APlayer Music App; The Ultimate Music Player for Android Devices

App github link
image source

Introduction

Music they say is a 'Universal Language'. Looking at that phrase, we can't but agree that there's some truth to it. You don’t have to speak a language to enjoy a melodious composition by artists. Studies have shown that people are pretty good at detecting the emotions conveyed in unfamiliar music idioms and languages — that is, at least the two basic emotions of happiness and sadness. You listen to an opera, which is sung most of the time in a foreign language or language you really don't understand, you could care less on how much you really understand the song lyrics because the music and melodies carry you through the piece. Music lifts ones spirit when one is dow, It calms one's nerve when things seem to be really hyper. Music is such a powerful tool that most people can't do without daily, and for such an important thing it is best to use the right tools that bring the art to life and as what better way to bring music to life on devices than a good music player app, hence, the introduction of "APlayer Music Player" .

Without further ado, let me review the app properly, which leads us to the question;

What is APlayer.

Just like the name suggests, Aplayer is a music player app. But not your regular music app, it is more like the ultimate one because of its cool features. I am a lover of music, I listen to music a lot when doing different activities such as reading, writing, jogging and even when I'm in the bed trying to get some sleep. This often times make me explore a lot of different music player apps, trying to find the perfect or at least the one that suits my needs the most. I've come across lots of music player apps but often left wanting more until I came across APlayer music player.
One of the features I found really interesting is the "sleep timer" feature which allows users to set when the app can automatically stop working on it's if and when needed to do so. This is something not so common in most music apps, or let's say I've not come across it in most of my music player apps. But, here's an app doing it without any hassle. I will save discussions about my impressions for the latter part of the post. But, this is one feature that really blew my mind and endeared me to the app.

Several updates of the app have been released by the developer, and the developer is committed to always maintaining and improving the app

Here is the link to the app releases and major improvements occurring with each update Update-md
Here is the changelog of the latest release;

V1.5.2.1
Fix theme color cannot be set to white
Modify the playback interface to enter the animation
Optimize the play queue remove button click area

I didn't check out older versions of the software because the latest update seems to have all the features older ones have and even better.

What makes APlayer so impressive?

Review of APLayer's features.

In this section, I will be reviewing the features of the app.

I will begin my review first by reviewing the app's interface.

Review of APlayer's UI.

The User Interface of this app is really simple, clean and very understandable to use.
Honestly, there isn't much to say about the app's UI.
Being a music player app, it comes with the basic feature most music apps are meant to possess.
As soon as you launch the app, you are greeted with the "Home Tab" which is configurable and supports up to five sub-tabs, which includes Songs tab, Artists tab, Albums tab, Folders tab, and Playlists tab which can be reduced by removing any of the five sub-tabs.

There are still some customizable features though. but are mostly pretty basic and generic for most music players out there so I won't really dwell on such generic features. Some of those features include:

Changing the view type between grid and list in the Artists, Albums and Playlists tabs.

This is a feature that is peculiar to most music player apps.

There are also theme and colors customizations.

There are 3 theme presets;

• Light
• Dark
• Black (AMOLED)

The customizations affect only the settings page and the app header on the main page.

Furthermore, you can change the cover image of a song or album.
I like this feature simply because it gives room to correctly use the right album or song image art as most times downloaded songs do not come with the right art cover.

Another thing you can do on the app that's related to interface customization APlayer song album art as lockscreen image when the device is locked. I like this feature as it changes the outlook of my phone screen lock and I also can easily control the music being played from that interface without having to unlock my device. Here is an image showing the lockscreen feature in use

Review of APlayer's functionalities.

There are a lot of things this music player app can do.

I might miss out on some purposely, due to the fact that it is too generic and cliche compared to other music player apps. Please bear with me.

I will start with the noticeable features you can see on the main page.

Search

You can search for songs, artists and albums in the player. It's cool and also essential in a music player app as there are times a user quickly need to locate a particular song, this search feature comes in handy.

Sorting

This is an important feature, although mostly traditional to most music player apps.
I've got a lot of songs on my phone and sometimes I like to listen to them in a particular order, most especially, I always like from albums to albums or according to how recent the songs are, this feature is a great one that does that for me so fast that I don't need to go through the stress of having to manually create playlists or arrange according to dates.
Sorting by "Title" is the best parameter for me.

Sleep Timer

This works as a time countdown to when the app should automatically stop playing music and go to rest.
When you set this timer, the app automatically stops playing songs once the time is reached.
This is a cool feature.
I can't recount how many times I've left my phone playing music all through the night due to the fact that I slept off accidentally while the music player app was left on only to wake up to a drained battery. With the sleep timer, such incidence cannot happen, as once the sleep timer is set, the app automatically stops playing songs and closes.
You can choose to set from 1 minute to 120 minutes which I believe is reasonable enough to save your phone from unnecessary works.

Playing Queue

This is a feature that shows how the songs currently being played are arranged. This is a cool feature because users won't have to always exit playing window to see which songs are on the playlist or when they are going to come on, this can easily be achieved by clicking on the playing queue. Also, unwanted songs can be easily removed from the queue with one click without actually deleting the file. I like this feature as most music players do not have it, especially my stock music player app.

Lyrics Page

The app supports local and online lyrics (Netease, Cool Dog), users can set the priority of lyric search; local lyrics can be freely selected, or ignore lyrics. The lyrics page can easily be accessed by swiping right while the song is playing or by easily turning your device to landscape mode. I love this feature as I don't need to go through the stress of downloading lyrics myself and also the lyrics works in sync as the song plays.

Poster Generation

At times, some songs can trigger certain emotions or moods, which sometimes reminds us of someone or something and the need to pen such thoughts down and/or even share such thoughts. This feature of the can generate poster sharing providing a note page where the user can write down his/her thoughts or feelings using the song details as a frame which is very beautiful and really unique. Such generated poster can also be shared. I haven't seen such in any music app before and it's a feature I will be using a lot. I loved it.

Importing and Exporting Playlists

Importing Playlist is a feature that allows playlists that are already saved on the device to be incorporated into the music player app.
Exporting Playlist allows for the playlists that were created with the aid of the app be saved on the device memory so that it can be used anytime there is a need for it. This is a good feature also as it saves time and stress that would have been expelled during the transition of moving from another music player APlayer app. I'm really indifferent about this, but some users might find it handy.

Library Scanning (Automatic and Manual)

This feature monitor and updates media library according to changes by using an automatic refresh or by manually scanning specified directories. Automatic refresh might take time when used because it has to explore all the available folders, it is ideal to use this when you are using the app for the first time. But manual scanning will only look for changes and update in the selected or specified directory which will take less time. I advise using this when you just added some few new songs. I like the feature.

Other essential and convenient features such as song information editing (tag editor), equalizer, play from breakpoint (i.e a song resume play from the point it was when the app was closed), shake to change a song, shuffle, support headset wire control operation ( when user pull out the headset from the jack port, music automatically pauses) e.t.c are also present. But I believe these are generic to most music player apps.

Impressions

Before downloading the app, I had no idea what impression I'm going to have of it because I believe it would be just one of the common ones we have around. I only stumbled on it while surfing for a good and new music player app.
But after downloading and checking out the app for some time, I was really impressed.

Aside from the fact that the app can search for, display and sync lyrics on it's own, I was impressed by some other features, which precisely are;

• Sleep Timer
• Poster Generation
  These are features I love and none of my music player app has.

I was impressed with the level of UI customization too and how clean and simple it was. No ads or any form annoying distractions in the form of pop-up messages.

In conclusion, my first impression of the app was great and lasting.

Summary

Music is such an important part of our life, it makes us happy, lifts our spirit and help us express ourself, such an important part of lifestyle deserves the best tools that allow users to listen to music with ease of use and freedom and also do so in style. All this and more is what APlayer app is offering to it's in this simple, elegant and user-friendly music player app. APlayer music player apps beat most of the music player apps on my phone and it's going to be my default music app for the foreseeable future. I'll advise you to give it a try and also air your thoughts.

Thanks for reading.

See you around.

Resources

All sources are cited and most of the images used are screenshots of the application from my device.

My Github Profile