Have I gotten a treat for you music lovers? Winamp, the very first good music player for Windows - and one I still use religiously to this day - hit the Android Marketplace today, largely unnoticed in the Androidosphere.

It's still in Beta, but after using it for 15 minutes, I was so impressed that I set it as my default player and uninstalled the others. Let me tell you why, in the order of importance.

Hands-On

  • Lockscreen widget - it works, and works really well. I don't know how they pulled it off exactly but it shows up on top of my actual lockscreen every time Winamp is playing and I turn on my screen. The integration isn't as good as the stock Android player that is built into the lockscreen itself, but it's the next best thing.
  • Proper headset button controls - I have a voice command button on the cord of my Ultimate Ears Triple Fi 10vis earphones, which, if Winamp is on, reliably pauses and resumes the currently playing song. Other apps try but most fail or are inconsistent in this behavior. Winamp does it right, so far.
    Edit: OK, it's not that perfect - when I got a phone call, the headset button didn't pick it up. I'll contact Nullsoft about that.
  • By the way, both of the above are options that can be turned on and off.
  • WiFi and USB music sync with Winamp on your desktop - I haven't tested this yet, but it sounds great if it works. Update: for WiFi sync, you need to download this beta version of the desktop app: http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=322995
  • Update 10/21/10: It turns out that WiFi sync not only brings syncing but also streaming of music from the phone to the desktop player. This is getting better and better!
  • Last.fm scrobbling (requires the Last.fm app to be installed).
  • Play queue support - this is something no other Android player I know does (I may be wrong here), durrr: the stock player has this,  and has historically been Winamp's signature feature. You can enqueue any song or album to the current playlist, thus building up something completely custom and then save it as a new WInamp playlist when you're done. Excellent.
  • Widget support - check it out in the screenshot below.
  • Set song as ringtone - you normally can't do this in Android, at least not without additional tools the stock player does this too.
  • Fluid interface with a pull-up bar that reveals the currently playing song.
  • Always present music controls - I didn't notice this at first but thank you, Winamp, this is brilliant! Look at the screenshot - the Playlist/Prev/Play/Pause/Next buttons are in pretty much every app screen.
  • Permanent deletion of currently playing song - such a simple feature but how many players let you do this? Hell, I can't even do this on my iPod.
  • Ability to quickly look up the song you long press on via YouTube, Pandora, your browser, and whatever else supports being a search provider.
  • Notification support - this is not really novel, almost all other music apps out there do this, but it's worth a mention that Winamp didn't drop the ball here either.

What an excellent first version, Nullsoft (that's the maker of Winamp). Simply stellar!

There are a few small bugs, such as a weird "SD card error" background when scanning the SD card, an oddly formatted initial notification (see the last screens), and an interrupted playback when another sound happens in the background (such as the one ShootMe has), but for a first release, this is amazing stuff.

My only 3 wishes at this point are:

  • Shoutcast streaming support
  • ability to select by Genre
  • time/progress indicator in the lockscreen

If you can think of anything else, feel free to drop a note below.

Download

Hurry up and click this QR code if you're on your mobile device or scan it with Barcode Scanner:

[qr]com.nullsoft.winamp[/qr]

Screenshots

Update: Here's what the WiFi sync looks like - you need the new desktop beta for this to work:

Source: Appbrain