# After the original was pulled: the fourth one, an Android package called "Mixtube", got nearly 100k installs in six weeks

> Source: https://stringers.io/en/apps/play_com.musicmixtube.tunedmusic.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

> The original Mixtube, which was very popular, was pulled from Play in July. Users were still searching for the name in the store. This one launched with the same name and copied copy, taking a share of that search traffic.

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

Mixtube - Offline Music Player · ASH AND PINE MEDIA

# After the original was pulled: the fourth one, an Android package called "Mixtube", got nearly 100k installs

**What it is** A free Android music app. The store listing calls it a local player, but users actually use it to search for songs, stream them, and cache them for offline listening. It earns from interstitial ads, and almost all its users are in the Philippines.

**Why it took off** The original Mixtube July, a very popular app, was pulled from Play, and users were still searching the store for that name. This one launched under the same name with copied copy and picked up a share of that search traffic.

**C** **How you could copy it** Don't fight for Mixtube, a keyword already crowded. Copy the play: watch for big-traffic apps getting pulled, then within two weeks put up a product with matching features and brand terms to catch the leftover search demand.

Grade C: the play is copyable, but the keyword already has Mixtube Lite with 1.95M installs and the returning original Mixtube pro. This one is the third or fourth copycat. It sits in a double grey zone of copyright and trademark, two of its kind have already been banned, and entering now isn't worth it. Few people know about it yet

Data (updated daily) · first launch 2026-09-25 · 11-07 installs 97,359

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.

Android · Ratings count (cumulative)

Data 2026-10-29 → 2026-11-07 (10 days, 10 observations)

An Android music app listed in Sep 25, called "Mixtube - Offline Music Player". By Nov 6 it had 97,359 installs, about 6,000 a day over the last week, and at one point ranked #8 on the Philippines Music & Audio free chart. It didn't build anything new. It got traction because the original Mixtube July, with 2,000 million+ downloads, was pulled from Google Play, and Philippine users still search the store for that name. Below: whose traffic it is taking, where the money comes from, how many people are already crowded into this keyword, and the one move from this story you can actually copy.

### A person who thought they got the old app back

In Oct 16, a user from the Philippines store left a 4-star review on its page:

> "I can't open this app, but I loved it on my old phones. Hope this time I can finally open it."

The one she meant from her old phone isn't this app. This app has only been on the store for three weeks, version 1.0.2, and it has never had an update. The one she likes is a different app: Offline Music Player - Mixtube (package name com.toto.jcyj.mvmix). It launched in May 2022, spread in the Philippines for several years, and reached over 2,000 million cumulative downloads. In Jul 2026 it was pulled from Google Play 7 (per AppBrain records; 11-06 its Play page now shows 404).

Another review from Oct 20 put it more bluntly (transliterated Hindi): "Sometimes I think this mixtube is just the second or third copy of Spotify... it plays videos with songs, you can download, and you can listen offline." In users' minds, "Mixtube" simply means "free Spotify".

### What it actually is

In the store it calls itself a local music player: import MP3 and FLAC from your phone, a ten-band equalizer, background playback. The first line of the description is "Mixtube, listen to all your beloved songs free, anytime, anywhere!" The line "No interruptions to music and videos" is also copied word for word from the original's store copy. The description still contains the iOS template sentence "charged to your iTunes Account", a sign the text was pasted in hastily.

What users actually use it for is searching songs, streaming them, and caching them for offline play, with content from YouTube (inferred from reviews and the original's usual behavior). Listing this kind of app as a "local player" is a common wrapper for getting past review.

The developer account is named ASH AND PINE MEDIA. Its developer website is just an app-ads.txt hosting address, and the privacy policy sits on Google Sites. The same email is tied to another account, DESK APP, which publishes a sports-streaming package. That account previously published packages like "Stream East Live" and "Streamflix", which borrowed pirate-site names to drive installs; all of them are gone now. It looks like an operator who specializes in piggybacking on names, getting banned, and switching accounts (inferred, not verified).

### Why now: the demand is still there, and the supply suddenly vanished

The timeline is clear:

| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| 2022-05-31 | Original Offline Music Player - Mixtube launched |
| 2026-05-29 | Mixtube Lite launched (it claimed the spot before the original was pulled) |
| 2026-07-07 | Original pulled by Google Play |
| 2026-07-17 | Mixtube pro launched, with the same developer name and email as the original, likely the original back under a new package |
| 2026-09-25 | This package launched |

Brand awareness had already been built. Searching "mixtube" on TikTok turns up many videos from Philippine and Latin American users, some with 1.5M views. One Tagalog video is titled "di ko afford yung spotify kaya mag mixtube tayo", meaning "I can't afford Spotify, so let's use Mixtube". On Reddit, after the takedown, people kept asking "mixtube got banned" and "MixTube won't allow new downloads". These videos and posts all predate this package, and none of them mention it.

So its growth logic comes down to one sentence: users search "mixtube" on Play, the original is gone, and a package with Mixtube in the name and the same copy takes a share.

### What the growth looked like

Cumulative global installs (Google Play install counts; the 10-13 figure is a third-party estimate):

| Date | Total installs |
|---|---|
| 10-13 | About 15k (estimated) |
| 10-20 | 24k |
| 10-26 | 54k |
| 10-31 | 69k |
| 11-03 | 88k |
| 11-06 | 97k |

In mid-October it ran at one to two thousand a day; from late October it climbed to six to nine thousand a day. In the Philippines, the Music & Audio Top Free chart had it at #16,11-01 to #11-02 on 10-29, then #8,11-06 to #15. It also charted in the UAE, Canada, Brazil and Australia's music charts, but all below #50, with very low volume; every review we could see came from the Philippine store.

112 ratings at 4.69 stars, but the distribution is 1–3 stars zero reviews, 4 stars 34 reviews, 5 stars 77 reviews, while reviews mention 1-star and 2-star ratings. The rating count is only about a thousandth of installs, and only the high-rating distribution looks like it may have been steered or padded (unverified).

No ads from it or any Mixtube-related advertiser turned up in the ad libraries. The install curve climbs in steps, which could be the reporting interval, or could hide small paid buys. Can't tell from the data.

### Where the money comes from

The store lists it as containing ads, with no in-app purchases. The description mentions a one-year ad-free subscription for $11.99, but the store doesn't offer it, so revenue is mostly ads. What users say about the ads:

> "Too annoying... there's an ad almost every minute. Not recommended." (Philippines store, 10-30,1 stars)

> "Doesn't work without internet 😭 Can't listen to music on a plane." (Philippines store, 10-28,1 stars)

> "After using it for a few days I found it takes forever to play the songs I want, and sometimes it won't play them at all." (Philippines store, 10-29,4 stars)

The ceiling for this business can be estimated from the original: a third-party estimate puts it at about 900k downloads a month in the Philippines before the takedown, with roughly $7,000 in monthly revenue (the month isn't clear). It's a low-price market with interstitial ads and free listening, so volume can be huge while each user is worth very little. At six thousand installs a day, this package's revenue is estimated at several hundred to a thousand or two a month (estimate).

### How many are crowded into the same keyword

| Product | Launched | Scale (11-06) | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| Offline Music Player - Mixtube (the original) | 2022-05 | Pulled after passing 2,000 million+ downloads | Brand source, no longer around |
| Mixtube Lite- Healing Melody | 2026-05-29 | 1.95M installs, up 140k a week, #2 on the Philippines music free chart | Biggest winner, claimed the spot before the original was pulled |
| Mixtube pro-Precise tuning | 2026-07-17 | 410k installs, up 80k a week | The original developer, back under a new package |
| This package | 2026-09-25 | 97k installs, up 43k a week | Latecomers |
| Two Mixtube packages from jsstudio and DIGITAL AE | 2026-05 | 77k / 18k | Smaller |
| Mixtube Pro-LyricLoop and MixTube (musflow) | 2026 | Play page now Not Found | Already pulled |
| Two Mixtubes on iOS | 2025-10 / 2026-09 | Philippines store 44 / 106 ratings | Small volume |

There's a long tail of grey offline-music packages that don't use the name but do the same thing (CrispTone, GoTune, PureTune, Melody Beat, TuneCarry...), with hundreds of thousands to millions of installs each, holding spots on the music charts in the Philippines, Nigeria, and Brazil.

The pattern is clear: **whoever claims the spot first gets the most** . Mixtube Lite launched more than a month before the original was pulled, and today it has 20 times this package's installs. This package came more than two months later and only ranks third or fourth. Two of its kind have already been banned, showing that packages on this path get banned fast and replaced fast.

### If it were you

**Bottom line:** Don't go after the "Mixtube" keyword. Five or six packages with that name have already split it, and it sits in a double grey zone of copyright and trademark. What you can copy is one move: watch the event of a big-traffic app being pulled, and be the first to take the spot while brand search is still unclaimed.

**Who it suits:** small teams already building utility Android apps for emerging markets, familiar with ad monetization, and able to handle bans; people with several developer accounts who think in short cycles and many packages.

**Who it doesn't suit:** anyone wanting to build a music product that keeps users long-term and can sell subscriptions; anyone with a single developer account who loses everything if it's banned; anyone unwilling to touch copyright grey zones.

**How to do it:** Don't do Mixtube. Build a "pulled list": each day, check which big packages on each country's Play chart suddenly disappear, and check whether the name is still being spread organically on TikTok and whether anyone on Reddit is asking "where did it go". When all three line up, ship a product with matching features within one or two weeks, with the name and keywords aimed at the exact term users are searching. Count the window in weeks, not months: in this Mixtube round, people were back to claim the spot 10 days after the original was pulled.

**How to get users:** No paid acquisition. It runs on store search. The store title, short description, and keywords target the brand term, and early ratings come from in-app prompts for good reviews. The user videos already on TikTok are your ads, so you don't have to make your own.

**When was the before:** This term's window has already closed. When the next opportunity shows up, you need to list within two weeks of the original being pulled. Waiting more than a month means you're mostly fighting over scraps.

**What would mean you got it wrong:** ① This package and Mixtube pro were both pulled before December. That means copycat packages like this have a shorter life than one acquisition cycle, and the math doesn't work. ② Mixtube Lite's weekly new installs fall below 50k. That means demand for the search term "mixtube" itself is declining, not just being split up. ③ On the other hand, if this package holds #20 on the Philippines music chart through December with over 5,000 a day, latecomers can still get a meaningful share, and the demand for this term is bigger than it looks.

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

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

Competitors

| Name | Where | Launched | Scale | How it differs from this one |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Offline Music Player - Mixtube (original: com.toto.jcyj.mvmix) | Android | 2022-05-31,2026-07-07 removed | Downloads of 25M before it was pulled. Monthly Philippines downloads before the pull were about 900k (Sensor Tower cache). | The brand source. This app is a clone that copies its name and copy. |
| Mixtube Lite- Healing Melody | Android | 2026-05-29 | 1.95M installs, 142k new per week, #2 on the Philippines Music free chart | Claimed the spot earlier. Its scale is 20 times this app's. |
| Mixtube pro-Precise tuning | Android | 2026-07-17 | 406k installs, +83k this week | The developer name and email match the original, so this is probably the original returning under a new package. |
| CrispTone / GoTune / PureTune / Melody Beat / TuneCarry and other grey-area offline music packages | Android | Most 2026 | Hundreds of thousands to a few million installs, near the top of music charts in the Philippines, Nigeria, and Brazil | Same features, but it doesn't piggyback on the Mixtube name |
| Spotify / YouTube Music | Big-company features | Early on | Billions of installs | Legitimate. Background playback and offline downloads cost money. This is the demand grey-area packages siphon off. |
| Mixtube - Full Music Player / Mixtube - Music Player & Mp3 | iOS | 2025-10 / 2026-09 | 44 / 106 ratings in the Philippines store | A same-name copycat on iOS, but with very small volume |

Where users come from

- **Confirmed** **Brand-name piggybacking + store search** : Mixtube is in the name and package name, and the copy is lifted from the original. Reviews say "I loved it on my past phones" and "mixtube app Spotify ki copy".

- **Confirmed** **Platform event (the original was pulled)** : AppBrain: com.toto.jcyj.mvmix was removed from Google Play on 2026-07-07. Multiple r/apps threads on Reddit ask why mixtube was banned.

- **Confirmed** **The brand's existing organic word of mouth on TikTok** : Searching mixtube on TikTok turns up lots of UGC saying "can't afford Spotify, so I use mixtube", with the top video at 1.55M views. All of it predates this app, and none of it mentions this app.

- Inferred **Multi-developer account network** : The same email elamrysofia@ and the same app-ads.txt host are also tied to a DESK APP account. ASH AND PINE MEDIA previously published copycat packages like Stream East Live and Streamflix.

- Inferred **Paid acquisition** : Nothing found in the metaads / googleads libraries. The install curve is stepwise, and the cause hasn't been verified.

## Mixtube - Offline Music Player (com.musicmixtube.tunedmusic) research report

Research date: 2026-11-06. Data sources: our googleplay library (app / app_snap / app_day_ext / chart_rank / review tables, agent-im server), the metaads / googleads libraries, Jina / Brave web search, TikHub TikTok search, x-radar, and the iTunes API.

### One line

It's a **name-squatting clone** . The original is the wildly popular Philippine free music app "Offline Music Player - Mixtube" (com.toto.jcyj.mvmix, launched in 2022, over 2,000 million downloads). On the surface it says "play local music offline," but in practice it's a gray-area player that can search YouTube songs and cache them for offline listening. The original was **pulled from Google Play in 2026-07-07** , so a lot of Filipino users searching "mixtube" in the store couldn't find it anymore. A group of developer accounts then stuffed "Mixtube" into names and package IDs and copied the original's store copy, all to capture that leftover brand-search traffic. This app is one of them. It only launched in Sep 25, so it's a late entrant, and not the biggest one either (Mixtube Lite has 1.95M installs and ranked #2 on the Philippines Free Music chart).

### 1. Who they are

- Developer account "ASH AND PINE MEDIA", contact email elamrysofia@gmail.com. The developer website is just an app-ads.txt hosting address, t73e96111.app-ads-txt.com, and the privacy policy is on Google Sites [googleplay library, app table].

- The same email and the same app-ads.txt host are also tied to another developer account, "DESK APP", which publishes "Gee Scores Sports TV" (28k installs) [googleplay library]. This indicates one operator running multiple developer accounts.

- The "ASH AND PINE MEDIA" that appears online is a California photography studio (Mark Keraly, LLC registered in 2021) [ca.ltddir.com; LinkedIn]. But this Play account previously published "Stream East Live" (since pulled) and "Streamflix: HD Movies TV App" (2026-06) [appbrain.com; softonic]. Both borrowed the names of pirated streaming services to gain traction. The guess is that this is a purchased or borrowed older developer account used specifically to piggyback on names for traction (**unverified** ).

- Version 1.0.2, not updated since it was listed on Sep 25. It's marked as containing ads, and the store doesn't show in-app purchases (offers_iap = False) [app_snap]. The copy mentions a subscription to remove ads (annual $11.99), and it still has iOS template phrases like "charged to your iTunes Account" and "ipa price", which look copy-pasted.

### 2. Growth data

- Cumulative global installs (googleplay library; earlier figures are AppstoreSpy estimates): 10-13 14,901 → 10-20 24,366 → 10-26 54,353 → 10-31 69,150 → 11-03 87,712 → 11-06 97,359. Over the last 7 days, new installs were 42,783, roughly 6,000 per day. In mid-October it was 1,000–3,000 per day, and from late October it rose to 6,000–9,000 per day.

- Charts: Philippines Music & Audio free chart 10-29, #16 → 11-01/02, #8 → 11-06, #15. UAE 52–73, Canada 116–156, Brazil 128–153, Australia 135–189. Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia only briefly appeared [chart_rank]. All reviews come from the Philippines store. Users are clearly mainly in the Philippines, and rankings elsewhere come from very small volume.

- 112 ratings, averaging 4.69 stars. But the histogram shows 1–3 stars with 0 ratings, 4 stars with 34 ratings, and 5 stars with 77 ratings [app_snap 11-06], yet the review sample clearly includes 1-star and 2-star reviews. The ratio of ratings to installs is only about 0.1%, and the histogram is almost all high scores, which suggests fake or prompted positive ratings (**unverified** ).

### 3. Competitors (all on Google Play, mostly the same kind of grey-area "offline music" packages)

| Product | Launched | Scale | How it differs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Offline Music Player - Mixtube (the original, com.toto.jcyj.mvmix, Australian publisher, developer "Mixtube Music player") | 2022-05-31 | Downloads of 25M before it was delisted. The Sensor Tower cache page shows monthly Philippines downloads of about 900k and monthly revenue of about $7,000 before the pull. Both are now below 5k [appbrain; sensortower]. | The source of the brand. Delisted from Play on 2026-07-07. This app is feeding on the search demand it left behind. |
| Mixtube pro-Precise tuning(com.mixtube02.playermusi) | 2026-07-17 (10 days after the original was pulled) | 406k installs, 83k new per week [googleplay library] | The developer name and email (hook123qaws@) match the original, so this is probably the original returning under a new package. It has a stronger claim to "Mixtube" than this app does. |
| Mixtube Lite- Healing Melody(Next G Solution) | 2026-05-29 | 1.95M installs, 142k new per week, #2 on the Philippines Music free chart [googleplay library] | Listed before the original was pulled. It's the biggest winner, at 20 times this app's scale. |
| Mixtube Offline Music Player(jsstudio) / Offline Music Player-Mixtube(DIGITAL AE LTD) | 2026-05-22 / 05-29 | 77k / 18k installs [googleplay library] | Same name-piggybacking, but with less volume than this app |
| Mixtube Pro-LyricLoop, MixTube (com.mixtube.musflow) | 2026 | Appears in search results, but the Play page currently returns Not Found | Already delisted, which shows this kind of package gets shut down and replaced quickly |
| iOS "Mixtube - Full Music Player" / "Mixtube - Music Player & Mp3" | 2025-10 / 2026-09 | 44 / 106 ratings in the Philippines store [iTunes API] | Someone on iOS also uses this name, but the volume is very small |
| Similar grey-area offline music packages: CrispTone, GoTune (Technology Hub Pro), PureTune, Melody Beat (Flores), TuneCarry, OffPlay, TubuPlay, and others | Most listed in 2026 | Hundreds of thousands to a few million installs, near the top of music charts in the Philippines, Nigeria, and Brazil [googleplay library, PH chart 11-06] | They do the same thing (free YouTube song listening plus offline caching), they just don't piggyback on the Mixtube name |
| Legitimate products: Spotify, YouTube Music, Lark Player, InShot Music Player | Early on | 100M-scale | Either licensed or real local players. Background playback and offline downloads require payment. This is exactly the demand the grey-area packages can capture. |

### 4. Growth tactics

1. **Piggybacking on the brand name and siphoning store search (confirmed)** . The name is "Mixtube - Offline Music Player", and the package name contains musicmixtube. The opening copy, "Mixtube, listen to all your beloved songs free, anytime, anywhere!", and "No interruptions to music and videos" are both lifted from the original's store copy (compare the original's listings on softonic and aptoide). Reviews include "I loved it on my past phones" and "yeh mixtube app Spotify ki 2nd ya 3rd copy hai" [review table]. Users thought they were reinstalling the original Mixtube.

2. **Platform event (confirmed)** : The original was pulled on 2026-07-07 [appbrain]. On Reddit, people kept asking "mixtube got banned" and "MixTube won't allow new downloads" [multiple r/apps threads]. The brand demand is still there, but the supply suddenly disappeared.

3. **The brand's own organic TikTok word of mouth (confirmed, but not something this app generated)** : Searching "mixtube" on TikTok turns up many videos from Philippine and Latin American users, spontaneously posted, with content like "can't afford Spotify, so use mixtube." They range from tens of thousands to 1.5M views. Examples: @jemanimates 1.55M views, @jr31gn 1.5M views, @yourmay15 "di ko afford yung spotify kaya mag mixtube tayo" [TikHub]. All of this predates this app's listing, and none of it mentions this app. It only benefited from the brand's recognition.

4. **No paid acquisition found** . The metaads and googleads libraries have no advertiser matching this package name or the Mixtube name. But those libraries only track listed products, so not finding anything doesn't mean nothing was spent. The install curve is stepwise (10-21, 10-25/26, and 10-30/31 each jump 8k–17k over a few days), which could come from the sampling interval or from small-budget buys, **unverified** .

5. **Multi-account network (likely)** : The same email is tied to two developer accounts, and this account previously published copycat streaming packages. This is the playbook of "if one account gets banned, switch to another."

### 5. Why it took off, and where the money comes from

- Demand side: young users in emerging markets like the Philippines want free music that plays in the background and works offline for popular songs, and won't pay for Spotify or YouTube Premium. "Mixtube" got passed around on TikTok as shorthand for "free Spotify."

- Supply side: the original was pulled from the store, and searching "mixtube" in the store now returns a pile of clones splitting the traffic. This app is named Mixtube and copies the original's copy, so it gets a share of the search traffic.

- Retention and monetization: reviews say "an ad every minute," "can't be used without internet," "takes forever to play the song I want" [review]. It relies on interstitial ads running volume in low-priced markets, so retention is probably mediocre. The ad-free subscription doesn't show up as an in-app purchase on the store, so revenue comes mostly from ads, and the scale is small.

- Risk: these apps are nominally local players but actually pull YouTube content, and they ride on someone else's trademark. They can be pulled at any time (similar apps LyricLoop and musflow are already gone).

### 6. Differentiation

The product itself has no differentiation: features and copy match the original and dozens of similar packages, and it hasn't shipped an update. Its only "difference" is that its **name contains Mixtube** . That's why it's gaining traction, but it's riding someone else's name, not building a moat. And under the same term there's the earlier, bigger Mixtube Lite, plus the original Mixtube Pro returning, so this one ranks third or fourth.

### 7. Visibility and copycats

- Revenue isn't public, no media has covered it, and there were 30 discussions on X in 0 days [x-radar]. No dedicated TikTok content about this package. It falls under "few people know about it yet."

- But this playbook is already crowded: at least 5 packages in the library have Mixtube in their names, 2 more have already been pulled, plus 2 on iOS. It's a copycat itself.

### 8. What others can borrow

- Watch the event "a high-traffic gray-area app gets pulled": the brand term of a pulled app keeps getting searched for a long time, and the first packages to take its place capture most of it (Mixtube Lite took the spot before the original was pulled, which is why it's the biggest).

- The demand for a "free Spotify alternative" in emerging markets has always existed, and users will spread it organically on TikTok.

- But this path carries very high compliance risk (copyright plus trademark), with frequent bans and takedowns. It only pencils out if you model it as "multiple accounts, short cycles, ad monetization."

### 9. Uncertain

- Whether they spent on paid acquisition (not covered by the ad libraries).

- Whether the rating histogram's concentration of 4–5 star reviews is fake or incentivized, or a store display-convention issue.

- Who actually owns the developer account (a purchased California LLC account, or a same-name coincidence).

- The original's 900k monthly downloads and $7,000 monthly revenue from Sensor Tower are cached numbers in a search summary, and I don't know which month they correspond to.

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