becomes the player, with the disc turning under a smoked lid.

THE HINGE IS THE SWITCH

• Open: the CD bag. Your albums sit in a wallet of fleece sleeves, one disc to a leaf. Swipe to turn a leaf over the spine, or drag the scrubber to run through the whole bag. Drag a disc onto the player to load it. On the right, the player stands open beside its track list: tap a track to cue it.

• Closed: the player. The cover screen shows the disc spinning, an LCD with track and time, and the keys: PLAY/PAUSE, skip (hold to search), STOP, repeat and volume. Press STOP once to stop and again to open the lid.

• Unfolding fades the music out, and folding never starts it. Close the phone and press PLAY.

FIVE BODIES, THREE FINISHES EACH

• Studio CD-01: the disc as big as the case allows, on a bare circuit board, with numbered round keys. Grey, cream or graphite.

• Heritage D-84: a round window in a square body, flat tab keys along the edge and a volume slide. Silver, black or champagne.

• Field OP-CD: a black screen, four coloured knobs and a grid of keys. White, black or sand.

• Boombox BX-90: a top-loader with chunky keys, two speakers that pump and a big volume dial. Black, silver or pastel.

• Jog J-1: a DJ deck where the disc is the jog wheel; turn it to search. Black, white or red.

Swipe three fingers across the cover screen to change the body, up or down to change the finish, or pick one in settings.

SMALL THINGS

• Every album is a disc, from all the music on your phone or only the folders you choose. Or one disc per artist.

• The disc slows down as the laser moves out toward the edge, like a real CD.

• Tap a disc for its details: edit the label, add a cover photo from your gallery, or take it out of the bag.

• Each disc remembers where you stopped.

• Every key has its own mechanical sound and a bump of haptics. Turn them off in settings.

• Play, pause and skip from the lock screen and the notification.

• Tracks under 20 seconds stay out of the bag unless you ask for them.

BRING YOUR OWN MUSIC

Foldman doesn't come with any songs. It plays music files you own and keep on the phone: MP3, M4A, AAC, FLAC, OGG, Opus or WAV, like CD rips or albums bought as downloads. It doesn't play Spotify, YouTube or other streaming apps.

TAPES OR CDS

Foldman - Cassette player is the same idea with cassettes. The CD player keeps labels, cover photos and where each disc was left in a Foldman.json file, in the same format the cassette player uses. Choose the same folder in both apps and they share one library: labels, cover photos, discs taken out of the bag and the album order. Each app keeps its own place in every album.

YOUR MUSIC STAYS ON YOUR PHONE

Your music, labels and folders never leave the phone. The app sends anonymous usage counts, like how often a disc is played, and you can switch them off under Usage stats in settings. It goes online for covers only if you switch on "Look up covers online" in settings (it's off until you do) and tap FIND ONLINE on a disc: then it sends that disc's artist and album names to MusicBrainz and Apple's iTunes Search. No accounts, no ads, no tracking.

WHICH PHONES

Made for book-style foldables and tuned first for the Galaxy Z Fold 8. Needs Android 8.0 or newer. For the player to appear when you close the phone, turn on "Continue apps on cover screen" for Foldman - CD player in your phone's settings.

On a phone that doesn't fold, the lid opens by touch instead. Tap where the disc sits, or press STOP twice to eject, and the lid opens onto your CD bag. Drop a disc in and it shuts by itself; Back shuts it too. The disc still only plays with the lid shut.

An independent tribute to 90s portable CD players.