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Plex's excellent Plexamp music player is now free for everyone
It's now free to stream music, but many features are still locked behind Plex Pass
Plex Pass is a subscription service that nets you a variety of features on Plex, including offline playback and the ability to skip end credits in TV shows and movies. For the last few years, you've also received access to a surprisingly good music app called Plexamp when you subscribe. Now, Plex is amping up its music service by offering it free to all.
Winamp is back on Android with a whole new take on this classic music app
The beta offers access to the Fanzone streaming service, plus listening to local tracks
MP3s changed the way we listen to music, and for a whole lot of us, growing up with MP3s meant growing up with Winamp, one of the most popular players around. Winamp fell off the radar as our software tastes shifted over the years, but this past April, its current owners shared word that it was relaunching with new looks and functionality. That includes access to the new Fanzone streaming service in addition to support for local tracks, mixing the new age of music consumption with the old — and now it's finally available to try with the release of the Winamp beta.
Winamp is coming to Android, but it's not what you think
Legendary music player turned niche streaming service
There are few brands in software with as rich of a history as Winamp. The program was first launched all the way back in 1997 with a no-frills, yet highly customizable interface — it was definitely one of the best music players around. It supported a variety of formats and notably offered a vast range of skins, visualizers, and even plug-ins that did as little as adding extra customization or went as far as bringing support for more file formats. Now, the popular music player is making it to Android as a result of a huge revamp, but it's probably not what you were expecting.
12 best music players on Android in 2024
Streaming or local, the choice is yours, with plenty of audiophile options in the mix
There's an endless supply of music apps on the Play Store, so it can be challenging to find the best one that suits your personal needs. This is why we gathered our favorites and broken them down by audiophile quality, streaming, local, free, and theming, as these are some of the best Android apps around that go hand-in-hand with the best smartphones out there. So no matter your needs, today's best music player roundup is for you. Enjoy!
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.
I wish all music and audio apps on Android wouldn't stop playback when swiped away
Spotify, YouTube Music, why do you do this?
Several years ago, developers of music players on Android had to implement a persistent notification in order to keep their app running and music playing even when users switched to another app. With better memory management and more available RAM on modern phones, this isn't a concern anymore, and most devs have forgotten about that commodity. That has had one annoying consequence on several audio apps: If you mistakenly swipe them away, your music or podcasts or audiobooks stop playing.
VLC is one of the best media players. It's available on pretty much any platform and able to play almost every audio and video file type you could think of. Its UI on Android has become a bit stale over the years though, so with the recently released version 3.2.3 of the app, the developers have decided to polish up the looks while also adding new features to the Android TV and Chromebook variants.
After stalling in development for a few years, popular music player Poweramp has found the secret to rejuvenation again. The app got updated with a brand new interface in December, added Android Auto compatibility last month, and is now implementing a feature every media player should really have: Chromecast support. As a bonus, it also works with Assistant.
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Listening to music, podcasts, and audiobooks while driving can make or break your commutes and long road trips. Engaging audio content keeps you entertained and alert, but you don't want to get your eyes off the road to switch between your navigation app and music app simply to skip ahead or rewind. This is why Waze added Spotify integration last year, and is now expanding its in-app player to seven more partners.
If you like apps that have a distinctive aesthetic — and a good one — but are loaded with features under the hood, then Stellio Player is right up your alley. Stellio is a music player that is highly customizable, great looking, and has sophisticated playback and library management capabilities.
AT Player is a totally free app that will make your mobile music experience more enjoyable. It has two related sets of features, depending on your habits. If you have a local music library, it is a top notch player with extensive playlist support, equalizer, lyric search, and more. If you like to stream music for free, it's an easy and smart portal to YouTube's massive collection.
The age of streaming music services is upon us, but not everyone has moved to the cloud for their listening needs. Those who still rely on local music files might be interested to know that Shuttle Music Player just got a big, big update. In the v2.0 release, the developer has added a new theme engine, a myriad UI changes, album shuffle, and much more.
One of the more accomplished of the many podcast apps out there is Player FM. It's been a while since we last covered it, but today's news is worthy of a mention. Version 4.0 has been announced, and with it comes a redesigned interface, premium membership options, and a host of other new features.
I listen to podcasts on an almost daily basis (including the excellent Android Police podcast, of course), and for as long as I can remember, my app of choice has been Shifty Jelly's Pocket Casts. It's easy to use, has all the features you'd expect, and the design is great. The developer is always looking to improve the experience, and for me it, became a whole lot more useful once a web player was added. The beta of the new 2.0 version of it has just been announced, and it looks like a big update.
The smartphone has replaced a lot of things. For me, one of its most notable uses is as a portable music player. Frankly, I have not even picked up my iPod Touch in... months. Yet, your smartphone needs a good app to play that music. Poweramp has been one of the big names on Android for a long time. It was my player of choice at one point. Luckily for some, this is the $0.10 app of the week (since the game has been posted already). You should all know the drill by now.
DoubleTwist got its start way back in the early days of Android, when users wanted an easy way to sync music from iTunes to their non-Apple phones. (And also, this was back when human beings still used iTunes.) The scope of the music player has broadened and generalized since then... and truth be told, it's kind of stalled as well, especially since the Cloud Player came out. The last update it had before today was way back in February. But today's bump is significant: in addition to a new user interface, it brings baked-in support for Chromecast, Android Wear, and Android Auto.
I still remember getting my HTC Desire Z, rooting it and installing a cleaner custom ROM, then instantly looking for a decent music player on the Play Store that could handle music synchronization from iTunes. After days of research, I settled on PlayerPro and iSyncr, which would let me sync specific playlists from my iMac to my phone along with all the ID3 tags and metadata, even the lyrics and album art. And it took care of syncing back play counts to iTunes, which were used to improve the smart playlists it generated. I was practically using my Desire Z as if it was an iPod and it was revolutionary!
Local music players are apps that turn your phone into an MP3 player that also happens to make calls. That may not sound like something you can put on a box now that music streaming services are the new hotness, but some of us still prefer to build up our own libraries, stick them on a ridiculously large microSD card, and jam using an interface of our choice.
Local music players (as opposed to online radio and cloud storage players) sometimes seem like dinosaurs now that everyone and their dog is offering a connected music option, but there are still plenty of users who prefer high-quality playback of local files. For them, the years-old PowerAmp remains a popular choice thanks to its excellent codec support, extensive equalizer, and a long list of musical creature comforts. Developer Max MP has now made version 3.0 of the app available as a public alpha; you can download the APK directly from the app's user forum.
When I was looking at local music players on Android for my roundup, I tried to find an app that would analyze your songs' BPM and let you create playlists accordingly, but couldn't land on one that did the job well. Both DjRun and RockMyRun use BPM to build their playlists, but they are geared toward running and active lifestyles. What if you just wanted slow mellow songs to chill to? Or fast uptempo music to ease your homework struggle? There didn't seem to be an alternative that fit the bill quite well, until Splyce came along today.