When you have a killer collection of hi-res music files or myriad albums on your iPhone, digging deep into your library can be a pain, especially since the advent of Apple Music’s newest app. Or so discovered developer Julien Parouty. He has been collecting music, from classical to classic rock, for a lifetime. Getting to the right track, getting fresh suggestions for listening to what he owned, and discovering new music proved trying.

He decided to create Jam On (www.jamon.fm), an iOS app that allows you to browse and explore your collection efficiently and creatively. The app makes suggestions of less frequently heard tracks based on your listening history, suggests new music, and lets you preview and purchase new tracks, a discovery feature unique to Jam On. Designed for the audiophile and the serious fan, Jam On provides a way to gain some of the functionality of an on-demand music service, while supporting artists and allowing higher-quality sound files, for a truly music-friendly experience.

“Curating your own library is a way to support artists and keep control of your music,” explains Parouty. “It’s a matter of belief on my part. I know there are lots of music fans like me, who want to own their music because they will have it forever.”

Parouty hails from Lyons, France, where he grew up listening avidly to music, often on a Walkman a friend gave him. He used to carry several cases of CDs back and forth from his college in the U.S. when he’d return home for vacation. The arrival of the iPod changed that, and the iPhone added to his 1000-album collection’s portability.

Yet Parouty, who has a background in engineering and product development, was irked by the quirks and limitations of the available apps for listening to his music library on his phone. The apps out there for listening to your library and getting recommendations to keep you out of music ruts were few and far between, and none of them helped you discover new music.

Apple had always been the main source of useful tools to listen to and organize music for listeners like Parouty. But with the latest changes to their music products, music fans who use their phones for extended, deep listening to large libraries are left out in the cold.

“For many years, Apple’s app was focused on the use-case of playing your own music,” he says. “Now, with the new service, they’ve packed Connect, Beats1, streaming into one app. It is hard to design an app that way and still make it something people will enjoy using. Listening by artist, browsing by album, shuffle… all these things take a lot of thought and way too many screen interactions to be a good experience.”

The problems may seem small, but they multiply with large libraries. Jam On adds another layer of function to help listeners navigate their libraries--and expand them. “The power of the discovery feature in the app is that it draws on your listening habits, in the app and online, then makes recommendations that include new artists or tracks that aren’t in your library, as well as music you already own,” Parouty explains. “You can preview and buy these new discoveries directly from Jam On,” a feature found on no other similar app.

Jam On is a true labor of love, programmed for the sheer pleasure in off hours, sometimes in the car at his children’s sports practices. “Part of the reason it’s so satisfying is that I don’t get to do engineering work in my day job anymore. But I’m an engineer at heart. I’ve always loved to build stuff and see how they work. The tinkering aspect of the project has been almost as thrilling as finding new music to love. I’ve really enjoyed doing what it takes to make Jam On work great for listeners like me.”