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It's that time of year again: Spotify Wrapped is back. Providing a playlist of your own personal greatest hits of the previous 12 months, Wrapped has fun features and provides interesting insights into your listening habits. As long as you listen to Spotify throughout the year, whether it's on your Android phone or smart speaker, Wrapped becomes available near the end of each year.
What is Spotify? Music, pricing, features, and free-tier explained
Spotify is still one of the biggest music streamers available. Here's how it all works
Are you tired of paying for Apple Music or running into bugs with services like Tidal? Spotify is an easy-to-use alternative. It is one of the world's most popular music streaming services, with almost 600 million users. It has a solid free tier, several affordable paid plans, and a variety of podcasts you can't find anywhere else. If you don't know much about this audio giant, we cover the important details below.
Epic's ruination of Bandcamp may have disastrous effects on the indie music scene
Has Epic gutted one of indie artists' best assets?
The music industry isn't exactly kind to upcoming groups and artists; breaking into such a competitive market can be a challenge even for the incredibly talented. This also obstructs fan engagement in terms of monetary support; it's hard to network when nobody can find your address. Bandcamp is the indie music cave of wonders, an app with countless artists selling their work and merch directly to fans. It's a haven for independent music creators, who can post, share, and generally sell their content, with the site taking a 15% cut of each sale — pretty reasonable.
How to cancel your Apple Music subscription
Looking to switch to Spotify? You'll have to cancel your Apple Music subscription first, and here's how
Apple Music may not always be the top choice for everyone when it comes to music streaming services. It can integrate with Apple products a bit easier, as the infamously walled-off ecosystem makes sure of. Moreover, the sound quality exceeds other streaming services, especially when paired with high-grade wireless headphones.
TikTok is aiming for Spotify in move to enter music streaming space
A patent filing throws some light on the platform's latest grand plans
TikTok looks hell-bent on becoming an all-encompassing app, a one-stop destination for all your entertainment needs, and not just something you can use to endlessly scroll through a carousel of short-form videos. The platform is already going up against countless other players in the mobile gaming space, but a new patent filed by parent company Bytedance now suggests that TikTok is broadening its scope further. It may also have its crosshairs aimed at the likes of Spotify and Apple Music.
Shuttle Music Player returns with a complete app rewrite and a snazzy new interface
For those of us who don't love streaming services
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Local audio players have become a bit of a niche app category, with streaming services taking over most of the market. But that's also an opportunity — many beautiful players have been created in recent years, like Phonograph, Plexamp, and more. One of the older apps on the market is Shuttle, first launched all the way back in 2012, and it's been getting a little long in the tooth. But following an extensive beta phase, its developer has now finally released the stable version of the follow-up — S2 Music Player.
Music creation on Android has been given a major boost as of Lollipop 5.0 thanks to latency reduction, and IK Multimedia (best known as the manufacturer of the popular iRig series of professional musical adapters for phones and tablets) has decided to take advantage of it. The company has released two new Android apps, iGrand Piano and iLectric Piano, meant to give players a portable and highly technical way to create the sound of famous brand-name pianos.
April was a bit sparse when it comes to new apps - there aren't any real standouts, though Facebook certainly made a splash with its self-branded phone dialer. The rest of the best picks from last month are mostly advanced tools for power users, or in the case of the impressive edjing, experienced music producers. Here in no particular order are our picks for the best of the lot, plus a few honorable mentions that might have broader appeal.
Are you looking for a local music player that fits in with your oh-so Material Android 5.1 custom ROM? Then let you fingers do the walking to Gramophone, now available on the Play Store. This stand-alone music app has been in private beta for some time, but now you can grab it without even messing with that awkward Google+ community invitation system. It's a free download for Android 4.1 or later.
Oh Pandora, how I wish I could quit you. I pay the folks at Google Music for their services, and I know they work hard. They even include music controls in the notification bar and the lockscreen, which you seem to take absolute joy in withholding from me. But on a roadtrip or an exercise session, I always come back to you - years of curated music stations are hard to let go. At least you seem to be updating regularly. The 5.8 update to Pandora adds the 3rd-party Google Now card that was teased back in January.
Considering how popular the various high-profile music services have become on Android, it's a little strange that none of them have offered something like NextSong built in. It's strange, that is, until you remember how slow most of them are to conform to new Android functions like heads up notifications. In any case, music fans should definitely check out this handy app from independent developer Reactiv Sudios, whom we've featured before on Android Police.
Anybody who owns an ADT-1 has noticed the inexplicable absence of a Play Music app, something that became even more apparent after the Nexus Player began shipping with it. Well, the wait is finally over! An update to the Play Music app began rolling out earlier today, and it includes a banner on the Leanback Launcher for those of us with Google's development hardware. If you've got a Nexus Player, you haven't been left out with this update. You've now got access to a list of recently played tracks and recommendations, just like you would have on a phone, tablet, or the web.
Sometimes you've just got to sit back and marvel at the ingenuity of some Android developers. While Motorola was busy putting expensive infrared sensors all over the front of the new Moto X to enable a few gesture controls, developer OnTheGo Platforms was adding it in with something that just about every smartphone already has. Behold, BrainWave, an app that lets you play, pause, and navigate your music like a frickin' Jedi.
Rdio's Android app got a teensy, tiny update today, adding gapless playback to all devices running Android 4.1. According to the "What's New" section of the Play Store page, the feature was added in by popular demand. For the uninitiated, gapless playback is exactly what it sounds like: a seamless transition from one track to the next. It's a big deal for some users, and much harder to do on a streaming music service than on local playback.
It seems that just about every major organization or service is being targeted for a gigantic data breach these days. Spotify was the latest service to be attacked, and yesterday the music streaming company specifically told Android users to upgrade their apps soon to protect themselves. The update is available today, but Spotify isn't taking any chances: it's created an entirely separate entry in the Play Store to make sure users get the point.
Most of the music services available today have some kind of radio feature, automatically generating playlists based on artists, genres, and other musical variables. But what about those of us who have vast hordes of pirated music from college sensible and legally-obtained MP3 collections? Pioneer is hoping to make an alternative DJ mix from your own local music files with the new MIXTRAX app.
Do we need another streaming music service? There's Pandora for people who always want to listen to something new, Spotify for people who want access to a large number of music as soon as it comes out, and All Access for Android users who want to combine streaming new music with the albums they've already backed up to Google Music. Then there's Rhapsody and Rdio for, I guess, the same people who like Spotify. Or is it Pandora users they're going after?
Remember when Microsoft angered legions of fans by announcing that the Xbox One would require an Internet connection to use? The company reversed that decision, but thus far, the Xbox Music Android app has functioned in much the same way. Fortunately for it, streaming music is already an established thing, so there won't be nearly as many people excited to find out that the newest version of the app now supports playing playlists offline.