Goodbye WinAMP for Android

[Tristan Young]

My relationship with WinAMP for android has been a love-hate relationship.

I love WinAMP for Windows, and I was overjoyed to get WinAMP for my Android based phone. I bought the Pro version, because it was a no-brainer for me, considering how much I use WinAMP, and I really like the 10-band EQ.

Unfortunately, WinAMP for Android has been very annoying.

Most of what I listen to is long mixes in MP3 format (I know, it's not FLAC). Every time I start up WinAMP, my previous play position is lost. I'm so tired of WinAMP playing music from the wrong point.

At times the play position reported is higher than the maximum playtime of the mix. Eg: Play position is 1:54:00, but mix is only 1:14:00 long. WTF?

It doesn't matter if I shut down WinAMP cold turkey, or if I pause the player, then select QUIT from the menu. WinAMP is absolutely braindead when it comes to last play position saving and restoring.

This has been happening for a long time.

This is where we part ways, WinAMP Pro for Android.

I'm moving on to another media player. We're through. I'm tired of having to pull my phone out while I'm in my car, in order to set the last play position manually, so I don't have to constantly hear the same track over and over again. The point of me going wireless is so I can leave my phone tucked away in my holster, and do everything using my car's head unit via bluetooth.

The player I'm now testing sports a 10-band EQ, and has virtually every feature I want, except for Shoutcast. Shoutcast is on the menu for the future, but since I don't really play shoutcast in my car, it's worth the loss.

Sorry WinAMP, but you had lots of time to fix this. I'm no longer recommending WinAMP Pro. I now recommend PowerAMP. WinAMP for Android is on my top 10 not recommended Android apps list.

Continuing to sell Pro licenses to a software which is broken for as long as WinAMP for Android has been is certainly borderline criminal.

[Tristan Young]

Replacement media player - testing well

Welp, a few days have passed since dumping WinAMP Pro for Android.

The other media player is working very well. In fact, I have to say it's better than WinAMP, not just because it doesn't exhibit play position Alzheimers. It is actually producing very good sound.

[RazzMaTazz]

Yeah... After being a longtime Winamp user, I just ditched WinAmp in favor of MixZing (free).

MixZing just revised their UI and added Shoutcast, so now there's seems to be little reason to use WinAmp instead of MixZing unless maybe you get WinAmp's WiFi sync to work. (I can't.)

MixZing won me over with its new user interface and the addition of Shoutcast Radio, etc. Winamp was in the driver's seat and could have owned the Android player app market but they blew it. Terrible executive management and product management.

Some benefits of free MixZing over WinAmp:
1) Swiss army knife plays music, videos, & now Shoutcast radio stations.
2) Lyrics for a song are built-in, one-click away, & free (as are artist bios, YouTube, Wikipedia, & Google search.)
3) Plays by folder, playlist, artist, song, album, & genre.
4) Intuitive, clear, attractive user-interface.
5) Albums play in track # order (not alphabetically).
6) Automatic song recognition & ID3 tag retrieval.
7) Manual ID3 tag editing.
8) 10-band graphic equalizer, free, customizable by song.
9) Built-in search.

[Tristan Young]

Hey, thank you RazzMaTazz.

I'll check MixZing out. The shoutcast support is a nice bonus PowerAMP doesn't currently offer.

I'm still doing PowerAMP testing, and will put MixZing on my list after playing with PowerAMP for a bit. I may as well install it now though.

I really hate to give up on WinAMP, but I haven't really been given any good reasons to stay. I wonder if I can get a refund on my WinAMP Pro license

[Victhor]

One more addition: Player Pro.
It has everything Poweramp & Mixzing has PLUS:
. Winamp's rating system compatible.
. Built in album & artist image finder.

Downside is that it doesn't support shoutcast (I don't use it so I really never looked for it).

[Tristan Young]

Hello Victhor.

I'll check that one out too. Thank you.

I wasn't liking the overall appearance of Mixzing, but to be honest, I haven't even installed it yet - got sidetracked. From the sample shots I've seen, it's too Windows 8 like, and Windows 8 makes me barf in my mouth (both the Metro and Windows Desktop experience). But I really need to give the various programs an honest try.

I have to admit, PowerAMP is really growing on me.

[JMullins]

So I am confused. You decided to quit using the app WFA but want to continue to use the forums? Can't the other apps afford a forum of their own?

[Tristan Young]

JMullins: People sense my frustration, and have good intentions by pointing me in the direction of software which may work better.

Even though I'm not using WinAMP for Android anymore, I still intend to follow WinAMP for Android, with the hopes that something good happens to WinAMP, such as bug fixes. This thread will die off on its own soon enough. It's not like the dev's are jumping in and defending their product, or anything.

Thank you to everyone who offered alternatives.

[Victhor]

Ey, being open-minded is the key. You have to consider the possibility that users can have a prefered player for desktop and a different one for Android.

Sadly, seems like Winamp for Android is intended just to make profit, it´s understandable, but other apps like Player Pro and MixZing doesn´t have a huge multinational behind so they do their best effort to offer really usefull, innovative and carefully made stuff (and closer to modern´s users if you ask me), virtues that used to be Winamp´s spirit when it began..

[net-cruizer]

I've tried probably every music player for Android, full/pro versions, and personally, I find Google's to be the best, by far.
Has the best sound for sure. A little bit lacking on features, but who needs features, it's a phone, its in your pocket most of the time, lol.
After the last couple updates, it's improved on some stuff. But the sound quality is awesome.
n7player and doubletwist weren't too bad.

[Tristan Young]

It's true, a music player doesn't need a lot of features, but for me, it needs all the important ones, including a 10-band EQ, it would be nice if it supports shoutcast, etc. I *might* try Google Music Player, but after the terrible experience I have with other Google software, I'm not really holding up much hope for it. Just the recent reviews of it show it's less-than-stellar.

I didn't like n7player. I gave it a try, but I ended up uninstalling it the same day.

I haven't tried doubletwist, will give that a go.

Last night I bought the license to PowerAMP, since so far, it is the one that I like the most. It's not perfect, but at the moment, it's way better than WinAMP. I still prefer the interface to WinAMP, and shoutcast support, but if I cannot resume from the last point I was playing within a long mix, then it's absolutely useless to me. Sound quality and play position store/retrieval are the two most important features I need.

Just because I bought a license doesn't mean I'm stuck on PowerAMP.