I recorded nature sounds for a year, then released an ambient sound app
There are lots of ambient sound apps on the App Store, but they all seem to be paywalled. I thought I should make one where all the content was free. I bought a secondhand professional audio recorder, then took it to national parks in Australia and Germany, in case I heard anything interesting. It was a bit of a learning experience, but I now have a library of half a dozen passable recordings. The biggest problem was noise pollution: humans are noisy and everywhere; I never noticed until I started listening carefully for background noise. Traffic and building noise carries for huge…
In plain words
This ambient sound app provides free nature recordings collected from national parks in Australia and Germany. The creator spent a year recording with professional audio equipment to build a library of six soundscapes, avoiding noise pollution where possible. The app features a curved video carousel interface built with SwiftUI and includes full VoiceOver support with additional accessibility options for vision-impaired users. All content is free to access on the App Store.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
In the maker’s words, at launch
There are lots of ambient sound apps on the App Store, but they all seem to be paywalled. I thought I should make one where all the content was free. I bought a secondhand professional audio recorder, then took it to national parks in Australia and Germany, in case I heard anything interesting. It was a bit of a learning experience, but I now have a library of half a dozen passable recordings. The biggest problem was noise pollution: humans are noisy and everywhere; I never noticed until I started listening carefully for background noise. Traffic and building noise carries for huge distances. I wrapped all the sounds up in a swiftUI interface, built around a curved video carousel. I wanted to pay special attention to vision impaired users, so it all has VoiceOver support, and extra UI elements that can be turned on for vision impaired users. It's free on the App Store if you want to take a look.
Does the same job
all alternatives →- ANAmbiphone, no-nonsense ambient music and white noise2024 · ambiph.one · ▲357
I built this free, no-nonsense white noise app. I know there are plenty of them out there already, but I wanted to make something beautiful and easy-to-use, without logins or ads or in-app purchases or any of the other stuff a lot of them have. I appeared on The Economist's The Intelligence podcast [0] this week talking about Ambiphone and another ambient music project, Ambient ScotRail Beats [1] - I'm on at about 17:30 There's a big selection of music and sounds already but I'm always adding more - if there's anything you'd like to see added, let me know! [0]…
- IBI built a simple ambient sound app with no ads or subscriptionsOct 2025 · ambisounds.app · ▲314
I’ve always liked having background noise while working or falling asleep, but I got frustrated that most “white noise” or ambient sound apps are either paywalled, stuffed with ads, or try to upsell subscriptions for basic features. So I made Ambi, a small iOS app with a clean interface and a set of freely available ambient sounds — rain, waves, wind, birds, that sort of thing. You can mix them, adjust volume levels, and just let it play all night or while you work. Everything works offline and there are no hidden catches. It’s something I built for myself first, but I figured others might…
More growth this month
the category →
AstraPixels▲267A pixel-art solar system at its real current positions.
Growth · 29d ago · astrapixels.com
