[ChrisC]

I have a Sprint HTC Hero and have been using the built-in mp3 player. It works well enough, but I would like to have the ability to skip forwards and backwards by an increment of time, within a music file, similar to how Tivo commercial skip works. I would like buttons that:

A) skip forward 30 seconds (or so)
B) skip backwards 7-8 second (or so)

The usage scenario is that I'll be listening to something, and A) I want to skip ahead of it, using multiple skips if I want to skip a few minutes, or B) I want to repeat what I just heard.

I typically am listening to interviews or recorded radio (with DJ announcenments), very long mp3 files of 30 minutes or longer, and will want to skip ahead of a song or will want to rewind just a bit to hear again what was just said.

The slider approach used in most mp3 players is no good because my mp3 files are usually 30-60 minutes long, and it's pretty much impossible to touch and slide that to move ahead just 30 seconds, much less move back just a few seconds. And certainly it can't be done when I'm on the move.

I did check Appbrain and the Market itself for "mp3" and "music", and just get a billion spammy mp3 "search" apps, mp3 cutters, ringtone converters, etc. By searching for "music players" I did come across "Astro Player" which has fast playback capability, which is nice but not quite what I'm looking for.

Has anyone seen a player that can skip forwards and backwards within a file like this?

[ChrisC]

bump

[superflush]

Are the things that you are listening to available as podcasts.
Because Google Listen kind of has this feature.

[ChrisC]

Thanks superflush. I looked at Google Listen just now, and in their discussion forums several people (just in the last 24 hours) are asking for this skip forward/backwards capability, so it seems like it doesn't have it. What did you mean exactly?

All of my listening is via mp3 files that I download manually, with no podcast (RSS) wrapper file to automate it, so that's another strike.

In another thread someone suggested bTunes and Cubed, but neither appear to have this feature. Somewhere I picked up a tip on Astro Player (beta) but that doesn't do it either and actually has some other problems that I'll have to dig into if I'm going to stay with it.

Also, for the record, apparently the slider function is called "scrubbing".

Can anybody think of anything else? I'm about to give up and just live with the degraded capability for now. How about player programs that do 1.5/2.x/faster playback?

[superflush]

So if you go here: and view the sixth screenshot, you can see the controls. The bottom buttons are the ones that skip back and skip forward.
I've been using Google Listen for a while, but after playing with the feature to respond here, I've realized that the skip back is 5 seconds and the skip forward is 30 seconds.

[WAM]

i noticed doubletwist had this feature if you hold the skip buttons rather than click them it will fast-forward or rewind i think in 3 second intervals at a time, not perfect, but it's the best i got. hope i helped!

[qu1nn]

...

Can anybody think of anything else? I'm about to give up and just live with the degraded capability for now. How about player programs that do 1.5/2.x/faster playback?

I have been searching for this too!.
Allegedly Coreplayer will come to android, but who knows how long that will take, and hopefully if it is like the windoze mobile version.... it will keep that functionality

qu1nn

[ChrisC]

I've been using Google Listen for a while, but after playing with the feature to respond here, I've realized that the skip back is 5 seconds and the skip forward is 30 seconds.

That's perfect! I'll check it out to see how it handles plain manual file playback, not driven by RSS.

Edit: searching their discussion forum, it doesn't appear to do that, but I'll be happy to be proven wrong in that too.

[hikinthru]

"Listen" has forward and backward buttons but they don't work 90% of the time. It resets to the beginning of the podcast. And despite them publishing updates to the app periodically, this problem seems either beyond their intelligence to fix, or they simply don't give a f#%^.

I'm past irritated. The primary use I have for my Droid is listening to lectures on podcasts. This is the absolute worst product I've seen from Google, and they really don't appear to care.

[qu1nn]

Astroplayer Beta fit the bill!

[New Daddy]

Astroplayer Beta fit the bill!

I'm bumping up this thread for posterity's sake.

Yes, Astroplayer seems to be the rare, if not the only, MP3 player that has forward/backward skip feature. But those functions are not assigned to any buttons on the screen. You have to go into the setting and assign make changes. (in my case, I assigned forward/backward skip to cover art previous/next buttons). A little cumbersome, but at least Astroplayer lets you have a way of doing it.

[ChrisC]

I'm the initiator of this thread. I finally upgraded off of my old HTC Hero last week, to a Droid Razr M, and so now I'm revisiting my old desires like this to see if they are solved.

Regarding Astroplayer (mentioned immediately above), I don't know if I ever tried it.

So, this week I dug into this again, and read reports (on some other forum) of two players that reportedly did what I wanted: Tivo-style skip ahead and skip back.

MortPlayer: reportedly does do FF/RW customizable jumps, but I couldn't find any preference for the amount of time. If you press and hold on a FF/RW button, it jumps in 10 second increments. It's tricky to just jump 10 seconds, as you have to watch the screen to see when it has kicked in. Program has lock screen integration which is nice. The "MortPlayer AudioBooks" program might do a better job at the skipping; I haven't evaluated it.

tinyPlayer: DOES do FF/RW customizable jumps! It works! Hooray! God, after 3 years it's so nice to have that capability back. Alas, no lock screen integration. But this is the player that I'm using right now, and so far it's Good Enough.

[DanPLC]

The latest public beta of Music Player (Remix), an advanced music app I'm currently testing, has this feature. Read the "0.9.12" changelog in the public beta forum thread for details: http://forums.androidcentral.com/and...ml#post2399542

[ChrisC]

Thanks Dan! I'll look forward to testing that when it is officially released and available in the Google Market. (I don't mess with beta software or APK downloads)

[DanPLC]

Thanks Dan! I'll look forward to testing that when it is officially released and available in the Google Market. (I don't mess with beta software or APK downloads)

Well thanks for posting this thread. I used to have this feature in the webOS version of the app and it reminded me to add it back into the Android version. The classic use for this type of feature is when listening to a long-format audio file such as a podcast or recorded lecture (to quickly skip through undesired sections); however I always found it useful when trying to listen to a certain part of a song again.

[mangmang]

Thanks for the thread, I tried Mortaplayer but it doesnt have regular forward and backwards option, but Tiny player is pretty good for skipping forward and backward 10 seconds on Android

[ChrisC]

Update on MortPlayer: despite the fact that I wasn't using it, occasionally it would pop up as an active app, and stick an icon in my notifier bar. The first couple times, I killed it from the app list and the notifier icon went away. Today I couldn't get the notifier icon to go away, so I uninstalled the app.

I'm still using TinyPlayer. Minor complaints so far:
- I wish there was a way to keep the playback controls up in the app, not dropped down via a slider; actually sometimes they stay up, and sometimes they slide down, and I haven't figured out why or when
- and in fact I wish there was a screen where it just gave me huge playback control buttons
- I really wish there was lock screen integration

I will do another round of hunting and testing someday soon.

[ChrisC]

UPDATE:

I've been using TinyPlayer successfully since December. It does the FF/RW jumps exactly as I want. My only annoyance is that the play controls are on a slider and keep sliding away, and I wish they were on a page that I could just leave it on.

Sadly, the latest update to the app (why oh why did I upgrade the app?!) seems to have broken it a bit. It randomly forgets what file and what point in the file I had it paused at. Since I'm typically listening to longform material, the app pretty much lives in the paused mode and I need it to remember where it was. I think it only forgets if I don't listen to anything for over a day, or two.

Anyway, just posting this to say that if this behavior continues, then I'll contact the developer, and if that doesn't resolve it, I'll be back in the market for a player ...

[DanPLC]

UPDATE:

I've been using TinyPlayer successfully since December. It does the FF/RW jumps exactly as I want. My only annoyance is that the play controls are on a slider and keep sliding away, and I wish they were on a page that I could just leave it on.

Sadly, the latest update to the app (why oh why did I upgrade the app?!) seems to have broken it a bit. It randomly forgets what file and what point in the file I had it paused at. Since I'm typically listening to longform material, the app pretty much lives in the paused mode and I need it to remember where it was. I think it only forgets if I don't listen to anything for over a day, or two.

Anyway, just posting this to say that if this behavior continues, then I'll contact the developer, and if that doesn't resolve it, I'll be back in the market for a player ...

Did you ever try Music Player (Remix)? It has this tivo-style feature plus a bunch of other things. Here's the link to the 14-day, fully-functional trial version in the Play Store:

[ChrisC]

Did you ever try Music Player (Remix)? It has this tivo-style feature plus a bunch of other things.

OK, Dan, you're on. I just downloaded the trial and will try it for a week. I like those skip buttons! (once I found them)

The app was disorienting at first, until I figured out A) the hidden overlay buttons concept and B) the sliding menus from left right and bottom.

You should not have shuffle enabled by default. Skipping tracks was infuriating for a minute there.

[DanPLC]

OK, Dan, you're on. I just downloaded the trial and will try it for a week.

Thanks for trying the app!

A) the hidden overlay buttons concept and B) the sliding menus from left right and bottom.

I've thought about displaying an initial welcome screen because of the hidden overlay buttons which are really different (in a good way) than what other music players have done in the past. But the sliding menus (left, right, and bottom) have visual indicators (arrows), so it shouldn't be too hard to figure out you have those available. But when I implement the welcome screen, I'll definitely mention them as well.

In other parts of the app where there are features that are not completely apparent, I display an info popup explaining the "hidden" feature. So you should see that occasionally as you use the app. For a complete list, you can go to the app's Help screen (tap the "?" in the right-side panel) and select "Remix Tips".

You should not have shuffle enabled by default. Skipping tracks was infuriating for a minute there.

I have shuffle enabled by default simply because the app does a "Shuffle All" the first time it loads so you have some music playing the first time you run the app. On all subsequent loads of the app, it will resume the previous list you were playing. And any time you load a new list (album, artist, playlist, autolist, etc.) the app will turn off shuffle depending upon which list you decide to load. For instance, if you loaded an album after that, it would have switched it off and played the album in track order. Or if you loaded a saved playlist, it would have played it in order. However there are some lists that shuffle will be turned on by design. For instance, some of the autolists are designed to be shuffled. For example, "Deja Vu" is by definition a "random mix of recently played songs", so shuffle is turned on by default in that case. But you can turn it off by bringing up the bottom-side sliding panel (that displays your Now Playing list).

[ChrisC]

So far so good.

A couple times the app has reset a track back to the beginning -- I had it paused in the middle, and when I return to the app, I find it's at the beginning of the track instead of where I left it. Everything I listen to is in the form of 30-minute tracks (from an audio archiving system) so it's pain to lose my place. I haven't found a pattern as to when it does this exactly, but it's happened to me at least twice. A more severe version of this is actually what drove me away from tinyPlayer. If you can't find the bug or explain it, I'll appreciate your help in working with me to isolate it if it returns.

What does the "follow song" preference do? I found it in the settings somewhere, and turned it off thinking it might take care of the above problem, but now I can't find the setting. Which leads me to ... you should have all of the settings in one place.

You ABSOLUTELY should have a welcome screen that explains the basics, and those basics should be repeated in the help section, and should be repeated AGAIN (in FAQ form) in the FAQ section. For example, the very first FAQ should be "where are the play and pause buttons"?

Besides the transparent buttons, and the "hidden" slideout menus, are there any other secret UI elements? Perhaps press-and-hold popup menu functionality? All should be documented in app.

I'll buy the app this week. Congratulations on making a great app that does exactly what I want, including the Tivo-style FF and RW, and lock screen integration!

[Rolokid]

Hello Dan,

Is it possible to control the skip functions via bluetooth? In other words, using my Pebble watch or bluetooth headphones, can i simply press a button for 30 seconds back or forward?