Why Leaf Player exists
Personal media deserves a good front door.
A carefully kept collection should not feel second-class because it lives in folders instead of a streaming catalog.
The idea
People keep audio and video in many sensible places: an iPhone, iCloud Drive, a NAS, a WebDAV server, a cloud drive, or a media server. The storage can stay distributed while playback remains coherent. Leaf Player is the small, native layer that connects those choices to listening and watching.
The product boundary
Leaf Player is not a generic file manager, a hosted media relay, a social network, or an algorithmic recommendation feed. It concentrates on source access, browsing, playback quality, resume reliability, metadata, offline availability, and understandable failures.
The privacy boundary
There is no developer-run Leaf Player account or media server. Remote file sources are read-only, credentials are stored using platform protections such as Keychain, and behavioral analytics are not collected. Provider accounts stay separate and are connected only when you choose them.
The craft
Leaf Player is developed independently by Xiaochen Cui. It is built as a native iOS and iPadOS application, using Apple’s playback stack for native media and a governed MobileVLCKit route for extended containers. The point is not to expose engine complexity; it is to make a wider collection feel dependable.