As of Jan 3,2011...
If anyone can give information / review about how different apps save downloaded art, it would be very helpful. It seems that art can be embedded in ID3 tags, or it can have put in a folder. But different programs save in different folders or into an "album art" file...which may not be compatible with different programs. Also, how does iTunes, Winamp, and Windows Media handle this? (Ive used each for my music collection, and so may have different types of cover art formats in my collection)
12/28/2010 I didn't mean to start making this into a bigger post. But let me first say what I'm looking at/for:
Features I'm paying attention to:
headset control
Lock Screen and homepage widget
General UI ( and in particular, ease of getting from a "playlist" back to the "Now playing" quickly
Features which are sort of cool to me:
lyric display
Folder / File Organization
Album art (it would help me if someone could tell me about the different types and options here. ID3 mode? Files?
(and a distant fourth in importance) Video player
Equalizer (I don
't care about this but everyone else seems to be)
Features are just can't get myself to care about:
Scrobbing (whatever the hell that is)
Social stuff
Any damn fraking thing that statistically analyzes my preference in order to help me decide what I like. I don't want to robotize my music.
So this is what I have looked at so far:
Samsung Default:
Great Status bar and lock screen controls. headset controls. Has equalizer. NO Folder Select (it scans all music on the phone and so will get unintended stuff into the library). Nothing special other than this, but it a good app. HOWEVER, I'm now using Darky's ROM which does not have the Samsung Lock Screen. The Samsung player's lockscreen widget is tied to the Samsung lockscreen. Also does not have homescreen widget, but this is more than made up for by the very good notification bar integration.
Meridian:
Plays video and music. Headset controls but no lock screen. Good gesture control. Edit ID Tags
Cubed:
Video and Music. NIce Lockscreen widget. Headset controls. Art download in ID3 mode. However I still don't terribly like the interface, but it works. Has a directory filter , so can play just a folder and keep out unwanted songs (like game songs). Downloads art in ID3...method. Don't know if that's good or bad. There really is no "Now Playing" screen. It just shows it super-imposed on the song library. Which is not pretty but its actually functional. For me, Cubed is a good free app.
MixZing:
Plays music and video. Options up the yingyang, including lots of social crap. I'm not going to detail here because lockscreen version is a paid app, and I'm focusing on not paying (it does have trial period though). Good UI. Can do folder view, and has good folder management options. Can switch between folder list and now playing very quickly. Has headset controls. Has Equalizer. Auto-download album art. The free version is staying on my phone because it plays video. Lots of damn social crap.
Winamp:
Just plays Music. Interface easy, but maybe a little dull (maybe there are skinning options?). Has headset controls and lockscreen. Ability to look up info and search on the artist. Ability to syn with Winamp desktop, so a good choice if you use that. Some social crap. No Equalizer
DoubleTwist:
Looks a little like Winamp, but also plays video. Has Lockscreen wideget and headset controls. With $5 purchase can sync with Itunes. No equalizer.
UI is mostly good, if not exciting. Does not do folder view(!). Not that many options. If I wanted to use one player for both music and video, and have the lockscreen widget and handset controls, this definitly works. It also has art download, but that's not so important to me. I also use iTunes Agent to file-sync anyway.
Miui:
Bare basic player. No equalizer. No lockscreen widget. No headset controls. What this does have is a) art download , and most exciting b) lyric read-along. I intend to use this app just for my KTV practice, so it will stay on my phone
(but I recently discovered Lyrics App, which allows me to see Lyrics of everything).
PowerAmp:
This has everything. But the free version is 15 day trialware, and I don't want to go through it all here. One thing I remember about this is that it allows fine customization of its widget appearence.
TinyPlayer:
As the name implies, a small player with minimum bells and wistles. My device is an SGS which generally has an OK time with demanding applications, so this is not for me. But for those who want a simple bare-minimum player, this works.
......
Others have mentioned apps which I need to pay for to try, such as Lithium Player... apps which have a social network focus (Tunewiki), and apps that I need to flash (CW Mod). I'm sorry I cannot add these to this list now.
12/27/2010
I'm in China and sometimes the market is problematic (although I could just fix that with a VPN). When I can download again, I intend to note the features of :
btunes
Astro Player
TuneWiki
Also, I will re-download all the above (I just wiped-flash Darky's awesome ROM for my SGS) and go back over the others and note down features I missed.
Here is a pic of the homescreen widgets.
Widgets (from top to bottom):
Meridian
Cubed
MixZing
Winamp
Doubletwist
I'll never understand why people say they don't understand "cubed" interface. What's confusing about it? It's the same thing as scrolling through albums with a little animation. The new update gives you control over the directory files, so it's not like it's different then any other player. Do people really get that shocked when they see something that looks different but operates the exact same?
Just scroll up or down, man. You'll see the albums or artist (depending on how you choose) in ABC order. You want to skip to a different letter, scroll side to side. That's literally the entire learning curve. Don't like the cube? Change the view mode to Morph Flow. Don't like looking at albums? Change the view mode to boring, it just gives you a list.
The only thing I can possibly imagine people being slow to realize is that to change the place of a song, you click on the dotted light thing at the bottom. To change from artist to album to song you drag the dotted bar in the bottom-middle to the right or left.
This all took me less then 2 minutes to figure out.
poweramp = iTunes . I'm off it. same **** different skin. Cubed can scan all the bands in your library and tell you A) when their upcoming release is and B) the next time their playing a show within 50 miles of you (you can adjust the distance). Now THAT'S practical application.
I appreciate you putting this list together. It is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks.
Hands down the best player is TINY PLAYER. It actually does REAL folder play like you're using windows explorer on your home computer.
Another great feature is the live font size option which lets me read long file names. Even Poweramp doesn't have that crucial feature. What good is it if I can't read what song it is. Especially true for Classical music with long file names.
PS - It is the ugliest ui ever tho lol. But I really don't care.
PS2 - Poweramp doesn't have everything. It lacks sleep timer and font size changing to read long file names. And no true folder play. Both of which are available in tiny player. and it is tiny at 64kb
I figured I would throw a few notes in the discussion about music players since music is a big part of my Android experience. I use two apps, one for playing music located on my phone, and another app for streaming from my home PC.
1) Mixing:
the main reason I bought this app was because of the lock screen abilities. Not only does it give you gesture commands from the lock screen, but it also has a setting that will make the lock screen come active for a few seconds each time a new song starts, showing the album art and song information. I like this a lot since it allows me to see what has just started playing, and mainly because it gives me a few seconds to skip the song if I do not like it ... instead of having to hit the power button first to activate the screen, like all the other music apps do ... it's one less step to distract you when driving. It is a small, nitch feature, but it is worth the money of the full version app for me. I have yet to find another music app that does this.
2) Audiogalaxy:
Hands down, this is the best app to use if you want to stream music from your home computer. This is great for people like me that have huge music libraries that will not fit on an SD card. All you have to do is download the app for your phone, install a small program on your PC, and sign up on their website. It is free, and it simply works with no hastles. I have tried many other apps that I could not get to work ... they all required me to **** around with ports and IP addresses, and I could not get any of them to work. Audiogalaxy was so easy my mom could do it. No screwing around with ports or IP's, just install, setup which folders you want to scan, and then wait for it to build your library. Great app!!
Hopefully Mixzing adds streaming ability into its code so I can just use one music app. Until then I will continue to use these two apps together. Together they make for an awesome music experience on the Android phone.
hi, nice list for reference.
just a quick note from me, i'm using miui and the lockscreen and heatset controls works on cm6 which has those tweaks modded on.
irish22022 said:
I'll never understand why people say they don't understand "cubed" interface. What's confusing about it? ...
Just scroll up or down, man. You'll see the albums or artist (depending on how you choose) in ABC order. ...
...Cubed can scan all the bands in your library and tell you A) when their upcoming release is and B) the next time their playing a show within 50 miles of you (you can adjust the distance). Now THAT'S practical application.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess I should say I like "folder view". Or just Song List. I have a lot of songs from independents, songs un-attributed in the tags, songs from Chinese artists, etc. So I don't want to go to an Album or Artist, but rather to a folder. I'm sorry...I did not know the correct terminology.
As for internet-related content, you may have seen I call that stuff "social crap". I have no idea what scrobbing is. The artists don't come to China. And even if I was in the US, I really could not care to share my music tastes with others... let everyone find their own muse.
nghj said:
hi, nice list for reference.
just a quick note from me, i'm using miui and the lockscreen and heatset controls works on cm6 which has those tweaks modded on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh. Sounds cool. I don't want to have to flash something just to get that function though. But having lyrics is fun.
AlexNC75 said:
I figured I would throw a few notes in the discussion about music players since music is a big part of my Android experience. I use two apps, one for playing music located on my phone, and another app for streaming from my home PC.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm just focusing on Apps that I can use outside. But thanks for those comments. Does AudioGalaxy allow non-streaming, regular functionality? FYI some of the other players above (I think Meridian) also have streaming, but I didn't review this because its not something I look for. I need to update for this feature I guess.
I will now download tinyplayer and add this to the review. I also hope to download (from somewhere) the stock Android player.
Right now probably Doubletwist will be my main player, only because its a music and video player that has lockscreen widget and headset controls. OR I will try to reinstall the Galaxy SGS player (which is uninstalled after flashing Darky's ROM). Funny thing is Doubletwist's main sell-point is iPhone integration, and I don't care enough about that to purchase it.
If I was going to spend money (which I may just do), then Mixing is the best of what I have reviewed so far. I don't know if its worth $5 for now.
I personally use 2 music players
1 standard CyanogenMod player
2 Lithium player
I normally do this because I will have music on lithium, and podcast download through methods other than my podcast player in t he CM music player.
since nobody mentioned lithium and it's a pay app I would mention a few things..
Pro: Looks great, UI is great and has nice things like volume built in, multi-colors/customizations and the #1 reason I bought it is it grabs album art for with a few clicks!
Cons: The ui for FF/RW skips to big of a segment in a 2 hour, or 2 hour podcast (not a big deal, it's a music player not a podcast player) and one semi-major issue for me is the program NEVER shows up in tasks (holding home), or previously used programs (etc). For some reason android doesn't recognize it as a program and the CM lockscreen music controls don't work for it.
To me the pro's outweigh the cons so I purchased it even if just for the album grabber.
I still really like bTunes.
I know it's abandonware, but it's only $1.49.
Looks like the iPod player (may be a good thing or a bad thing), it's very simple to use, it has a nice widget and even though it hasn't been updated in some time, it works great on froyo and never crashes on my phone. I don't think it has an equalizer.
TuneWiki is my fave, actually one of my fave Android apps.
Music Player Pro is still the best for me, I wish PowerAmp gets some of MPP features to use only one.
Thanks for the comments about the apps you tested
Tinyplayer for me on the Inc. Half the players can't find the built in memory. Most of the others can't restrict themselves to a folder so a bunch of sound files that aren't music and belong to games.
dvdivx said:
Tinyplayer for me on the Inc. Half the players can't find the built in memory. Most of the others can't restrict themselves to a folder so a bunch of sound files that aren't music and belong to games.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm looking at Mort Player now and it also does folder selection but has a lot more options, (headset control for one)
I'm still using the basic player ...
I've tried some of the more robust apps, but damn if they don't chew up a bunch of runtime memory, causing lag. I'd like an equalizer, but I don't want all the extra garbage that comes with an app, when I don't need it.
Have gone through various music players but Power Amp is the best it's worth paying for in the market.
Rockbox is absolutely the best choice. Equalizer, actual playlist support, themes, lockscreen controls, and plays every codec at the highest quality you throw at it. Just missing widgets, but it's a little buggy at the moment and it's still early in development.
i think u forgot TTPOD
A nice feature is if it is compatible with Last.FM scrobble apps
Nice summary atm i use Winamp becausr it has a esay ui and i love the shoutcast Radio Feature but maybe i switch to Double Twist because of the wifi sync i dont know yet...
Lollipop_Lawlipop said:
Rockbox is absolutely the best choice. Equalizer, actual playlist support, themes, lockscreen controls, and plays every codec at the highest quality you throw at it. Just missing widgets, but it's a little buggy at the moment and it's still early in development.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will check it out. Widgets is a must-have for me, unless it also has a status bar control option (which is even better than widgets.
jonny68 said:
Have gone through various music players but Power Amp is the best it's worth paying for in the market.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tend to agree, but I'm not sure how much money I want to spend on my phone. Part of me wants to get an iPhone and never have to fudge around with settings and roms again. Part of me hates the iPhone because I can't do with it what I want. So I'm trying not to invest more money in my phone unless I get something really really must-have. As the default player with the SGS is good (and now can use it with Darky's ROM), I'm good.
phoezies said:
i think u forgot TTPOD
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Will check it out and update.
Zalastax said:
A nice feature is if it is compatible with Last.FM scrobble apps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm in China and so have missed the social network craze. I think if I was in USA, I still would have missed it.
Poapfel said:
Nice summary atm i use Winamp becausr it has a esay ui and i love the shoutcast Radio Feature but maybe i switch to Double Twist because of the wifi sync i dont know yet...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Winamp's UI is easy, but Double Twist is very similar UI IMO.
Related
Hey Guys, apologies in advance if this has been posted already but could find no trace of it through searching! After a long and hard search for a music player for Stock/Cyan/Enom that looks good and works as well as the Sense music player, I stumbled across the ³ Music Player by Filipe Abrantes.
It uses a cube navigation GUI for your music collection which after a few minutes I found to be highly intuitive! As well as this it has settings for a cover art wall and also a morph flow similar to the iPod/iPhone and Sense music players. It also has lock screen controls that work, although they load up on the second press after the standard lock screen is displayed.
It auto downloads cover art, reads ID3 Cover Art perfectly, offers playlist navigation etc. etc.
After 2 days of using this I am highly impressed and have encountered no bugs, will be donating after a weeks problem free use!
Search for Filipe Abrantes on the Market or check,
http://www.androlib.com/android.application.org-abrantix-rockon-rockonnggl-pwit.aspx
Let me knows what you guy think!!
Thanks.
I like this app, but I stopped using it because when I selected to have it find my missing album art, it would find the wrong art and I could not figure out how to change it. otherwise it is a very good music player.
mightykc said:
I like this app, but I stopped using it because when I selected to have it find my missing album art, it would find the wrong art and I could not figure out how to change it. otherwise it is a very good music player.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can clear the cache in the settings and either try again or use standalone album art downloading app to get the correct art. It works perfectly with my ID3 and JPEG artwork although I had previously downloaded the art using other programs. That said, I had issues with NEMO, Mixzing, TuneWIKI etc with my ID3 art and none with this!
Just D.L looks really good. Just how do you fastforward in a song and maybe a widget for this would be awesome?
It already has what I believe to be very good widgets included.
Also, to fast forward the song you will see a grayish bar towards the bottom. You can click anywhere you want. This is one area he could likely improve just simply adding a more obvious texture...
KidTech said:
Just D.L looks really good. Just how do you fastforward in a song and maybe a widget for this would be awesome?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It has widgets in all sizes, even one that mimics the sense widget i.e. the whole home screen!! You seek by tapping along the bar at the top (bar can also be moved to the bottom!), although as said in the post above it isn't as clear as it could be.
Honestly, I know how many people hate the look of the stock player and the one major feature of Sense UI people really want is the music app.... well I think this one is even nicer looking than that! I'd probably download it even if I was running a Desire ROM.
Anyway, I'm glad you liked it. I had followed so many threads and tried every player under the sun trying to get the nice experience that the Sense/iPod player gives and just so happy I now have something like it on 2.1.
Thanks
This is my fav music player, hands down.
You can change album art by longpressing the current album art for a song.
It does in fact have plenty of widgets... I have 7 homescreens, so I use the large one personally.
car ishosor
cant enable the equalizer .. xperia ray GB device ..
the "off" icon of equalizer not turning on .. any help ?
Just checking some input on what selection of music related apps. Favorite UI, options, visualizer, equalizer, lyrics, and widgets of a media player.
Best id3 tag writer, or auto-tagger. If there was a legit one, that would be fantastic.
Best app for cover art.
Including apps that give show info, like jambase.
I've tried plenty of media players, haven't really found an all-in-all favorite. Im using music mod atm.
I have auto-tagger, it cleans up my music a bit, as well as writes the tags. I also have mp3tagger and iTag. Together they get the job done. Very slowly. Pretty time consuming.
Cover Art Downloader is my favorite album art fetcher, by far. Bought it. Bout it.
JamBase of course for my tour dates. Id like to find more.
I have all kinds of the music downloaders..literally about 6. They are good to some extent, other than ads, and bad quality.
I could dig me some of a good torrent app. I have a friend with a jailbroken iphone 4, and I have the captivate. We are competeting. Im winning. Only good things about his are the mass amount of expensive games he gets. also he gets torrents offline, and downloads them using only his phone. Id like that on my captivate.
Whats your music apps pack?
I know Winamp is pretty popular so I thought I'd share. One of the best music players on Android just got a very nice update: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.nullsoft.winamp&feature=search_result This is the first update in ages and it's a good one.
What's new:
What's in this version:
1. Download and stream free music
2. Now Playing screen redesign
3. Additional artist info including News
4. Album art gesturing for track change
5. Home screen redesign
6. Browse by Genre
7. Lock-screen player redesign
8. Integration with Android's "listen to" Voice Action
9. SHOUTcast (2.2 & above) Featured Stations
10. Fixed crash issue on Sony Ericsson Xperia series
11. Languages: English, Dutch, German, French, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese (BR), Romanian, Russian, Spanish & Turkish
New very nice look (in many areas) and even greater functionality (genre finally!).
If you haven't tried Winamp or have tried but didn't like it at first, I recommend you check this out.
Still no EQ, which may be an issue for some. Hopefully that gets added sometime, but this is still really great.
still has a poor layout ui :S
Ive been hopping around through different music players and always come back to WinAmp. Ive tried...
-Mixzing
-double twist
-power amp
-cubed player
-Connected music player
-MIUI
-and various other stock ones
Every time i seem to fall back to Winamp although each of the players have there ups and downs
It should be skinnable . . . hope they wil implement it in a future release.
But the app does what it has 2 do . . .
ironlood said:
Ive been hopping around through different music players and always come back to WinAmp. Ive tried...
-Mixzing
-double twist
-power amp
-cubed player
-Connected music player
-MIUI
-and various other stock ones
Every time i seem to fall back to Winamp although each of the players have there ups and downs
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I've tried all those as well lol. I think my favorite is actually the leaked new google one, but I can't really use it consistently since it often cracks up while playing and has some other issues (most importantly shuffle doesn't work). Winamp has been great in general.
Heruhur said:
It should be skinnable . . . hope they wil implement it in a future release.
But the app does what it has 2 do . . .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup, something I want to see as well (and have requested in their beta forum). Hopefully they do this sometime.
PlayerPro is my music player of choice. IMO it has the best UI of all the ones you just listed. PowerAMP is really good too but the UI is too busy for my taste. You get a lot of functionality with PlayerPro in a much cleaner interface.
I will say that PlayerPro takes a lot of design hints from the iOS music players, but honestly, that's fine with me, because it looks great doing it. I bought the Pro version to support the developer and I don't regret the purchase at all. The only thing that annoys me about PlayerPro is lag while scrolling through long lists of albums with album art - although this is a problem with all players, PlayerPro seems to struggle with it more.
If you haven't tried it out yet you should - there's a trial version on the market with complete functionality.
br123 said:
PlayerPro is my music player of choice. IMO it has the best UI of all the ones you just listed. PowerAMP is really good too but the UI is too busy for my taste. You get a lot of functionality with PlayerPro in a much cleaner interface.
I will say that PlayerPro takes a lot of design hints from the iOS music players, but honestly, that's fine with me, because it looks great doing it. I bought the Pro version to support the developer and I don't regret the purchase at all. The only thing that annoys me about PlayerPro is lag while scrolling through long lists of albums with album art - although this is a problem with all players, PlayerPro seems to struggle with it more.
If you haven't tried it out yet you should - there's a trial version on the market with complete functionality.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll check it out - though I think I checked it out already once and wasn't too impressed.
btw, in terms of scrolling through long lists, I don't think any player has felt smoother and without lag as connected music player.
But no built-in EQ yet?
I listen exclusively through wireless BT headphones, which always sound thin and tinny unless I significantly boost the low and mid-high frequencies. They also tend to be pretty sibilant, so I need to cut the highest frequencies. PowerAMP is the only player I've found that gives me the control I want over the shape of the sound - and now my wireless phones sound incredible!
It's improved. They need to not do the cover art transition animation when you are changing songs on the same album. And they need to an old school skinned version.
still no folder view... what are they thinking...
br123 said:
PlayerPro is my music player of choice. IMO it has the best UI of all the ones you just listed. PowerAMP is really good too but the UI is too busy for my taste. You get a lot of functionality with PlayerPro in a much cleaner interface.
I will say that PlayerPro takes a lot of design hints from the iOS music players, but honestly, that's fine with me, because it looks great doing it. I bought the Pro version to support the developer and I don't regret the purchase at all. The only thing that annoys me about PlayerPro is lag while scrolling through long lists of albums with album art - although this is a problem with all players, PlayerPro seems to struggle with it more.
If you haven't tried it out yet you should - there's a trial version on the market with complete functionality.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i may have found my new player....thanks for the sugg
PS - for the scroll-lag, i might suggest using list view instead of grid view in settings>browser options
Shoutcast favorites and recent stations is borked too.
I wish they would put a sleep timer in already.
Add a bloody EQ!
boodies said:
still no folder view... what are they thinking...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What a music player that is recommended now that I can play songs from a folder actually?
SHOUTcast still doesn't work. Why? No clue. They've had all this time to fix it but instead of fixing up some of the bigger main problems they focus on the other stuff that should be put behind the main problems.
UI is still hideous. But I've managed to find some very nice smoked out designs from the droidforums that makes it look a whole lots better.
As for EQ's (Equalizers) I wouldn't mind seeing this feature in Winamp. But nothing as serious as PowerAmp. PowerAmp's biggest recognition is due to their massive adjustments of the EQ. Winamp doesn't need something big like that. Just something subtle and enough to notice the change depending on genre of artist(s)/song(s). I don't see the need for a few different bass settings unless you're seriously wired up to your sound system in your vehicle and changes can be made with your phone and Winamp. The need for different options on levels of bass is stupid. No offense, I love a lot of bass and the thumping that goes with it, but on a phone? Pointless when your phone speakers or putting PC Speaker mode on is not going to change.
Lock-screen redesign is dumb as heck. It's no different than just going to your Home screen and going to the app in your app drawer and playing it on there. I'd like to see some smaller widget-like redesign specifically for the lock-screen.
Another thing that seems to work to the liking of tons of people is the spectrum moving along with the music playing. Like in MIUI. MIUI isn't that great and has minor FC's here and there depending on music change but their design is almost flawless. I would like to see something like that just to give the Now Playing (in Home screen or elsewhere) a bit more vibe.
I could go on and on with the pros and cons of Winamp and add-ons and ditch-on-this, but my point was laid out. The only thing I see that was worthy through the so-called "major update" is the "listen to" voice action. This feature will definitely come in handy for people driving, or not wanting to scroll through all the artists/songs they have on there.
So, I can no longer find how to enable/disable shuffle in the new version, as the 'now playing' screen seems to have been shafted in favour of giant album art.
To toggle shuffle I now have to use the widget, I can't find the option in the app itself. Just me?
richardkemp said:
So, I can no longer find how to enable/disable shuffle in the new version, as the 'now playing' screen seems to have been shafted in favour of giant album art.
To toggle shuffle I now have to use the widget, I can't find the option in the app itself. Just me?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tap the album art to pop up shuffle, repeat and info buttons.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA Premium App
TheSwaggeR said:
SHOUTcast still doesn't work. Why? No clue. They've had all this time to fix it but instead of fixing up some of the bigger main problems they focus on the other stuff that should be put behind the main problems.
UI is still hideous. But I've managed to find some very nice smoked out designs from the droidforums that makes it look a whole lots better.
As for EQ's (Equalizers) I wouldn't mind seeing this feature in Winamp. But nothing as serious as PowerAmp. PowerAmp's biggest recognition is due to their massive adjustments of the EQ. Winamp doesn't need something big like that. Just something subtle and enough to notice the change depending on genre of artist(s)/song(s). I don't see the need for a few different bass settings unless you're seriously wired up to your sound system in your vehicle and changes can be made with your phone and Winamp. The need for different options on levels of bass is stupid. No offense, I love a lot of bass and the thumping that goes with it, but on a phone? Pointless when your phone speakers or putting PC Speaker mode on is not going to change.
Lock-screen redesign is dumb as heck. It's no different than just going to your Home screen and going to the app in your app drawer and playing it on there. I'd like to see some smaller widget-like redesign specifically for the lock-screen.
Another thing that seems to work to the liking of tons of people is the spectrum moving along with the music playing. Like in MIUI. MIUI isn't that great and has minor FC's here and there depending on music change but their design is almost flawless. I would like to see something like that just to give the Now Playing (in Home screen or elsewhere) a bit more vibe.
I could go on and on with the pros and cons of Winamp and add-ons and ditch-on-this, but my point was laid out. The only thing I see that was worthy through the so-called "major update" is the "listen to" voice action. This feature will definitely come in handy for people driving, or not wanting to scroll through all the artists/songs they have on there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's the thing though, many of us use our phones as our music players as well. I use it in the car, makes a HUGE difference with a good EQ such as PowerAmp. The problem with PowerAmp is that it has the most god awful UI every conceived. I mean seriously... THE worst.
Still waiting for Winamp to support FLAC.
Poweramp is the top player now to me but its not free and the UI is a bit too busy.
I do prefer Winamp's UI better.
I really don't listen to music on my phone very much. I have a desk job and keep Pandora streaming while at work. On my ~hour commute to and from work, I listen to audio books (it's the only time I get to "read"). But, I do enjoy music and have over 200GB of MP3s. Occasionally, I do want to listen to some of my music using my phone, such as when doing yard work or between audio books. Service around here is spotty, so streaming is typically out of the question.
I use Ubuntu on my PC. My phone is a Captivate. (As soon as I can cut off from AT&T, I'm upgrading!) It's been running SlimICS for a while, but I'm getting ready to upgrade to SlimBean.
I've tried a lot of different programs on the PC, and a lot of different apps and haven't found anything that fits my use. This is what I want:
What I want from the Android App:
- Designate a particular folder as the source for music. This is the big one for me. I don't want it catching my audio books (I have a dedicated audio book player that I love, but it's not suited for music), audio recordings, and other sound files. All but two apps I've tried didn't have that capability and one of those didn't seem to really work right. Why is that so rare of a feature?
- Use ID3 tags, including album art. But that's fairly common.
- Easy navigation. By artist, album, song titles, etc. Don't rely on "playlists." I don't build them. Just show me all my music and let me easily chose if I want to play a particular album, everything by a particular artist, a particular genre, everything all mixed up together, etc.
- Lock screen controls.
My favorite music app so far is 3 (Cubed). But, specifying a music directory doesn't work. It has a menu option to only look in a folder your specify, and I've enabled that, but it's still seeing my audio books and other sound files. It has lock screen controls but I don't like the way it changes the lock screen. And it has a beautiful interface interrupted by these ugly "pop up" boxes. I love using parts of it, but find other parts hard to use.
What I want from a Ubuntu program:
I'm currently using RhythmBox, and it's OK. It serves most of my needs except the big one. How it syncs to my phone. I have a LOT of music and I hate building playlists. I also hate trying to manually go through the thousands and thousands of songs trying to pick out which ones I want to copy to the phone. I just don't have that kind of time. What I want it to do is just randomly pick songs until a threshold that I set has been met. For instance, copy 5 GB of random songs from my entire collection to my phone. Or, copy 3 hours of random songs from the Metal genre. Or perhaps I'm in a Dylan kind of mood so I want it to copy 3 hours of random Bob Dylan songs. And if there's something specific I want to put on the phone, I can do that manually.
So, am I overlooking something that will give me these options? Is there something out there for me?
ubuntu: moc
android: poweramp
I am pleased with both.
Sent from my SGH-I777 using xda premium
I haven't looked at PowerAmp because, well... it's not free. Free isn't a requirement, but I just don't feel like I listen to music on my phone enough to justify paying for an app like that.
Now, about moc... I had not heard of that before. I googled it and read about it, but I don't see any way to do what I'm wanting to do.
yeah, its different than what you want. The complete opposite, actually. But I still recommend it -- it grows on you. Worth an apt-get.
Sent from my SGH-I777 using xda premium
I haven't tried it yet, but this program looks promising: http://mr-random.sourceforge.net/docs.html#Doc/
Give PowerAmp a try, they have the trial version. Once you've tried it, it's hard to use any other.
Music
HeathicusF said:
I really don't listen to music on my phone very much. I have a desk job and keep Pandora streaming while at work. On my ~hour commute to and from work, I listen to audio books (it's the only time I get to "read"). But, I do enjoy music and have over 200GB of MP3s. Occasionally, I do want to listen to some of my music using my phone, such as when doing yard work or between audio books. Service around here is spotty, so streaming is typically out of the question.
I use Ubuntu on my PC. My phone is a Captivate. (As soon as I can cut off from AT&T, I'm upgrading!) It's been running SlimICS for a while, but I'm getting ready to upgrade to SlimBean.
I've tried a lot of different programs on the PC, and a lot of different apps and haven't found anything that fits my use. This is what I want:
What I want from the Android App:
- Designate a particular folder as the source for music. This is the big one for me. I don't want it catching my audio books (I have a dedicated audio book player that I love, but it's not suited for music), audio recordings, and other sound files. All but two apps I've tried didn't have that capability and one of those didn't seem to really work right. Why is that so rare of a feature?
- Use ID3 tags, including album art. But that's fairly common.
- Easy navigation. By artist, album, song titles, etc. Don't rely on "playlists." I don't build them. Just show me all my music and let me easily chose if I want to play a particular album, everything by a particular artist, a particular genre, everything all mixed up together, etc.
- Lock screen controls.
My favorite music app so far is 3 (Cubed). But, specifying a music directory doesn't work. It has a menu option to only look in a folder your specify, and I've enabled that, but it's still seeing my audio books and other sound files. It has lock screen controls but I don't like the way it changes the lock screen. And it has a beautiful interface interrupted by these ugly "pop up" boxes. I love using parts of it, but find other parts hard to use.
What I want from a Ubuntu program:
I'm currently using RhythmBox, and it's OK. It serves most of my needs except the big one. How it syncs to my phone. I have a LOT of music and I hate building playlists. I also hate trying to manually go through the thousands and thousands of songs trying to pick out which ones I want to copy to the phone. I just don't have that kind of time. What I want it to do is just randomly pick songs until a threshold that I set has been met. For instance, copy 5 GB of random songs from my entire collection to my phone. Or, copy 3 hours of random songs from the Metal genre. Or perhaps I'm in a Dylan kind of mood so I want it to copy 3 hours of random Bob Dylan songs. And if there's something specific I want to put on the phone, I can do that manually.
So, am I overlooking something that will give me these options? Is there something out there for me?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The best suggestion I can give you is not a PC application, but is rather a piece of hardware. I would recommend getting a Pogoplug and an external HDD. Connect the Pogoplug to the HDD and then connect the Pogoplug to the internet via cat5/6, then create an account and download the app on your phone.. in this scenario, the only limit to what you want to store and how much space you have is the capacity of your external HDD; This device can support multiple HDD's, so its pretty much limitless.
^^1(2050]=7 1337 said:
The best suggestion I can give you is not a PC application, but is rather a piece of hardware. I would recommend getting a Pogoplug and an external HDD. Connect the Pogoplug to the HDD and then connect the Pogoplug to the internet via cat5/6, then create an account and download the app on your phone.. in this scenario, the only limit to what you want to store and how much space you have is the capacity of your external HDD; This device can support multiple HDD's, so its pretty much limitless.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I appreciate the suggestion, and it looks like a nice product, but I fail to see how that accomplishes my goal.
Hey there!
I posted about my new (paid/trialware) music player way back in August and asked for beta testers here on XDA. The response was tremendous and I was able to rake up a few hundred testers within a couple of days. Thanks to their bug reports and feedback, I'm happy to say that Jams Music Player is now available on the Play Store!
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jams.music.player
Here's a quick imgur album that shows a few prominent screens from the app:
http://imgur.com/a/Bgk0b#0
Aaaand here's the main feature list:
Supports all the formats supported by Android (mp3, FLAC, AAC, ogg, etc.)
Unofficial GMusic support (thanks Simon Weber!). All Access isn't available, I'm pretty sure the big record companies won't take it too well if I put it in. If you have your personal music collection uploaded onto Google though, this app can handle it
Limit your music library down to specific folders on your SD card (you can pick as many folders as you want).
Organize your entire music collection into smaller sub-libraries. (Take a look at the imgur screenshot(s) to get a gist of what I mean).
Individual equalizer settings for each song. Say you set Song A to Pop and Song B to Rock. When you play Song A, Jams will automatically switch the equalizer to Pop. If you play Song B, Jams will switch to Rock. You can also batch apply equalizer settings to multiple songs by artist, album and genre.
The homscreen widget displays your current queue so you can easily browse through it without opening the app.
A-B Repeat mode. You can repeat a specific range of a song from point A to point B.
Displays embedded lyrics. I don't think I'll be adding lyrics from the Internet after what Sony did last summer to another music player.
Sort by album artist! This is for those of you who have large compilation albums.
Full blown file manager with copy, paste, move and delete functions.
Blacklist tracks, artists, and albums. This allows you to exclude individual tracks from your library without actually deleting the files.
Smart playlists (Top 25 Played Tracks, Top Rated, Recently Added, and Recently Played).
ID3 tag editor.
Crossfade.
Gapless playback.
Automatically fetches album art from the internet.
Customize the app with 4 different application themes and 9 different player colors.
Enqueue support with reorder, swipe to remove from queue, the basic stuff.
Scrobbling support.
Coming soon:
Tablet layout (ETA about a week).
Import/Export M3U playlists.
Any other feature requests you guys may have.
The app comes with a 7 day full-featured trial. After that, you'll be asked to upgrade to the full version for $2.99. I'm aiming to keep it priced that way so that it's cheaper than PowerAMP and other top players, while offering the same (or even more) number of features.
Got questions? Suggestions? Comments? Let me know below! Or you can email me at [email protected].
Looks good. I own PowerAmp but rarely use it, and I have stuff on Google Music, but despise the app. It's too busy. I'll give this a shot.
Cool, let me know how it goes! I'm open to suggestions, so feel free to throw whatever you've got, at me.
Holly crap, this is amazing!
Sadly it crashed as soon as i tried to connect my Google Music account, and also swipe gestures don't seem to work on Now Playing screen :\
Other than that, my favourite music app, will be glad to buy!
Using Moto G 8GB with Android 4.3. Using Xthemer via Xposed Modules and Meenova for external SD card reading (not sure if these facts can influence app behaviour)
BBOXPT said:
Holly crap, this is amazing!
Sadly it crashed as soon as i tried to connect my Google Music account, and also swipe gestures don't seem to work on Now Playing screen :\
Other than that, my favourite music app, will be glad to buy!
Using Moto G 8GB with Android 4.3. Using Xthemer via Xposed Modules and Meenova for external SD card reading (not sure if these facts can influence app behaviour)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could you send me a crash report? That'll help me fix the issue and I'll have an update rolled out by tonight. Glad you like it! Also, make sure that the queue/playlist you picked has more than one song. If it doesn't, then the swiping controls won't work.
FlightGear said:
Could you send me a crash report? That'll help me fix the issue and I'll have an update rolled out by tonight. Glad you like it! Also, make sure that the queue/playlist you picked has more than one song. If it doesn't, then the swiping controls won't work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just cleaned App data and started over. And it works just fine
About the swiping controls, yeah, i was listening to one unique song, so it was not supposed to work
Just noticed that the notification on the notification drawer is cutted when it's size is only 1 row (when it's not the top notification). Luckily it always manages to be the top notification, so i suppose this was intended
Suggestion: add button to show a list with the next tracks in the queue (maybe replace the equalized button since it's not used that often?) List would appear as the menu on the main screen (in the left side) and maybe you could change track positions in the queue!
BBOXPT said:
Just cleaned App data and started over. And it works just fine
About the swiping controls, yeah, i was listening to one unique song, so it was not supposed to work
Just noticed that the notification on the notification drawer is cutted when it's size is only 1 row (when it's not the top notification). Luckily it always manages to be the top notification, so i suppose this was intended
Suggestion: add button to show a list with the next tracks in the queue (maybe replace the equalized button since it's not used that often?) List would appear as the menu on the main screen (in the left side) and maybe you could change track positions in the queue!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ooohh shoot, I forgot to add a helper overlay about the queue part... Just rotate your device to landscape mode. This will take you to your current queue. Will add a helper overlay for this in tonight's update.
This app has virtually i would want in a Music Player.
I'll keep on testing it through the 7day trial, but i'm probably going to buy it anyway.
I just hope this gets the deserved attention.
BBOXPT said:
This app has virtually i would want in a Music Player.
I'll keep on testing it through the 7day trial, but i'm probably going to buy it anyway.
I just hope this gets the deserved attention.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Awesome. Really glad you like it. You can help the app get its deserved attention by leaving a rating on the Play Store. Thanks! Appreciate it.
Hey! I've been testing the app, and i get some FC's when changing track from time to time (doesnt seems a very consistent error to be.
Using Moto G 8GB with Android 4.3. Using Xthemer via Xposed Modules and Meenova for external SD card reading (not sure if these facts can influence app behaviour)
How can i send you a crash report?
awesome work man,thats the player for me,in my opinion the beautyfullest player i ever used,i think i buy it.keep it up!!!! :good:
BBOXPT said:
Hey! I've been testing the app, and i get some FC's when changing track from time to time (doesnt seems a very consistent error to be.
Using Moto G 8GB with Android 4.3. Using Xthemer via Xposed Modules and Meenova for external SD card reading (not sure if these facts can influence app behaviour)
How can i send you a crash report?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi there! Which version of the app are you using? The current one is v1.4.2, but I'm on track to releasing v2.0 tonight with support for tablets and batch playlist creation. When the app crashes, you should get a message saying something like "Unfortunately, Jams has stopped working". There should be two buttons, "Report" and "Close". Tap on "Report" and that will send me the crash log. Thanks for your interest!
Version 1.4.2
Just sent the report!
Either way, buying the app today 4 sure!
BBOXPT said:
Version 1.4.2
Just sent the report!
Either way, buying the app today 4 sure!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great, thanks for the report! I'm looking into it.
Awesome app, more languages would be nice. Also editing Play Music tags. Sent you an email referring German translation.
Gesendet von meinem Nexus 4 mit Tapatalk
FlightGear said:
Hey there!
I posted about my new (paid/trialware) music player way back in August and asked for beta testers here on XDA. The response was tremendous and I was able to rake up a few hundred testers within a couple of days. Thanks to their bug reports and feedback, I'm happy to say that Jams Music Player is now available on the Play Store!
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jams.music.player
Here's a quick imgur album that shows a few prominent screens from the app:
http://imgur.com/a/Bgk0b#0
Aaaand here's the main feature list:
Supports all the formats supported by Android (mp3, FLAC, AAC, ogg, etc.)
Unofficial GMusic support (thanks Simon Weber!). All Access isn't available, I'm pretty sure the big record companies won't take it too well if I put it in. If you have your personal music collection uploaded onto Google though, this app can handle it
Limit your music library down to specific folders on your SD card (you can pick as many folders as you want).
Organize your entire music collection into smaller sub-libraries. (Take a look at the imgur screenshot(s) to get a gist of what I mean).
Individual equalizer settings for each song. Say you set Song A to Pop and Song B to Rock. When you play Song A, Jams will automatically switch the equalizer to Pop. If you play Song B, Jams will switch to Rock. You can also batch apply equalizer settings to multiple songs by artist, album and genre.
The homscreen widget displays your current queue so you can easily browse through it without opening the app.
A-B Repeat mode. You can repeat a specific range of a song from point A to point B.
Displays embedded lyrics. I don't think I'll be adding lyrics from the Internet after what Sony did last summer to another music player.
Sort by album artist! This is for those of you who have large compilation albums.
Full blown file manager with copy, paste, move and delete functions.
Blacklist tracks, artists, and albums. This allows you to exclude individual tracks from your library without actually deleting the files.
Smart playlists (Top 25 Played Tracks, Top Rated, Recently Added, and Recently Played).
ID3 tag editor.
Crossfade.
Gapless playback.
Automatically fetches album art from the internet.
Customize the app with 4 different application themes and 9 different player colors.
Enqueue support with reorder, swipe to remove from queue, the basic stuff.
Scrobbling support.
Coming soon:
Tablet layout (ETA about a week).
Import/Export M3U playlists.
Any other feature requests you guys may have.
The app comes with a 7 day full-featured trial. After that, you'll be asked to upgrade to the full version for $2.99. I'm aiming to keep it priced that way so that it's cheaper than PowerAMP and other top players, while offering the same (or even more) number of features.
Got questions? Suggestions? Comments? Let me know below! Or you can email me at [email protected].
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
looks promising gonna try soon :good::fingers-crossed:
UPDATE I did install the trial version as of now and i am totaly in love with this great ui just like i wanted
although i dunno if its a bug or not everytime i edit album tags the player crashed on me also some random lags
Apart from that i totally love it its a perfectly organised player easy and nice UI , Highly recommended app to all
thanks for your efforts
nitinchamp said:
looks promising gonna try soon :good::fingers-crossed:
UPDATE I did install the trial version as of now and i am totaly in love with this great ui just like i wanted
although i dunno if its a bug or not everytime i edit album tags the player crashed on me also some random lags
Apart from that i totally love it its a perfectly organised player easy and nice UI , Highly recommended app to all
thanks for your efforts
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's definitely a bug. I think you sent me a crash report right? I looked into the issue and fixed it already. You'll get the update tonight with other new features like widget customization, batch playlist creation and play next. Thanks for your interest and let me know if you run into any more issues/have any more suggestions!
FlightGear said:
That's definitely a bug. I think you sent me a crash report right? I looked into the issue and fixed it already. You'll get the update tonight with other new features like widget customization, batch playlist creation and play next. Thanks for your interest and let me know if you run into any more issues/have any more suggestions!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea it was me will update asap :good::good::fingers-crossed::fingers-crossed:
This app looks promising but there are some issues that prevent me from using it as my primary media player.
It does not recognize the tags on any of the MP3 files in my library, my AAC and FLAC files are recognized properly, but not my MP3s.
Scrolling is slow and jittery because it appears to be reloading the album art each time you scroll by each album or artist. Caching should fix this.
There is no ReplayGain support. Not a bug per-say, but I can't go without it.
Also, it would nice if there was a third album art display mode where it displayed the album art as large as possible without any cropping but that is hardly necessary.
Do as you wish with these suggestions. There is some very good work so far and I am glad there is proper album artist support. I'm interested to see how this app progresses.
Seconding the laggy scrolling but in sure you're already aware of it. Caching like like the best fix. Possibly a low memory view with no album/artist art also? It's up to you. So far that's my only initial big report.
Looks awesome mate!
Sent from my GT-I9505G using XDA Premium 4 mobile app