AC Asks: What's your favorite music player

[Ethics Guy]

Rhapsody App

I found AC today and was thrilled to learn about and download the beta Rhapsody app for my Sprint Hero. It works great but it's streaming; I want to download my Rhapsody songs/playlists onto a micro SD card for use with the Hero. For years I used an evolving series of Treos (Palm OS) and had a great experience with Pocket Tunes as my music player. With my Rhapsody To Go account, I simply sync'd my Treo once/month and was able to load 1,000-plus Rhapsody songs onto an 8GB micro SD card. Now, I want to do the same thing with my Hero. Does anyone know an Android music app I can download/buy that will, like I used to do with Pocket Tunes on Palm Treo, let me use my Rhapsody To Go account to download the songs/playlists to a 16GB micro SD card? The benefit, of course, is zero streaming delay/risk, the ability to play both subscription tracks and imported tracks, and the ability to receive a phone call and have the song restart where it was as soon as the call ends. I'm no techie but other posts refer to DRS, which might apply here. Thanks.

 

[rockdawg]

Pandora is better than Slacker IMHO, but I don't like to stream because I miss a ton of calls when streaming.

This begs a question. I'm a recent convert from AT&T/iphone to Sprint/Hero. Are you saying that when you're streaming music you can't receive phone calls? I knew that CDMA doesn't do data and voice simultaneously, but I never thought about this. I figured the call would interrupt the data streaming.

 

[OB1J3D1]

I use the stock player and Pandora. I like finding new music linked to music I like through Pandora.

Lost my iPod on my last snowboarding adventure in knee deep powder. It was a 2nd gen 20GB, so pretty old. But, I was pissed nonetheless. I was in the apple store later that week looking at a touch but couldn't justify dropping that kind of coin even if it does do WiFi. Good thing my Droid came with a 16GB card for free! Best excuse ever to start using the media player on my phone which i have with me all the time (unlike my iPod). Now for an updated set of earbuds...

 

[ahayeahok]

Either Pandora or stock music player. Never gave Slacker a try, though I just might.

 

[boltorm]

I love the museek music player. It provides some unique features (creating playlists from a map, smart shuffling, etc.)

 

[o2bnclemson]

Either Pandora or stock music player. Never gave Slacker a try, though I just might.

I'd been listening to Pandora mostly and hadn't tried Slacker either. I just like hearing a somewhat random selection of music rather than only songs I have already heard and put on my player.

I've really liked Slacker - unlike Pandora they have over 100 built-in channels, much like satellite radio. Like Pandora, and unlike SatRad, you can customize the built-in stations by banning songs and/or artists and favoriting ones you do like. Also, like Pandora, you can create your own custom stations. The ability to customize is a lot better with Slacker. I've found the audio quality to be a little better, too. I'd highly recommend that you at least give Slacker a try - perhaps do the 7-day free trial like I did. I didn't end up purchasing the full service, but I've been listening more to Slacker than Pandora.

I only listen to the music player if I'm trying to conserve battery life.

 

[o2bnclemson]

This begs a question. I'm a recent convert from AT&T/iphone to Sprint/Hero. Are you saying that when you're streaming music you can't receive phone calls? I knew that CDMA doesn't do data and voice simultaneously, but I never thought about this. I figured the call would interrupt the data streaming.

I use the HTC Droid Eris, and yes, you can still receive calls and/or texts while streaming. Calls will pause the stream and texts will interrupt just enough to alert you. You cannot have the stream and a call going simultaneously, but the stream will pick back up when the call is done - effectively pausing it, which is probably what you'd do anyway.

 

[alphonse]

I am using PlayerPro (search "music player pro" on the market). One of its strong point is the UI which is the best I've ever seen sor far: you can chose between skins and two different layouts: grid and list.
The player also downloads album and artist art for you. And you can get album/artist information + lyrics.
Love it so far. Not thinking of changing.

 

[Joneser2006]

Are there players that will allow you to use the volume up/down button to skip/previous tracks?

 

[balishagred]

still looking for one....

i miss my ipod touch, i tried couple players, like museek, mspot but always come back to my captivate stock player

 

[RobertInCypress]

I have a 120gb ipod with that used to never leave my side, since I got my Captivate my ipod has been gathering dust. I can fit plenty of music on my 16gb memory card.
I use Lithium music player for my own music. it has a cool UI & widgets and allows you to edit the title, album, cover art from your phone.
i also have the Slacker paid version which lets me cache stations to listen to when i dont have wi-fi or in network coverage, since i work offshore thats quite often.

 

[anon(40787)]

I am using PlayerPro (search "music player pro" on the market). One of its strong point is the UI which is the best I've ever seen sor far: you can chose between skins and two different layouts: grid and list.
The player also downloads album and artist art for you. And you can get album/artist information + lyrics.
Love it so far. Not thinking of changing.

[sup]3[/sup] is my choice. 4 different layouts! Downloads album art for you! Lyrics, TuneWiki!

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Sent From My Motorola Cliq - Via Tapatalk

 

[coolkatz321]

But the one feature that the Sense player does have which no other music app I've found is that it integrates with the lock screen. So when my phone is locked, I can hit "menu" and instead of my usual lock screen coming up, I get a little picture of the album art, and buttons for pause, fast-forward, and rewind.

This is really useful, especially when I'm listening to podcasts or audiobooks and I get interrupted - with music it's no big deal to just pop out your headphones, talk for a minute, and then go back to the music, but with spoken-word things you need to pause it quickly (especially because seeking backwards to where you were in the track is awkward).

This. Does anyone know about other players that have integration with the lock screen? When I'm working out/riding my bike, it's nice to only have to hit the power button and then the "next track" icon.

 

[volwrath]

This. Does anyone know about other players that have integration with the lock screen? When I'm working out/riding my bike, it's nice to only have to hit the power button and then the "next track" icon.

MixZing. I like it

 

[Runnin_it]

For me, Mixzing is great. I've heard good things about Pure, but haven't tried it yet.

For streaming, I use Streamfurious Pro.

 

[anon(40787)]

3 has one, with the default lock screen, I don't know about Lock 2.0 (which I bought, love it!)

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Sent From My Motorola Cliq - Via Tapatalk

 

[cocochannelle]

Playerpro hands down!

 

[anon(40787)]

I changed my favorite, Meridian Player, the stable one.

Reason for change: Lyrics search built in, no TuneWiki!

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Sent From My Motorola Cliq Using Tapatalk

 

[jimsearle]

Do any of these players have quick access to set Ratings? The only one I have found so far is the Widget that comes with iSyncr.

 

[jjwa]

Subsonic for me.
Streaming. Unlimited. Folder-based (as opposed to iTunes index style).
Streams from my own computer, no subscriber stuff, cloud or DRM nonsense.

Reencodes music on-the-fly if needed, for example if I am on a slow connection and I want to listen to my FLACs, but can't handle it. I'll just listen to 128kbps MP3 versions. You can tell the program what quality to use when on WIFI, and what to use on mobile networks .

Also, the dev seems to respond well to his community, always important.