[Android Apps and Games] ogami_ito:
As of Jan 3,2011...

If anyone can give information / review about how different apps save downloaded art, it would be very helpful. It seems that art can be embedded in ID3 tags, or it can have put in a folder. But different programs save in different folders or into an "album art" file...which may not be compatible with different programs. Also, how does iTunes, Winamp, and Windows Media handle this? (Ive used each for my music collection, and so may have different types of cover art formats in my collection)

12/28/2010 I didn't mean to start making this into a bigger post. But let me first say what I'm looking at/for:

Features I'm paying attention to:

headset control

Lock Screen and homepage widget

General UI ( and in particular, ease of getting from a "playlist" back to the "Now playing" quickly

Features which are sort of cool to me:

lyric display

Folder / File Organization

Album art (it would help me if someone could tell me about the different types and options here. ID3 mode? Files?

(and a distant fourth in importance) Video player

Equalizer (I don

't care about this but everyone else seems to be)

Features are just can't get myself to care about:

Scrobbing (whatever the hell that is)

Social stuff

Any damn fraking thing that statistically analyzes my preference in order to help me decide what I like. I don't want to robotize my music.

So this is what I have looked at so far:

Samsung Default:

Great Status bar and lock screen controls. headset controls. Has equalizer. NO Folder Select (it scans all music on the phone and so will get unintended stuff into the library). Nothing special other than this, but it a good app. HOWEVER, I'm now using Darky's ROM which does not have the Samsung Lock Screen. The Samsung player's lockscreen widget is tied to the Samsung lockscreen. Also does not have homescreen widget, but this is more than made up for by the very good notification bar integration.

Meridian:

Plays video and music. Headset controls but no lock screen. Good gesture control. Edit ID Tags

Cubed:

Video and Music. NIce Lockscreen widget. Headset controls. Art download in ID3 mode. However I still don't terribly like the interface, but it works. Has a directory filter , so can play just a folder and keep out unwanted songs (like game songs). Downloads art in ID3...method. Don't know if that's good or bad. There really is no "Now Playing" screen. It just shows it super-imposed on the song library. Which is not pretty but its actually functional. For me, Cubed is a good free app.

MixZing:

Plays music and video. Options up the yingyang, including lots of social crap. I'm not going to detail here because lockscreen version is a paid app, and I'm focusing on not paying (it does have trial period though). Good UI. Can do folder view, and has good folder management options. Can switch between folder list and now playing very quickly. Has headset controls. Has Equalizer. Auto-download album art. The free version is staying on my phone because it plays video. Lots of damn social crap.

Winamp:

Just plays Music. Interface easy, but maybe a little dull (maybe there are skinning options?). Has headset controls and lockscreen. Ability to look up info and search on the artist. Ability to syn with Winamp desktop, so a good choice if you use that. Some social crap. No Equalizer

DoubleTwist:

Looks a little like Winamp, but also plays video. Has Lockscreen wideget and headset controls. With $5 purchase can sync with Itunes. No equalizer.

UI is mostly good, if not exciting. Does not do folder view(!). Not that many options. If I wanted to use one player for both music and video, and have the lockscreen widget and handset controls, this definitly works. It also has art download, but that's not so important to me. I also use iTunes Agent to file-sync anyway.

Miui:

Bare basic player. No equalizer. No lockscreen widget. No headset controls. What this does have is a) art download , and most exciting b) lyric read-along. I intend to use this app just for my KTV practice, so it will stay on my phone

(but I recently discovered Lyrics App, which allows me to see Lyrics of everything).

PowerAmp:

This has everything. But the free version is 15 day trialware, and I don't want to go through it all here. One thing I remember about this is that it allows fine customization of its widget appearence.

TinyPlayer:

As the name implies, a small player with minimum bells and wistles. My device is an SGS which generally has an OK time with demanding applications, so this is not for me. But for those who want a simple bare-minimum player, this works.

......

Others have mentioned apps which I need to pay for to try, such as Lithium Player... apps which have a social network focus (Tunewiki), and apps that I need to flash (CW Mod). I'm sorry I cannot add these to this list now.

12/27/2010

I'm in China and sometimes the market is problematic (although I could just fix that with a VPN). When I can download again, I intend to note the features of :

btunes

Astro Player

TuneWiki

Also, I will re-download all the above (I just wiped-flash Darky's awesome ROM for my SGS) and go back over the others and note down features I missed.

Here is a pic of the homescreen widgets.

Widgets (from top to bottom):

Meridian

Cubed

MixZing

Winamp

Doubletwist