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Red Sky Labs Muzio Player adds required phone permissions

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Muzio Player (rebranded as Music Player — MP3 Player) is a popular[1] music-playing Android app available on the Google Play store. The default is a free ad-supported version, with a weekly subscription for the ad-free premium.

Background

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Sometime in February 2025, the permissions "READ_PHONE_STATE" and "ANSWER_PHONE_CALLS" were added. These permissions became progressively more intrusive, culminating in the incident below.[1]

Muzio Player update introduces mandatory phone permissions

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In March 2025,[2] Red Sky Labs made an unannounced update to Muzio Player that made access to the user's phone logs, contacts, and other related aspects required. Refusing the new permissions would cause the application to not function.[3][4][5][6] According to the information given by the app, it was for an "After Call" feature that dealt with scanning for viruses.[1][7]

Red Sky Labs' response

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Due to the persisting negative reception from the community, Red Sky Labs made a statement on 17 February 2026 confirming that it had removed the phone permissions and the "After Call" feature.

[...] Those phone log permissions and the After Call feature were absolutely a mistake. We've completely removed them to prioritize your privacy[...] Please update to the latest version; we're committed to a clean, music-focused experience![8]

Consumer response

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The reaction was negative, with many either updating their old reviews — or submitting new ones if for the first time — to a one-star rating. The most common complaints were:

  • Invasion of privacy[9]
  • Unable to use the app if access was refused, even on the premium version[10]
  • Advertising on the call screen or the app's UI overlay in general interfering with the phone app's UI[11]
  • Bloatware since anti-virus scanning was a completely unrelated field for a music player to expand into[8][12]

One enterprising individual decided to investigate this change for themselves and determined that no virus scanning was actually taking place:

"After clicking around on the application, fortunately nothing suspicious came up. Lots of calls were made to websites made for advertisement with some information about the device being sent. [...]
The application never made any kind of virus scan after the calls, it just displayed more advertisement than in the app and on startup[...] Fortunately it was “just” that and not for some sort of other shady stuff."[13]

See also

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References

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  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 MorCJul (13 Jun 2025). "Muzio Music Player (100M+ Downloads on Google Play Store) claims it needs access to Phone Call log to "Allow Muzio to check for potential viruses after calls"". Reddit. Archived from the original on 7 May 2026. Retrieved 7 May 2026.
  2. ↑ Nguyen, Phuc (7 Mar 2025). "Music Player - MP3 Player | Ratings and Reviews". Google Play. Archived from the original on 8 May 2026. Retrieved 7 May 2026.
  3. ↑ Strimaitis II, Robert (21 Mar 2025). "Music Player - MP3 Player | Ratings and Reviews". Google Play. Archived from the original on 9 May 2026. Retrieved 7 May 2026.
  4. ↑ Whitton, Brent (10 Jun 2025). "Music Player - MP3 Player | Ratings and Reviews". Google Play. Archived from the original on 9 May 2026. Retrieved 30 Apr 2026.
  5. ↑ Anderson, Brandy (15 Jul 2025). "Music Player - MP3 Player | Ratings and Reviews". Google Play. Archived from the original on 9 May 2026. Retrieved 30 Apr 2026.
  6. ↑ BrightOrganization9 (26 Jun 2025). "Muzio Music Player (100M+ Downloads on Google Play Store) claims it needs access to Phone Call log to "Allow Muzio to check for potential viruses after calls"". Reddit. Archived from the original on 9 May 2026. Retrieved 8 May 2026.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  7. ↑ Pruitt, Justin (27 Jun 2025). "Music Player - MP3 Player | Ratings and Reviews". Google Play. Archived from the original on 9 May 2026. Retrieved 30 Apr 2026.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Mills, Jonathan (20 Jul 2025). "Music Player - MP3 Player | Ratings and Reviews". Google Play. Archived from the original on 9 May 2026. Retrieved 6 May 2026.
  9. ↑ Qais Arsala official (10 Jun 2025). "Music Player - MP3 Player | Ratings and Reviews". Google Play. Archived from the original on 9 May 2026. Retrieved 30 Apr 2025.
  10. ↑ Aran Christoper Fisher (16 Mar 2025). "Music Player - MP3 Player | Ratings and Reviews". Google Play. Archived from the original on 9 May 2026. Retrieved 7 May 2026.
  11. ↑ Buckley, Joe (5 Jul 2025). "Joe Buckley's Post". Facebook. Archived from the original on 7 May 2026. Retrieved 7 May 2026.
  12. ↑ Rankine, Gordon (18 Jul 2025). "Music Player - MP3 Player | Ratings and Reviews". Google Play. Archived from the original on 9 May 2026. Retrieved 7 May 2026.
  13. ↑ Krypton (13 Feb 2026). "Investigating a music player app that claims to scan against viruses". krypton.ninja. Archived from the original on 8 May 2026. Retrieved 7 May 2026.
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