Still listenable with the screen locked: a small Slovak studio turned "YouTube background play" into a subscription business

Music Tube: Background Player launched on Google Play in Aug 11. By Nov 6 it had 423k installs, and it's now adding about 10k a day over the past week. What it does is something YouTube charges for and dozens of "XXTube" apps offer for free: the video keeps playing after the screen locks. It isn't the first and it's far from the biggest. The top rivals in its category have over 100M installs each. It's worth a look because, in an old category where everyone makes money from ads, it charges a subscription, sells a lifetime license, and rates higher than its peers. Behind it is a small Slovak team that has already built two tools with a million installs each. Below: how it survives, where the money comes from, who it's competing with, and what you can take from it.

A user who bought the lifetime license

On Sep 8, a user named Jay Be left a review on the store page. 57 people later marked it helpful:

"I bought the lifetime license. When I skip to the next song, it doesn't stay in the playlist I'm listening to... Really thanks, you guys."

The developer replied by admitting it was a bug, then explained something few in this category make clear: "With the lifetime license, our own ads no longer show. The ads in the video come from the website you're browsing, and we can't skip those."

Earlier, on Sep 3, a user named RJM complained the free trial was too short: "Three days isn't enough for me to decide whether to subscribe. Give me a month." On Aug 18, a French user said the search bar couldn't be tapped during playback. The next day the developer replied: "Fixed already, update and try again."

These three reviews sum up the app: some people pay a one-time fee for "listen to video with the screen locked," there's a 3-day trial subscription, and the developer answers reviews herself and fixes bugs the next day.

What it is

It's basically a built-in browser. Open YouTube, YouTube Music, Twitch, TikTok, Rumble, or any video site inside it, hit play, and the video becomes a "music track" with a title, cover art, and progress bar. Switch away or lock the screen and the sound keeps going. There's a mini player bar at the bottom with a sleep timer, and the lock screen and notification shade let you pause and skip tracks.

The last paragraph of the store page is worded carefully, in small print: "Music Tube is an independent browser app with no affiliation to YouTube, Google, Twitch, TikTok, or Rumble... It does not download videos; it only plays public web content in the background." The official site's FAQ repeats the same thing. This wording is a big part of why it can survive on Play (more below).

Why it's growing now: the demand was always there, and it's buying its way up

The demand was created by YouTube itself: background playback is a paid Premium feature. Many users in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and South Asia don't want to pay for it and just want to listen with the screen off. You can gauge how big that demand is from its peers: Pure Tuber has 186M cumulative installs and is still growing by 7k over the last 537 days; GoTube has 113M, up 7k in 438 days (Google Play install counts, 11-06).

Music Tube's curve has no single spike. It has accelerated steadily (8 through October figures are third-party estimates; November figures are public store numbers):

Daily installs rose from about 3k in 8 through September, to 6–8k in October, to about 10k in early November. It has 6,355 ratings at 4.6 stars, and gets 110–145 new reviews a day.

The charts show where its users are: in Nov 6 it was on the music category free chart, #33 in Malaysia, #34 in Thailand, #42 in Saudi Arabia, #57 in Vietnam, #72 in Taiwan, #73 in Poland, #75 in India, and #78 in Indonesia. In the US and Germany it only ranked around #190.

The one traffic source I can confirm is store search. The title packs in "Tube" and "Background Player," two high-volume keywords. The short description is "Play any video in background as music. Screen off, lock screen & sleep timer," and the long description keeps repeating background music player and screen off, all terms users actually search for. The official site getmusictube.app leads its FAQ with "What app lets videos play in the background?", and the download buttons carry attribution parameters.

The other two are inferences:

• Paid acquisition: the steady daily growth, the best rankings in the cheapest-install countries, and a subscription that can pay back ad spend all point to Google App Campaigns. I didn't find it in public ad libraries, so this is unverified.
• Borrowing an old name: "Music Tube" was a well-known iOS YouTube background-play app around 2014–2017, and there are still old recommendation threads about it on Reddit. That app has long been removed. The shared name may catch some of the old search traffic. I don't know whether that was intentional.

I couldn't find any videos or discussion about it on TikTok or X, no creators promoting it, and no press coverage.

How it survives and gets paid comes down to three things

1. Packaging. Most peers are "YouTube clients" with names that skirt the line. Music Tube calls itself a general video browser that supports multiple sites, doesn't download anything, and has no affiliation with any platform. That makes it harder to take down with a trademark or copyright complaint. Musi, an older iOS peer, was pulled from the App Store after a YouTube complaint 2024 years ago (background information, not re-verified). Music Tube's iOS version only launched in Nov 4.

2. How it charges. Its top peers rely almost entirely on ads. Music Tube offers a subscription (3-day free trial), a lifetime license at $4.99–$29.99 in-app, and ads on top. In Nov 6 it ranked #184–#190 on the music category Top Grossing chart across a dozen-plus stores, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Netherlands, and Poland. The rankings are so uniform they look like one aggregated table, which suggests revenue, but probably not much (inference). I can't see how much it actually earns.

3. Care. It rates 4.6 stars, while peers sit at 3.9–4.4. The developer answers reviews personally and fixes things fast. In under three months since launch, its version number went from 1.0.38 to 1.0.70.

These three things help it survive and collect revenue, but they haven't helped it attract users. People come for "listen with the screen locked," not for "supports Rumble." It's two to three orders of magnitude smaller than the leaders, and its differentiation hasn't turned into a distribution advantage.

Who's behind it

Try the Colors s.r.o. is a company in Biely Kostol, a small town in Slovakia. Its support email is on Gmail, and another brand, domingolabs.com, is just a single image. The same developer has 7 apps on Play with 5.52M installs combined: Paint my Room 3M, Lightbox draw 1.27M, Paint my House 440k, Bowling Speed Meter 360k. The playbook is the same each time: find a need people search for, build a tool, and put the keywords in the title. Music Tube is another entry in that playbook.

Who it's competing with

(Scale is Google Play installs, 11-06.) New "XXTube" and "Music Downloader" apps keep launching in this category every month. More than a dozen peers have launched since June. I haven't seen anyone copy its formula of a multi-site browser plus subscription plus carefully worded compliance language.

If it were you

Verdict: Don't build another free, ad-funded "XXTube." That lane is full of older players with 100M installs each. The narrow lane Music Tube takes is worth trying: the same demand, compliant packaging, subscriptions and one-time licenses to raise the value of each user, then reinvest the revenue buying installs in cheaper countries. The opportunity is real, but its ceiling and lifespan are in YouTube's and Google's hands.

Who it suits: small teams that have built Android utility apps, understand store keywords, and can handle subscription paywalls and multi-language localization. Teams with several utility apps already, who can treat this as one product in a portfolio rather than their whole bet.

Who it doesn't suit: solo developers with one account who can't survive a takedown; anyone who wants a long-term brand or a moat; anyone unwilling to spend on acquisition or who expects content and word of mouth to drive growth (almost nobody talks about this category on TikTok).

How to build it: the product is a WebView browser plus the system media session: video becomes an audio track, with lock screen controls, sleep timer, and a mini player bar. One person can finish it in a few weeks. Write the store page the same way: don't put any platform name in the title, and end the description with a clear line such as "independent browser, no downloads, not affiliated with any platform." Put a subscription with a 3-day trial behind the paywall, and also offer a one-time lifetime license. The most promising gaps are the ones it hasn't seriously worked: Arabic, Indonesian, Vietnamese, and Thai markets, where it ranks well but likely hasn't localized carefully; and iOS, which it has only just started, where no solid replacement has existed since Musi was removed.

How to get users: build on store search, with the title and short description leaning on background player, screen off, and lock screen. Once the subscription pays back, run Google App Campaigns in cheaper markets like Malaysia, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam. Work out the trial-to-paid conversion rate before raising the budget. Add a one-page FAQ on the official site that answers searches like "what app plays videos in the background."

Timing: there's no firm window. The demand has been there since 2015 and won't disappear in the short term. But aim to move before it finishes iOS and its main languages, roughly the next six months (estimate).

Signs you've misread it: (1) Music Tube's iOS version or its Play version is pulled within weeks: the "general browser" packaging isn't enough protection, and this path is narrower than it looks. (2) Its daily installs stall around 10k or start falling, and it drops off the Top Grossing charts: the subscription can't support paid acquisition, and ad-based models still rule. (3) The reverse: if it climbs into the top 100 in expensive markets like the US or Germany, or a few copycat subscription apps appear within a month or two, the path works but competition is starting to crowd in.

Data and sources

• Installs and ratings: public Google Play store page figures (10-29 through 11-06, daily); 8 through October figures are third-party estimates from AppstoreSpy.
• Charts: Google Play music category free and Top Grossing charts, 11-06.
• Store page description, reviews, and developer replies: Google Play US storefront, read 11-06.
• Official site: getmusictube.app; iOS version: listed under App Store id 6795584699,2026-11-04.
• Version history: APKPure version page.
• Developer's other apps: Google Play developer page.
• Old app with the same name: public posts on Reddit r/iphone, r/LifeProTips, and r/apple.