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.

The overhauled app is the result of more than three years of development and testing. It's a complete rewrite in Kotlin, which promises better performance than Java. Like its predecessor, S2 is a local music player first and foremost, but it also supports Emby and Jellyfin libraries, with Plex support in the works.

Unlike many other audio players, you can opt to have it scan specific folders for music, so you can avoid littering the app with WhatsApp voice messages, audiobooks, and other potentially unwanted files. The custom media scanner is also supposed to read tags better than the standard Android method, and it doesn't wipe your playlists at random, which apparently is a problem with the Android MediaStore method.

Features

• Android Auto
• Batch tag editing
• Chromecast
• Album shuffle
• Sleep timer
• Custom EQ & Preamp
• Replay Gain
• Day/Night & Themes
• Jellyfin & Emby (Plex in progress)
• Dedicated artwork server
• Embedded lyrics

S2 fits in nicely with Google's current design guidelines with a focus on a plain and clean interface with lots of white space and an optional dark theme. Completing the audio experience, S2 also offers gapless playback, a 10-band EQ, album shuffle, a sleep timer, include/exclude list, multiple genres for tracks, Android Auto, Chromecast, and more.

S2 Music Player has a brand-new listing in the Play Store and exists alongside the current Shuttle Music Player. Since years of development went into the app, the developer has decided not to make it a free update. Pricing differs regionally, but in the US, you can subscribe for $0.99 per month or $4.49 per year. Before you get your pitchforks up about everything becoming a subscription these days, there's also a lifetime license for $7.49.

You can download the app on the Play Store. The developer is currently considering bringing S2 to iOS, desktops, and possibly the web.

UPDATE: 2021/07/21 7:21am PDT BY MANUEL VONAU

Stable release

Our story previously covered the S2 beta launch and has been updated with details on the stable release.