[General Questions and Answers] neumaennl:
Hi, I have a Motorola Milestone 2 and a SonyEricsson LiveView and currently I have to use 3 music players to do the job of one (which is kinda annoying).

I'm looking for a player that has ther following features:

can be controlled with the LiveView (that emulates media keys pause/play, previous/next track, same as headphone buttons) WITHOUT THE NEED FOR A PLUGIN!

transmits track info (ID3 tags) to the LiveView

automatically gets CD covers/album art

has a 4x1 widget (lockscreen widget would also be cool, but isn't mandatory)

can fetch lyrics (the ability to display them synched to the song would be a bonus)

can edit ID3 tags (ability to get them automatically via audio fingerprint would be a bonus)

These links show that the LiveView features are not really LiveView specific and can be implemented by any player and would benefit any player:

blog (dot) dexetra (dot) com/2010/09/get-current-playing-track-info-from (dot) html

android-developers (dot) blogspot (dot) com/2010/06/allowing-applications-to-play-nicer (dot) html

Sorry for the weird link format, but since I just registered yesterday I'm technically not allowed to post links (duh).

These are the players I've tested and the features (out of the ones I'm looking for) they have:

Connected Music Player (cmp)

comes preinstalled on Milestone 2

can sometimes be controlled via media keys, but that functionality is so buggy that it rarely works :mad:

transmits track info (ID3 tags) to the LiveView

automatically gets CD covers/album art

has a several widgets, but no lockscreen widget

fetches lyrics and displays them synched to the song (TuneWiki apparently provides this functionality)

can NOT edit ID3 tags :(

Music Mod

modified version of the stock android media player

can be controlled with the LiveView

transmits track info (ID3 tags) to the LiveView

does not automatically get CD covers/album art

has several widgets, but no lock screen widget

can not fetch lyrics (although a version that does this exists, it doesn't display them synched to the song)

can not edit ID3 tags

Music Player

by Music Player Lab

can be controlled with the LiveView

does not transmit track info (ID3 tags) to the LiveView

automatically gets CD covers/album art (though that rarely works for some reason)

has several widgets

can fetch lyrics (does not display them synched)

can edit ID3 tags (does not get them automatically via audio fingerprint)

PowerAMP and Winamp are roughly the same as Music Player.

I guess the ID3 tag transmission stuff is the same that is used to display track info on Bluetooth handsfree sets like car radios via A2DP and/or AVRCP.

Can you PLEASE help me find a music player that has those features? It would be greatly appreciated.

If you are a developer of a music player and you read this: I would gladly help implement those features in your player.

I have a degree in computer science and I'm working as a professional Java SE and web developer for 3.5 years now and I have already played around with the android SDK a little.

I won't be able to put endless hours into this, though because I already have a full time job as a programmer and I need to take a break from programming every once in a while.