# How a Thai developer's cassette player for the Z Fold 8, deckade, hit #19 on a country's music chart

> Source: https://stringers.io/en/apps/play_app.sidea.html (Stringers / 什么值得做, generated 2026-11-08)
> Stringers answers one question every day: what small product can one or two people build in a few months and actually make money from. Numbers come from 15 databases we collect daily, each with source and date.
> For agents: these verdicts and the underlying databases (verified revenue, App Store / Google Play charts, ad libraries, GitHub, Product Hunt…) are queryable live over MCP — tools today / hot / products / directions / direction / data. Setup: https://github.com/komako-workshop/stringers (the user logs in at stringers.io → "配置 agent" to get a personal URL). Site index: https://stringers.io/llms.txt

> Right after iPhone Duo and Galaxy Z Fold 8 launched, a 'foldable phones as Walkmans' trend took off. It first spread as an APK, with word of mouth in Thai foldable fan groups and local tech accounts framing it as 'made by a Thai.' When it hit Google Play, early users migrated over, and it shot up the very low-barrier Thai music chart.

[Mobile App](https://stringers.io/en/apps/index.md) · Android · written 11-6

deckade – Retro Player (formerly Side A) · zachisthis

# How a Thai developer's cassette player for the Z Fold 8, deckade, hit #19 on a country's music chart

**What it is** A retro cassette-deck skin and remote for the Samsung Z Fold 8. It reads whatever song another music app is playing, and changing how you hold the phone changes the machine. Free, with a $4.99 one-time purchase to unlock more themes.

**Why it blew up** The iPhone Duo and Z Fold 8 launches kicked off a "foldable turns into a Walkman" trend. It first spread as an APK through Thai foldable fan groups and local tech accounts under the "made by a Thai" angle. When it hit Google Play, its early APK users migrated over, and it shot up the low-bar Thai music chart.

**C** **How you could ride it** Don't build another cassette player. The category is already taken by Deck-Man and Foldman. Borrow the playbook instead: the moment a new hardware form factor launches, ship a flashy skin-only app that touches no content. Build buzz by sending APKs to your local phone fan groups first, then charge a one-time purchase on the store.

Grade C: the category has been covered by every major outlet, iOS and Android each have a leader, and the wind comes from a single new phone launch that is already fading. deckade's own rank dropped 78 spots in a week and its revenue is small. What's worth learning is the zero-content-cost skin model and the local-community launch, not the category itself. What people are whispering

Data (updated daily) · first launch 2026-10-26 · 11-07 installs 2,739

Android · Total installs worldwide

Data 2026-10-29 → 2026-11-07 (10 days, 10 observations). Google's detail page only refreshes install counts every other day, so a flat day doesn't mean nobody installed.

deckade (formerly Side A) is an Android app with no songs of its own. It takes whatever you're playing in Spotify, Apple Music or TIDAL and renders it on a 90-era cassette deck. It caught the "foldable turns into a Walkman" wave, leaned on Thailand's Fold fan groups and the "made by a Thai" badge, and reached #19 on the Thai music free chart in its first week on Google Play. Volume was small, though: 2,739 installs worldwide in total, and almost nobody outside Thailand knows it exists. Below: how it got going, how crowded the category is now, and what you can still take from it.

### "Three updates a day"

On Oct 2026 6, in "Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 … Thailand", Thailand's largest Samsung foldable fan group, a user named Panupong Sangpum posted:

> This app gets three updates a day. Side A, a retro cassette-style music remote 🤣 It came out yesterday and it's blowing up. The dev took in a pile of user feedback and shipped a new version today.

At that point Side A wasn't on any app store. The day before (10-05), developer Zakariya Wohya (online: Zach W., @zachisthis) had put it on ploykhong.app, a small site where Thai creators showcase their work. You could only download the APK. Five days later (10-11), Thai tech homepage "โลกไอทีวันนี้" (IT World Today) posted a video with the headline:

> A world-class good app made by a Thai, "Side A"... downloads have already climbed far, and it's about to hit the Play Store!

In Oct 26 it was renamed deckade and went live on Google Play.

### What it actually is

Open it and you see a cassette deck: the song title is printed on the tape label, the tape winds from the left reel to the right as it plays, and pressing a button gives a mechanical "click". But it isn't the one playing the sound. Android lets apps read the song title, artist, cover and progress from other players' notification-shade controls, and deckade uses that permission to act as a "retro skin + remote". Spotify, YouTube Music, Apple Music, TIDAL: anything with playback controls in the notification shade plugs in.

It's designed for both screens of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8, and changing how you hold it changes the machine (store page, 11-06):

| Grip | Becomes |
|---|---|
| Outer screen, portrait | Walkman: glowing counter, volume wheel |
| Outer screen, landscape | Bedside radio: two tweeters with a big cassette in the middle |
| Inner screen, portrait | Tape recorder: two VU meters, one level slider |
| Inner screen, landscape | Stereo cassette player: song progress shown on a radio-dial scale |

There's also a small gimmick called "Call the DJ": press the REQ light, pick a "station" (your music app) like calling a radio hotline, and type a song name. The DJ "might play it right away, might not find it, and sometimes plays the wrong one".

On money: free, no ads, no sign-up, and 14 themes are free. deckade Plus is a $4.99 one-time purchase that adds 16 more themes (a clear-case Walkman, a 90-era PC that reads floppy disks, a CD player, a yellow Game Boy...), home-screen widgets and "My Tapes". The official site specifically says "anything that was in the APK stays free", and part of Plus revenue is donated to a Thai deaf association.

### Scale

| Date | Total installs (Google Play) | Thai music free chart |
|---|---|---|
| 10-29 | 62 | 21 |
| 10-30 | 588 | **19** |
| 11-02 | 2,406 | 62 |
| 11-03 | 2,528 | 67 |
| 11-06 | 2,739 | 97 |

Installs move in steps (588 flat for three days, then 2,528 flat for three days again), which looks like the store refreshes its count every few days, not that installs really climbed on a given day. Averaged out, that's about 1,800 installs a day after launch. Its chart rank slid from #300 to #19 and back to #97; most of the lift came in the first week after launch, and it's now falling. It charts only in one Thailand store, with zero ratings. Over 9 days the version went from 1.0.3 to 1.2.1. No revenue data is visible, and it has never charted on a grossing list.

The Thai music free chart has a low bar: a few hundred installs a day gets you into the top 20. This comes back in "What you can take from it" below.

### Why it took off: a wave, plus a local badge

**风是苹果和三星吹的。** 2026 年 9 月,苹果第一款折叠屏 iPhone Duo 发布,9 月底一个叫 Duo-Man(后改名 Deck-Man)的 App 演示「开盖放磁带、合上就是随身听」,TechCrunch 9-28 的标题直接叫它「iPhone Duo 的第一个杀手级 App」,Axios、PCMag、CNET 跟着报道。三星这边 Z Fold 8 也是内外两块屏加铰链,刚买新机的人正想找一个能拿出来炫的 App。

**The signature line is "ฝีมือคนไทย", made by Thai people.** When Thai tech accounts and fan groups promoted it, they almost always made this point: the IT news site Today IT World said "a world-class good app, made by Thais," and the phone review account IAUMReview said on Facebook and TikTok it was "app of the year." Timing matters: it spread in Thailand between 10-05 and 10-11, ten days before the 9to5 Google 10-21 report on Android's top Foldman, so it wasn't copying anyone.

**The first-week volume likely came from APK users migrating (inference).** It spent three weeks building word of mouth through community APK drops, and when it hit Play on 10-26, people who had installed the APK moved over, which was enough to push it up the Thai chart in its first days. The developer also posted: the TikTok demo on 10-14 got only 612 views. Then on 10-23 he replied under a Threads post by a Korean user praising "Fold 8 turning songs into a cassette" (563 likes) with "this is another Fold 8 cassette app 👉 Side A", and that reply reached 4.8K views. There are no signs of paid acquisition: zero ratings and one charting storefront don't look like ad spend (inference).

The product is actually more detailed than its peers: four grips that become four machines, 30 themes, DJ requests, and sharing to IG stories. But the launch was driven by timing and local resharing in Thailand, not these details. Outside Thailand, you can't find it on English media, X or Reddit.

### Who it's competing with

The category only appeared in September, and within two months it had a whole row of players (figures are Google Play / App Store, 11-06):

| Product | Platform | Scale | How it differs from deckade |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deck-Man (formerly Duo-Man) | iOS | US store Top Paid Music chart #1, Top Paid overall chart #16,178 rating | Source of the whole trend, $4.99 paid download, the most media coverage |
| Foldman: cassette player(APPxygen) | Android | 4,134 installs, 4.69 rating, charting in 12 countries | Android leader; 9 to 5 covered by Google, one TikTok video with 380K views |
| Bionic Tape | Android | 822 installs, #10,18 in the US Paid Music chart in one country | $2.99 paid download, drag a tape into the deck |
| Foldman – CD player, Blueprint 4-Track, open-source Foldman and others | Android / GitHub | A few hundred installs, a dozen stars | Smaller versions from the same wave |

deckade is the smallest in this row. iOS has Deck-Man, Android has Foldman, and they got the international market and the media coverage first.

### If it were you

**C** : you can learn a very cheap playbook here, but there's little left to copy in this one category. "Foldable cassette deck" has been written up everywhere by TechCrunch and 9 to 5 Google, both platforms have a leader, and the wave came from a single new phone launch whose novelty is already wearing off. deckade's own rank fell 78 spots in a week.

**Who it suits** : fast Android indie devs who can ship several versions a week, especially those with a following in a mid-sized local market where a "made by a local" angle can pull in media (Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Turkey and similar).

**Who it doesn't suit** : anyone hoping it pays the bills. A few hundred installs a day in one country, a $4.99 one-time purchase and even a 3% conversion rate (estimate) works out to a few dozen dollars a day. It's also not for anyone who wants to fight Foldman and Deck-Man head-on in the US and UK.

**How to do it** : don't build another cassette player. Take three things: ① **Build only the skin, touch no content** . Use Android's notification-access permission (MediaSession) to read other players, with zero licensing and zero catalogue, so every streaming user is your user. ② **Watch for the next new hardware form factor** and ship a "flashy enough to film" app in the week it launches (tri-fold screens, phones with a secondary display, new watches or glasses). Hinges and second screens are made for short-form video. ③ **Test with APKs in local communities first, charge when you hit the store** . Early users migrate over and give you launch-week numbers, and "anything in the APK stays free" carries the community's goodwill across.

**How to get users** : device fan groups in your country (Facebook groups, LINE groups, Zalo groups), local tech pages and review accounts, pitched as "made by a local". Also reply under big English accounts' posts about this category, the way Zach did on Threads, where a single reply can get thousands of views.

**When to move** : the window for riding this category has basically closed. For this playbook, the time to move is launch week of the next new form factor. Two weeks later and you're the fifth or sixth.

**What would mean you read it wrong** : ① deckade or Foldman charts in any country's Top Grossing music category in the next month or two. That would mean skin-style apps really earn money and are worth looking at more closely. ② Samsung or another vendor adds apps like this to official recommendations or new-phone promotion. Demand would then shift from novelty to lasting, and the category could keep going a while. ③ The reverse: if Foldman is still stuck at a few thousand installs by December, the wave never lifted even its leader.

[Android store page ↗](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.sidea)

**Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report**

Competitors

| Name | Where | Launched | Scale | How it differs from this one |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Deck-Man (formerly Duo-Man, Squircle Apps / Vidit Bhargava) | iOS | Demoed on X by 2026-09, live on 2026-10-14 | 178 US ratings, #1 in the US Paid Music chart and #16 overall Top Paid; covered by TechCrunch, Axios, PCMag, CNET | Source of the trend, on iOS, $4.99 paid download, doesn't connect to Android streaming apps like Spotify |
| Foldman: cassette player(APPxygen) | Android | On Play 2026-10-24 (10-02 TikTok demo already out) | 4,134 installs, 50 ratings at 4.69 stars, charting in 12 storefronts, best #64 on the UK music free chart; 9 to 5 covered by Google, TikTok video with 380K views | The Android leader, with much stronger international reach and media exposure; in-app purchase $0.99–7.49; fewer themes and grip modes than deckade |
| deveshrai/Foldman | Open source | 2026-10-21 | GitHub 16 star | Free and open source, mainly local files and YT Music |
| Bionic Tape: Cassette Player(HMZ.swiss) | Android | 2026-10-08 | 822 installs, 37 ratings, charted #10,18 on the US store's Top Paid Music chart | $2.99 paid download; the gimmick is dragging a tape into a deck; connecting Spotify requires users to create their own developer app |
| NostalgicPod – Retro Player | Android | 2026-06-05 | 2,919 installs | iPod style, not built specifically for foldable screens |

Where users come from

- **Verified** **Existing APK users migrate to Play** : 10-05 posted the APK on ploykhong.app; the site says "everything in the APK stays free"; worldittoday 10-11 said "downloads are climbing fast, going to Play Store soon"

- **Verified** **Thai Fold fan Facebook group** : galaxyzthailandfanclub 10-06 user posted: "updated three times a day" "free, no ads"

- **Verified** **Thai local tech accounts pushing it (emphasizing "made by Thais")** : worldittoday 10-11 posted with video; IAUMReview posted on FB and TikTok "best of the year, made by Thais"

- **Verified** **Developer posted on Threads / TikTok / IG** : Threads 10-23 piggybacked on the Foldman discussion, 4.8K views; TikTok 10-14 demo, 612 plays; IG posted "deckade is on the Play Store"

- **Verified** **platform event (iPhone Duo / Z Fold 8 launch, sparking a foldable cassette-phone trend)** : TechCrunch 9-28 covered Duo-Man; 9 to 5 Google 10-21 covered Foldman

- Inferred **Paid acquisition** : no ads for this product in the ad library; zero ratings and charted in only one store, which doesn't look like paid buying

## Why deckade – Retro Player (formerly Side A, app.sidea) broke out

> Channel: Google Play · Developer zachisthis (Thai indie dev Zakariya Wohya / Zach W.) · Store launch 2026-10-26 · Research date 2026-11-06

### One line

It's a "retro skin + remote" app: it doesn't include a music library. Instead, it uses Android's notification access to read what's playing on Spotify / YouTube Music / Apple Music / TIDAL, and renders it as 90-era cassette decks, radios, and floppy-disk PCs. It has four modes built for the inner and outer screens of the Galaxy Z Fold 8. Free, with Plus as a $4.99 one-time purchase.

**Conclusion** : It didn't "break out on its own." It rode the Thai slice of the "foldable + retro walkman" wave of 2026 9–October. The iPhone Duo's Duo-Man/Deck-Man blew up in September, and the Samsung Z Fold 8 followed with Foldman, Bionic Tape, and others. Side A was the "made in Thailand" one: it spread through Thai Fold fan groups and local tech accounts, shipped as an APK first, and only went to Google Play in October 26. Old APK users migrated over, and local recommendations pushed it onto the Thai Top Free Music chart (peaking at #19). Cumulative global installs: 2,739. Still small, and Thailand is its only market.

### 1. Data: how big is it

Source: our googleplay library (app_day / chart_rank, collected once a day since 2026-10-29).

| Date | Cumulative global installs | Daily increase | Thai music free chart | Version |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10-29 | 62 | – | 21 | 1.0.3 |
| 10-30 | 588 | +526 | **19** | 1.0.4 |
| 11-01 | 588 | 0 | 55 | 1.1.1 |
| 11-02 | 2,406 | +1,818 | 62 | 1.1.2 |
| 11-03 | 2,528 | +122 | 67 | 1.2.0 |
| 11-06 | 2,739 | +211 | 97 | 1.2.1 |

- Installs are stepping up in jumps (588 held for three days, 2,406 for one day, 2,528 for three days). That looks more like Google Play refreshing install counts every few days than installs actually jumping 1,818 on a given day. Taken together from 10-29 to 11-06, it works out to roughly 300 installs a day.

- Chart rank has been sliding: 10-30 #19 → 11-06 #97. **The surge came in its first week after launch and is now fading.** It has only charted in one store (n_countries_now=1), with zero ratings.

- 版本 1.0.3 → 1.2.1,9 天发了 8 个版本(泰国 Fold 群里说它"一天更新三次",见下)。

- Revenue: Plus is a one-time $4.99 (iap_range). It has no Top Grossing ranking, and revenue isn't visible or public.

### 2. Competitors: who else is doing this

This category only appeared in September 2026, triggered by Apple's first foldable iPhone, the iPhone Duo (TechCrunch 2026-09-09 launch coverage), and the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8. Two screens plus a hinge make it a natural fit for imitating the walkman experience: open the lid, load a tape, close it and listen.

| Product | Platform | Launched | Scale (source) | How deckade differs from the others |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| **Deck-Man (originally Duo-Man)** · Squircle Apps / Vidit Bhargava | iOS | Demoed on X in September, listed on the App Store 2026-10-14 | US store: 178 ratings, 7 days +68; charted #1 on the US Top Paid Music chart and #16 on overall Top Paid (appstore library). Covered by TechCrunch 9-28, Axios 10-05, PCMag, CNET, and Yahoo. | The source of the trend. $4.99 paid download. Only plays Apple Music / local music, and only on iOS. |
| **Foldman: cassette player** · APPxygen | Android | Play 2026-10-24 (the demo already had 10-02 on TikTok) | 4,134 installs, 50 ratings at 4.69 stars, charted in 12 stores' Free Music charts, peaking at #64 in the UK (googleplay library) | Covered by 9 to 5 Google (10-21), SammyGuru, and Sammy Fans. TikTok has a video with 380K plays (techdude99___, 11-01). Better international rollout. In-app purchases $0.99–7.49. |
| **deveshrai/Foldman** (open source) | GitHub | 2026-10-21 | 16 stars (github library) | Same name as the one above. Open source, with a Reddit r/GalaxyFold thread. Unverified whether it's the same person as the APPxygen one. |
| **Bionic Tape: Cassette Player** · HMZ.swiss | Android | 2026-10-08 | 822 installs, 37 ratings, charted #10 on the US Top Paid Music chart and in 18 stores | $2.99 paid download; drag tapes into the deck; connecting Spotify requires users to create their own developer app |
| **Foldman – CD player** · APPxygen | Android | 2026-10-24 | 469 installs | The same developer's CD version |
| **NostalgicPod – Retro Player** | Android | 2026-06-05 | 2,919 installs | iPod style, not built specifically for foldable screens |
| Zedge **Tapedeck** | Android | 2026-09-11 | 29,552 installs | Only the name is similar. It's actually a music store, not a competitor. |
| Older cassette skins (Magnetola, Tape Cassette, Cassette Gold, etc.) | iOS | 2012–2020 | Dozens of ratings each | Only plays local files, isn't designed for foldables, and doesn't control streaming services |

**Conclusion** : Within this category, deckade is the smallest tier. Measured by installs, number of charted stores, and media coverage, Foldman is the leader on Android; on iOS, Deck-Man is the leader and the source of the whole trend.

### 3. Where users came from (growth tactics)

Timeline (all sourced):

1. **2026-10-05** : Side A ("Streaming Cassette Player") was featured on ploykhong.app ("ปล่อยของ", a showcase of apps made by Thais), when it was only available as an APK. The page has 494 views and 3 likes to date. <[ploykhong.app/w/side-a](https://ploykhong.app/w/side-a)>

2. **2026-10-06** : The Thai Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 … Thailand Facebook group (galaxyzthailandfanclub) had a post by user Panupong Sangpum: "This app updates three times a day … free, no ads." <[www.facebook.com/groups/galaxyzthailandfanclub/posts/2614456…](https://www.facebook.com/groups/galaxyzthailandfanclub/posts/2614456228988946/)>

3. **2026-10-11** : The Thai tech page โลกไอทีวันนี้ (worldittoday) posted with video: "A world-class app made by Thais, downloads already climbing fast, going to the Play Store soon." IAUMReview (a Thai phone-review account) also posted on FB and TikTok ("best of the year … made by Thais"). <[www.facebook.com/worldittoday/posts/1425640586429754/](https://www.facebook.com/worldittoday/posts/1425640586429754/)>

4. **2026-10-14** : The developer posted a demo on their own TikTok, 612 plays (TikHub); **10-23** posted on Threads "Another Fold 8 cassette app 👉 Side A", 4.8K views. It was posted under the Foldman discussion. <[www.threads.com/@zachisthis/post/De1In8SEkAo](https://www.threads.com/@zachisthis/post/De1In8SEkAo)>

5. **2026-10-26** : Renamed to deckade and launched on Google Play, with $4.99 Plus. The site says "everything in the APK stays free" (<[ploykhong.app/deckade](https://ploykhong.app/deckade)>). The developer posted on IG: "deckade is on the Play Store."

6. 10-29 to 10-30 it climbed to #19 on the Thai Free Music chart, then dropped off.

So the installs came from: **existing APK users migrating + the Thai Fold fan group + free promotion from Thai local tech accounts + the developer posting on Threads/TikTok/IG themselves** . No paid acquisition was seen (the googleplay library doesn't track ads, and the ad library has no ads for this product; absence there doesn't prove nothing was spent, but a zero-rating, single-store app doesn't look like it's buying installs). No English-language media or X coverage: searches in the x-radar corpus for deckade / Side A each return 0 results, and the coverage from 9 to 5 Google and others is all about Foldman.

### 4. Why it took off

- **Timing** : The iPhone Duo and Z Fold 8 had just launched, and the demo of "turning a foldable into a walkman" spread across TechCrunch, Axios, 9 to 5 Google, and TikTok (Deck-Man from 9-28, Foldman from 10-21). People who bought a Z Fold 8 were looking for apps to show off the new form factor. That demand came from the platform event.

- **Local sentiment** : Thai media headlines all emphasized "made by Thais (ฝีมือคนไทย)". National pride pushed local tech accounts and fan groups to share it. It also spread in Thailand before 9 to 5 Google covered Foldman (10-05/10-06/10-11). It wasn't following Foldman.

- **Product** : Four grips, four machines. It doesn't manage its own music library. It controls Spotify / Apple Music / TIDAL / YT Music, which users already have (Foldman's early versions focused on local files and YT Music). It has a "call the DJ to request a song" gimmick, supports Thai song requests, and updates very frequently.

- **The Thai chart bar is low** : reaching #19 on the Thai Free Music chart only takes a few hundred installs a day.

### 5. Differentiation, and whether that's why it took off

- Compared with Deck-Man, Foldman, and Bionic Tape, it differs in these ways: ① **It's only a shell over streaming apps** . It has no songs of its own, so it sidesteps licensing and storage. ② **It switches machines by grip** : outer screen vertical, outer screen horizontal, inner screen vertical, and inner screen horizontal are each a different machine, with many themes (14 free, 16 Plus, plus floppy-disk PCs and CD players). ③ Social and playful design: "call the DJ" song requests, stickers, and sharing to IG Stories. ④ Thai-language support and local focus (part of Plus revenue goes to the Thai Deaf Association).

- What actually drove its growth was **timing plus local Thai distribution** , not these differences. Similar apps got more installs and coverage outside Thailand (Foldman charted in 12 stores), while deckade was unknown outside Thailand. The differences built a reputation among Thai Fold users ("updated three times a day", "best of the year"), but they did not carry it beyond the country.

### 6. How many people see it now

- **Circulating in small circles** : the Thai Fold fan group, worldittoday, IAUMReview, and the Threads post with 4.8K views. English media, X, and Reddit don't mention it (English coverage is about Foldman and Deck-Man). Revenue is not public.

- But the **foldable cassette-player category itself has been widely covered** (TechCrunch, Axios, 9 to 5 Google, PCMag, CNET), and several players already compete on both iOS and Android.

### 7. Copycats

The category already has Deck-Man (iOS), Foldman (APPxygen + open source), Foldman CD player, Bionic Tape, Blueprint 4-Track (2026-10-13, four-track recorder style), and others. They launched within a few weeks of deckade, so there's no telling who copied whom. The only one that clearly copies deckade hasn't been found.

### 8. What others can borrow

- **Build for a new hardware form factor as soon as it ships, so people have a reason to show it off** : hinges, two inner-and-outer screens, "folds into one machine". It's naturally suited to short videos.

- **Skin and remote only, no content** : read other players' songs through notification access or MediaSession. No licensing, no catalog cost, and every streaming user can use it.

- **Ship the APK to a local community first, then sell on the store** : the community builds word of mouth first, and when you list on the store, your early users move over, so you get volume from day one.

- **Play the local card** : "made by a local" can rally media and fan groups in markets like Thailand, and small-country category charts have low entry bars, so you can chart fast.

### 9. Uncertain

- How many APK downloads before the Play launch (worldittoday only says it "went far", no number).

- Plus's conversion rate and revenue.

- The relationship between the two Foldmans (APPxygen's Play version and deveshrai's open-source version). APPxygen's TikTok account sereeimt posts Thai content and may also be a Thai team; unverified.

- The install curve is stepped, and it's impossible to tell how much of the daily increase is store refresh delay.

- The reason for the rename from deckade (a name clash? a trademark?) is unverified.

### Sources

- googleplay library: app_day / chart_rank / app_profile for app.sidea, app.foldman.deck, hmzinnovation.bionictape, net.zedge.tapedeck, com.nostalgicpod.app (2026-10-29 to 11-06)

- appstore library: app_profile for Deck-Man id6817070335 (2026-11-06)

- github library: deveshrai/Foldman

- Play Store page <[play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.sidea](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.sidea)>; websites <[ploykhong.app/deckade](https://ploykhong.app/deckade)>, <[ploykhong.app/w/side-a](https://ploykhong.app/w/side-a)>

- FB:worldittoday 2026-10-11;galaxyzthailandfanclub 2026-10-06;IAUMReview

- Threads @zachisthis 2026-10-23;TikTok @zachisthis 2026-10-14(TikHub)

- TechCrunch 2026-09-28 <[techcrunch.com/2026/09/28/the-iphone-duo-may-already-have-it…](https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/28/the-iphone-duo-may-already-have-its-first-killer-app-a-virtual-walkman/)>;Axios 2026-10-05;9to5Google 2026-10-21 <[9to5google.com/2026/10/21/walkman-player-for-the-galaxy-z-fo…](https://9to5google.com/2026/10/21/walkman-player-for-the-galaxy-z-fold-8/)>;SammyGuru;Sammy Fans 2026-10-22

- TikTok: techdude99___ 2026-11-01 (Foldman, 380k plays); tech.trx "Deck Man VS FOLDMAN"

This article was written by AI from public data and the data we collect daily. Numbers are sourced, and inferences are labeled.