For iPhone and iPad · iOS 18 or later
Point the phone at any music and the tempo appears in seconds: a track on a speaker, a rehearsal, a record, a DJ set, or Apple Music playing on the same iPhone. No recording, no account, and nothing you are listening to gets paused.
On iOS specifically
The detection engine is shared with the Android build. Everything below is what the iPhone version does with it.
Two detection engines run in parallel, autocorrelation and onset peak-picking, and a confidence indicator tells you when the reading is solid rather than settling. The number updates as the music moves.
MagicBPM asks iOS for a mixable audio session, so whatever is already playing carries on while it listens. No pause, no ducking, no switching apps to start a measurement.
Tap Identify and you get the title and artist next to the tempo, using Apple's music recognition. Free to use, and it opens straight back into Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube Music or whichever app you set under Open in.
The metronome keeps clicking when you leave the app or lock the phone. A Live Activity starts it, stops it, and nudges the tempo by 1 or 5 BPM without unlocking, and the click survives the silent switch.
Ambiguous tracks can settle an octave from the pulse you feel. The ½x, 1x and 2x rail under the reading moves it where you meant, and it stays there for the rest of the session.
Tempo detection never leaves the iPhone: audio is analyzed live and discarded, never recorded, never uploaded, never used to build a profile. Song identification sends a fingerprint of the sound, not the sound.
First run
If the number keeps moving, get closer to the source, cut the background noise, switch the capture mode to Best accuracy in Settings, or narrow the tempo range when you already know roughly what to expect.
Also on board
On Android? The same engine, and most of the same app, is on Google Play. Prefer to try something first? The browser metronome and tap tempo need no download at all.
Free, with a one-time Pro upgrade
Detection, the metronome, tap tempo and one-shot song identification are free. Pro is a single purchase, never a subscription.
Good to know
iOS 18 or later, on iPhone and on iPad. The App Store listing carries the exact current minimum, since it moves with each release.
Yes, as long as the sound comes out of the speaker. MagicBPM takes a mixable audio session, so Apple Music, Spotify or YouTube keep playing on the same iPhone while it listens through the microphone and locks the tempo. What no app can do is read another app's audio directly, which is why headphones are the one case that cannot work. More on that here.
Yes. The click carries on when you leave the app or lock the screen, and a Live Activity on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island starts it, stops it, and nudges the tempo by 1 or 5 BPM without unlocking. It also keeps playing with the silent switch on.
Yes, the same app runs on iPad, and the metronome has its own iPad layout rather than a stretched-out phone one. Haptics are the one thing an iPad cannot do, since the hardware has no Taptic Engine, so the metronome there is sound and the on-screen beat indicator.
Yes. Live tempo detection, the metronome with all its time signatures and subdivisions, tap tempo and one-shot song identification are free, with ads. MagicBPM Pro is a single one-time purchase, not a subscription: it adds automatic song identification, the Detected Songs history, twelve extra metronome sounds, and removes every ad.
No. Tempo detection runs entirely on the iPhone: audio is analyzed in real time and discarded, never recorded and never uploaded. Song identification, when you use it, sends a compact acoustic fingerprint of the sound, never the audio itself, to Apple's Shazam service. See the Privacy Policy.
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