Today we’ll be looking at one of those Smartphone functions that most people use daily, but often take for granted. Every Android phone comes with a music player – whether it’s the stock Android player, or something from the manufacturer. However, not all music apps are created equal, and there are plenty of them available on the market (and in fact Winamp just released a beta of their player to the Android market today).
We’re not looking at Winamp today though. Instead I’ll talk about a player that has one of the most well thought-out interfaces I’ve seen in a portable music player. It makes full use of your phone’s connectivity, and is extremely flexible. That player is called Android Music PlayerPro.
We’ll jump right into it, and show you the interface that grabbed my attention right away:
Across the top of the screen, there are four main ways to browse through your collection; a list of all albums, artists, genres, custom playlists, and folders. You can also enable a full list of tracks if you wish. But what really sets it apart is its ability to fetch not only album covers, but artist photos and even genre logos from the net. This gives it a degree of customization that I highly appreciated.
Don’t like the photo it found for you? Simply tap-hold the image, and pick a new one. There are plenty to choose from, allowing you to give your music player the exact look you want. It’s smarter than a simple image search too; I fully expected the image for “Q-Tip” to be a cotton swab, but there were quite a few good photos to choose from.
The same goes for album covers. These change over time, and if you want to use the original release of an album, or an import version, you can easily find it with Music PlayerPro. Results here may vary for more obscure albums though; sometimes the quality can be thumbnail-worthy at best.
Shown above are two of the four choices for the main player skins. They are simple, and finger-friendly, although I think most people will choose to control their music via the many widgets that are available. There are two other skins – one that mimics the default Android player, and one for the old-school crowd that looks just like Windows Media Player Mobile!
Speaking of widgets, they come in just about any size you’d find useful. Above are four of the five sizes (there is also a 4×4 full-screen widget with album art). It will even place a widget on the lock screen for you, if supported (I don’t have Sense UI installed, so I’m not sure if it will work).
The developers could have easily stopped there, and I would have been totally happy with it. But there are a few more features which again take advantage of the connectivity of using a smartphone instead of a dedicated music player. Being able to read artist bios (courtesy of Last.fm) and lyrics from within the player itself is just one of those simple functions that make for perfect time-killers when you don’t feel like playing Angry Birds of visiting Facebook.
Music PlayerPro also has a “share” feature which allows you to send the album art, artist picture – or even the music file itself (RIAA is going to love that) via various means. I’m not sure how long this function will last, or if it is even needed. You’d think a commercial app developer, of all people, would be sensitive to supporting piracy…
Other features include “scrobbling” – one social networking fad that I was not aware of. I think it involves telling everyone what music you are listening to, as if anyone should care. You also get headset override, as well as the ability to disable any browsing type you want (personally, I just use Artist and go from there. I don’t see much point in browsing by “genre”). One thing that some users may miss is an equalizer, but that may be coming.
Music PlayerPro takes a basic, well working music player, and adds just enough custimization and time-killing features to make it worth considering as your main music app. If you are tired of the default Android player, or HTC’s horrendous interface, you might want to give this one a try. It’s available now for about $2 on the Android Market.
Details
AppBrain Link (install apps from your browser!)
5000 downloads, 4.4 average, 629 ratings
Woooohooooo. This is the best player I’ve tried so far !! Easily kills any other player I have tried, whether it be mixzing, winamp, doubletwist or 3. Now I can get rid of my ipod !!
I have had my smart phone for months now and am still using the stock music player app even though it bugs the heck out of me. Never even occured to me to upgrade to anything else. Thanks for suggesting this I will definitely be checking into a new one.
“Music PlayerPro also has a “share” feature which allows you to send the album art, artist picture – or even the music file itself (RIAA is going to love that) via various means. I’m not sure how long this function will last, or if it is even needed. You’d think a commercial app developer, of all people, would be sensitive to supporting piracy…”
I resent this statement. I think as a blogger reviewing apps and such, it is not your concern in this article if the RIAA should be respected at all in the design of this software. The focus of the developer should be with the user/customer! If the tech allows it and the song can be shared that should be commended and the developer having the user/customer in mind should be commended, not threatened! A developer who puts the desire of the customer aside for the RIAA is the one who should be chastised not the other way around! Just where exactly are your priorities? It appears that you may be more concerned with the RIAA than your readers, who actually buy these apps.
And your review for an audio app is lacking. Is there or is there not, crossfading (if so, what kind?), EQ, DSP effects and other basic features that have been available on windows mobile music apps for a few years. Does it take advantage of the new audio features found in Android 2.3? Your article basically says this app looks pretty and can download pretty pictures … CAN IT PLAY MUSIC?!! … or does it still sound like a cell phone?
1) I don’t give a shit what the RIAA thinks, it was a sarcastic remark.
2) As mentioned, there is no EQ, and no DSP effects are mentioned. If you want those effects, this isn’t the player for you.
3) Android 2.3 didn’t exist when this article was written.
4) Yes, it says it looks pretty and can download pictures, that’s what it does. If you want more than that in a MUSIC APP, then look elsewhere.
Can this app show a list of all of the songs in your library by an artist? The one thing that drives me absolutely crazy about every android music player I’ve used so far is that after clicking on an artist in my library, I’m brought directly to a list of their albums, and there is no option to see ALL of their songs in one big list together. This is extremely frustrating when I want to play a particular song but don’t have an album listed for it–it shows up under the artist under the label “itunes”…along with the 800 other songs that I don’t have listed by album. I’ve tried half a dozen music players and have yet to find one that just lets me see a list of all songs by an artist.
Can u make your own skin?,
If so How???.
I wana make my own “micro skin” & custom skin, but no idea where to start.
[...] and give it a whole new look. Do you find your default music player lacking? Then check out Music PlayerPro. It goes on and on, all the way to the way you dial your phone. And that’s what we’re [...]
regrettably, I only found this player after already buying PowerAMP…
the interface is intuitive and really well done. The flow of interaction has been engineered with more thought and care than any other player I’ve tried.
And I just tried 40 players for AAC and M4A support over the last 2 weeks.
However, while decent, the widgets are not ahead of others like the interface is.
I do have one issue with it, Player Pro doesn’t see the tags and embedded album art in my M4A files, while other players that support M4A playback read and display them fine. This leaves me with 80% of my music lumped into one album called “unknown”.
Does anybody know if there’s a workaround?