The Spinstack guide, in motion.

Groove Vision

Hold an iPhone Pro a hand's width above the record. The ring turns green when distance, flatness, tilt and steadiness all pass, the camera reads the surface, and the LiDAR sensor reads the depth of every mark in four close-up quadrants. The result card leads with an estimated grade and a confidence pill, and marks the quadrant that set it. You decide the grade underneath.

LiDAR only on iPhone Pro and iPad Pro. The grade is Spinstack's estimate; you set the final one. Arrived in 1.4; 1.5 retuned the scan and made the estimate wording explicit.

Your collection, cached

Connect a Discogs account once and the whole library loads from a local cache: cover grid, decade sort, format filters. It opens instantly, works offline, and pulls new additions down when you refresh.

Crate Dig

Swipe through your own records the way you would flip through a shop crate. Each card carries a match score and says why it surfaced, More info flips it over, and the three buttons underneath are Pass, Wishlist and Find. Free on every tier.

In the app since 1.0 as a Pro feature; free for every tier since 1.3.

Spin Log

Log a listen with one tap: date, rating, mood and notes. Over time the log shows which records you actually play and which ones sit, and it syncs across your devices through iCloud.

Scrobble to Last.fm

Log a spin and the tracks land on your Last.fm profile within seconds, matched to the exact release. If Last.fm is unreachable the scrobble waits and goes out later with its original time. The Last.fm Hub runs the other way: lifetime stats, a twelve-week listening trend, and top artists, albums and tracks for any period, cross-referenced with the shelf. In Your Collection is what you stream and own on wax, Wantlist Candidates is what you stream but do not own yet, Forgotten Favorites is what you own but have not played in months, and Import from Last.fm turns old scrobbles into spins.

Free on every tier. Sign in with your Last.fm account; there are no API keys to register. Scrobbling since 1.1; the Last.fm Hub since 1.4.

Scratch Detection

Open a record's Scratch Map after a few Silent Sessions. Every mark the microphone heard sits on the disc where it happened, with the track and the timestamp, and becomes Confirmed once it shows up at the same place across plays. Each one is stamped against the music around it, so the list says which ones you will actually hear: prominent, noticeable, or under the music.

The loudness verdicts need the sonic analysis of the same play, which requires Apple Intelligence on a supported device. Arrived in Spinstack Labs in 1.4.4; the loudness verdicts came in 1.5.

The Condition tab

A fifth tab for record health. The card at the top counts how many records are graded and what the ungraded ones are worth, with the Collection Appraisal one tap away. Worth checking first sorts the unknowns by value so the expensive ones get graded first, then Most spun, To clean with a Mark All Cleaned button, and Recent scans.

Part of Spinstack Pro. Arrived in Spinstack Labs in 1.4.5 and became a standard tab in 1.5.

Your copy, at its price

The Collection Appraisal opens on an estimated value for the whole shelf, adjusted for media condition on every graded record, with the lowest-listed total beside it so you can see what the grades change. Values marked rough est. use the standard collector percentages by grade rather than sales data, and the card says when it was last updated. Below it, the condition breakdown and the most valuable copies, each priced at its own grade.

Values are estimates, always labelled, not professional appraisals.

The Condition Card

Tap Card on a graded record and the sheet slides up: the artwork, the media and sleeve grades with who set them and when the Groove Vision scan was taken, a drawn disc with every detected mark where it sits in the grooves, then the confirmed-mark count, the spins logged on this copy and the last play. Three styles, Classic, Dark and Color, then Save to Photos or Share.

Condition Receipt and Appraisal

From the Condition tab, the Collection Appraisal opens on the estimated value, then one tap on share renders it as a PDF: artwork, the value with its record and grade counts, the condition breakdown and every copy priced at its own grade, ready to open or send. The Condition Receipt is the same idea for one record, a one-page document for a buyer or an insurer, and it is free for everyone. Both export offline.

The Appraisal is part of Pro; the Receipt is free. Values are estimates and carry an as-of date.

The Tap Card

Tap a tagged sleeve with the phone and the card slides up with everything the app knows about that copy, offline. Your Copy: the media and sleeve grades, the Groove Vision result and its date, the value, and whether it is flagged for cleaning. The Story: spins, first and last play, recent moods. The Sound: tempo, key and loudness measured from this copy, with its scratch marks. Five buttons along the top, Spin, Session, Log, Play Next and Open; tap Spin and the play is logged on the spot.

NFC tags are bought separately. Tags written by older builds keep working.

Ask Your Collection

Ask about your records in your own words. The sheet opens with a few starters, What do I own on Blue Note, How many records am I missing from the 70s, What have I played most, and the answer is built from your own shelves: it counts the records, reads the listening history and says so underneath, with a receipt of what it checked. Follow-up questions work. Nothing about your collection leaves the phone.

Requires Apple Intelligence.

Ask Spinstack from Siri

Every Spinstack shortcut answers with a card, whether you run it from the Shortcuts app or say it to Siri. Here How Many Records comes back as a spoken line and a tile: the size of the collection, the wishlist count, and an Open Spinstack button. Say "Ask Spinstack about my collection" and the same on-device model behind Ask Your Collection answers a question in your own words, for the moment you are in a shop holding a record and want to know whether it is already on your shelf.

The Ask Spinstack question requires Apple Intelligence; the other shortcuts do not. No audio and no question text leaves the device. Every phrase is translated.

Sonic Fingerprint

A Silent Session measures the record as it plays, from the copy on your turntable rather than a database. The Sonic Fingerprint card on the record page shows the key, the tempo and how steadily it held, the structure, pace, instrument balance and loudness, all stamped measured on this device while you listened. Tap Analysis for the full read, with the confirmed and tentative scratches marked on the structure strip, and records that truly match connect in Sonic Connections with the reason stated.

Requires iOS 27. Rides the same microphone session as Scratch Detection; audio is processed in memory and discarded, only the numbers are kept.

Find It With the Camera

Point the iPhone's visual intelligence camera at a record in a bin and Spinstack appears in the results beside Google, TikTok and Amazon. Its tab lists the records in your own collection that match, on the artwork itself as well as any text, so stylised sleeves and pressings with no words on them still work. One tap opens the record page in the app, with the grades, the value and the Log Spin button. Vinyl Vision finds a record to add; this one tells you what you already own, without opening the app first.

Requires iOS 27 visual intelligence. No account, no internet, no API key.

Vinyl Vision

Point the camera at a cover, a spine or a label and tap once. The text is read on the phone, the On-Device OCR badge says so, and the match comes up with the strings it used as chips. Not the pressing you meant? Pick text from the photo opens the picture with a box around every word the camera read, sitting where it sits on the sleeve: tap the artist, the title or a hand-stamped catalogue number, tap more than one to search for them together, and the results narrow to that. Move in close on a 45 and iOS hands off to the macro lens so the small print stays sharp.

Phones without a macro lens fall back to the wide camera. Reads happen on the iPhone first; Google Vision is optional and only a fallback. In the app since 1.0; 1.5 added the macro-lens hand-off, Pick text from the photo, and barcode-first reads.

Will not scan? Read the numbers

Shrink wrap, a sticker or a worn print can stop the bars reading. When the scanner cannot lock on, a Won't scan? Read the numbers button appears under the viewfinder. Tap it and the scanner reads the printed digits instead, checks them against the check digit before it searches, so a misread never becomes a search, and the exact match floats to the top of the results with a blue Exact barcode badge. Code 128, ITF-14 and GS1 DataBar are recognised too, for box sets and distributor stickers.

The wishlist reveal

Scan a record you have been hunting and the screen goes dark. The sleeve rises out of a crate, straightens, and light rakes across it. Underneath: the title, the artist, and Wanted since April 2024, taken from your real wantlist date. It fires across pressings on purpose, because the reissue turning up in a bin is the find. Two haptics and no sound, because this happens in a record shop.

The record shop App Clip

Scan the code on a partner store's counter and a store-welcomed mini-Spinstack opens, no install and no account. Point it at any record's barcode, or snap the cover of one that has none, and it searches Discogs and tells you exactly which pressing you are holding, each result tagged with how it was matched. Scan another, and another; the list keeps them all for the full app. Below it, the shop's staff picks with their notes, and the store's own offer for the day. Condition certificates and price alerts wait in the full app, one tap away.

Never Spun

Under Your Journey in the Insights tab, Never Spun surfaces the records you own and have never once played, with a count of how many are waiting for a first spin. Open one, tap Log Spin, give it a rating and a mood, and it is logged on the spot, scrobbled to Last.fm if you have it connected, with a share card ready. Its companion, Your Spinstack Story, turns the collecting history into something worth reading.

Vinyl DNA

Vinyl DNA reads your collection into a collector archetype, here The Explorer with a touch of The Loyalist, from six dimensions: genre diversity, decade spread, format sophistication, artist focus, label loyalty and vintage affinity. The Taste Profile radar and the Dimension Breakdown show the scores behind the verdict, Your Sonic Palette pulls the colors from your most representative covers, and Collection at a Glance counts records, artists, labels, genres and the oldest pressing. An optional AI narrative describes the archetype in a paragraph you can star and keep, and the whole thing shares as a card.

Part of Pro. The AI narrative needs Apple Intelligence and is off by default. Vinyl DNA has been in the app since 1.0.

Spin Reports

Pick any month and Spin Reports turns your spins into a page: spins, records, listening time, best streak and your average rating up top, then a written recap of the month, the record you played most with its spin count, Also on repeat, top artists, a bar chart of your week, and a mood breakdown. The current month updates as you log; past months stay put in the archive. Share from the header sends the report as a card.

Part of Pro. The written recap needs Apple Intelligence. Arrived in 1.4.5.

Price Watchdog

Price Watchdog tracks the lowest listed Discogs price of every record you own, like a portfolio. The top shows your collection's value with its range, a lowest-listed total, and Your Copies, which adjusts for the media condition of graded records. Below it: the net change since your last price update, the biggest movers and drops with a sparkline each, Rare Finds for the records with the fewest copies for sale, Wishlist Watch with a check mark when a wanted record falls under your target, and the full portfolio. A generated summary calls out what moved and why it matters.

Part of Pro. Values are estimates from Discogs listings, not appraisals. The written summary needs Apple Intelligence. Price Watchdog has been in the app since 1.0; the net-change line and movers came in 1.4.1.

Sell on Discogs

Open any record, tap Sell on Discogs, set the price, media and sleeve grades and a comment, and one tap publishes the listing. The Marketplace view then keeps the whole shop in one place. Inventory shows every listing with its price, grades and status: draft, for sale, offers OK, sold. Orders lists each sale with its number, amount and stage, from invoiced to shipped, plus the records you are buying. Open an order for the items, the shipping address, the totals including the Discogs fee, and the message thread, where you reply to the buyer without leaving the app. Discogs handles the payment; Spinstack takes no fee.

Selling needs a Discogs seller account. No money moves through Spinstack.

Replace Cover Art

Discogs covers are often a seller's photo, so the main image can carry glare or a crooked angle. From the record's menu, choose Replace Cover Art and pick a photo of your own copy. It becomes the cover everywhere that record appears, including the Apple TV shelves, and one tap restores the original Discogs cover. Your photo stays on your devices and syncs through your own iCloud; nothing is sent to the developer.

Custom Records

Some records are not on Discogs: bootlegs, self-released singles, flea-market finds, picture discs. Add them anyway. The form takes title, artist, label, year, format, type and country, genres and a folder, a rating with media and sleeve grades, a cover plus a gallery of up to five photos, a tracklist with positions and durations, and notes. Snap the sleeve and on-device text recognition pre-fills the title and artist. From there a custom record behaves like any other: spins per track, NFC tags, Groove Vision, widgets and the Apple TV shelf, with a pencil badge to mark it. Five are free; Pro lifts the cap.

Photos, tracklists, ratings and notes sync through iCloud.

The watch keeps up

Start a session from Apple Watch and the iPhone keeps the count without being unlocked. A Live Activity sits on the Lock Screen with the record, the artist, the listening mode, and a timer for the side that ticks every second. Nothing to open, nothing to tap. Complications on the watch face update by push, so the record you are on is current there too.

Ambient Mode

Ambient Mode is the full-screen companion for a spin: the label art turns at 33⅓ or 45 on a backdrop pulled from the cover, with the session timer, the record and artist, and an End Session button. Silent Mode is for when the record itself is playing; nothing streams. New in 1.5, the Listening for scratches panel at the top shows the live input against the music level, a sensitivity slider and a Listen Through Music switch. Every click it hears goes into the record's Scratch Map, which builds up over sessions.

Ambient Mode since 1.4; the scratch listening panel came in 1.5. Silent Mode needs no Apple Music subscription.

Listening Sessions

Give the night a name. From the Log Spin sheet, alongside the rating, the mood chips and a note, Add to Session puts the spin into a session: pick an existing one or start a new one on the spot, and a spin can belong to more than one. The session collects everything you play into a single entry with a date and a cover collage, and spins can be assigned from the Spin Log afterwards too. End the session and a summary card lands in your Spin Log.

The B-Side, refreshed

One private feed of what the people you collect with are doing: spins with their ratings and notes, records added, records wanted, with an Active now row along the top. React to anything with a tap. The For you tab collects reactions to your spins, records friends recommend and crew invites. Crews are circles of up to eight collectors with their own feed, a Crew Spin the whole crew tries to play that week at their own pace, and a shared crate you build together.

Opt-in, private, and off by default. Shared activity fades after seven days and you can wipe it with one tap.