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| Android's one true, must-have, music player has a new beta! |
Its wide variety of equalizer tweaks, crossfading, support for many alternative file formats and folder hierarchy view have earned it a strong following, establishing it as the must-have premium music player. The app has now received a beta release of a major version change, updating from market-release 1.4 to 2.0, and bringing with it an extensive overhaul.
Just past the break we have an early breakdown on the new build, and of course the all-important download link!
PowerAMP’s developer Max MP (who now develops PowerAMP for a living, I might add) has posted the APK file to download on his forum (via snakeeyes21 over at XDA)
Be sure to read through the topic for detailed user feedback, and do be aware that this is a beta release. A preliminary examination follows:
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| The new look is sleekly minimalistic |
Most obvious is the UI change: The main interface has been revamped, and is now more minimalistic – the app’s icon has been changed to match, darker with more contrast. Shuffle, repeat, and EQ functions are now a press away (Very similar to Samsung’s stock player), as is a new star-rating feature and a tone indicator. These will stay on-screen until dismissed, and enabled features will display a shadow over the new, larger, album art area.
The beta only includes the 4x4 widget, which reflects the same UI changes as the player screen, as does the new lockscreen overlay. The library, too, has been tweaked to reduce clutter, with an Ice Cream Sandwich-esque Folder/Player/Library indicator at the bottom. New flip and slide animations herald the search screen and album art change, respectively. More than ever, the built-in Black Neon theme does wonders to save power on AMOLED displays.
While a changelog has yet to be released, a preliminary trawl has revealed a set of wonderful new features. Everyone’s favourite editor, NZtechfreak, has been singing the praises of the app’s ability to read ID3 tags properly instead of taking cues from the system, which allows sorting by custom genre among other things [Nik is rather understating it, I'm ecstatic! Improper genre tag reading has been a bane of my existence with the Galaxy phones. While I'm at it, it can now read FLAC tags properly too -Ed].
Meanwhile, I’m enjoying the new lockscreen widget setup – One of the features of my Galaxy S II is a nifty set of music controls at the top of the lockscreen. Unfortunately, these only work with the decidedly-lacking stock Samsung music application. In prior versions of PowerAMP, the built-in lockscreen replacement has displeased me by opening a second or so after the phone is woken from sleep, visibly popping up on top of the stock lock, leaving Widgetlocker et al the only option short of simply not having a music widget on the lockscreen. This version seems to have solved the pop-over lag issue for the most part, displaying smoothly on first wake unless I have a new notification. Thanks to a handy option in the new settings menu, it only appears when music is actually playing. Combined with gesture input over the album art, this makes for a snazzy alternative, one I think I’ll keep.
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| From left to right: the new look 4x4 widget, the new lockscreen, the cleaner looking UI in the player menu itself - note the new lyrics look up! |
Meanwhile, I’m enjoying the new lockscreen widget setup – One of the features of my Galaxy S II is a nifty set of music controls at the top of the lockscreen. Unfortunately, these only work with the decidedly-lacking stock Samsung music application. In prior versions of PowerAMP, the built-in lockscreen replacement has displeased me by opening a second or so after the phone is woken from sleep, visibly popping up on top of the stock lock, leaving Widgetlocker et al the only option short of simply not having a music widget on the lockscreen. This version seems to have solved the pop-over lag issue for the most part, displaying smoothly on first wake unless I have a new notification. Thanks to a handy option in the new settings menu, it only appears when music is actually playing. Combined with gesture input over the album art, this makes for a snazzy alternative, one I think I’ll keep.
Finally, as anecdotal as it is, music’s sounding clearer and fuller to my ears. Bearing in mind that the Galaxy S II doesn’t have the same punch in the audio department as its predecessor, this could just be the good ol’ placebo effect at work. That said, any improvement is welcome, and with luck we’ll get a more detailed analysis and wider reviews once the update is closer to release. Check out the screenshots, and let us know what you think in the comments.
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| Naturally the player retains folder views, for those who resolutely refuse to tag their music collections! |
While I would seriously like to claim credit for this piece, I have to put it our there that due to reasons of sleep deprivation I posted this one to blogger on Nik's (onslaught86) behalf.
ReplyDeleteI completely wrapped with this update. PowerAMP is now my number one Android music player without any reservations.
Gonna give it a crack. Let you know how it compares. :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the heads up!! Also, I'm not sure if they are your screenshots, but thanks for getting me hooked on VAST.
ReplyDeleteIs this statement true? -- " Bearing in mind that the Galaxy S II doesn’t have the same punch in the audio department as its predecessor,...."
ReplyDeleteYes, definitely true. The SGSII is distinctly inferior to the Galaxy S. The Galaxy S used the Wolfson DAC - it's SQ was excellent, and with Voodoo Sound peerless in mobile phones. The SGSII is poor in comparison, but good enough for most. If you check the archives here you can find the "Brief History of Blogging" piece - there is a link to my SGSII review at Clove which goes into more detail on this.
ReplyDeleteIt's always good to have your music collection accurately tagged, but it can be very useful to have file names and file/folder structures set up appropriately as well, just as a fall back. I've seen some atrocious file/folder structures in use by some people (i.e. non-existant structures ;-) ).
ReplyDeleteJust out of curiosity , do you know what DACs the SGSII uses?
Indeed a properly tagged collection is ideal. As you say good to still have some folder structure too - I also have them in folders by artist and album (useful for devices that can't organise by tags, like my television when playing music from a USB drive). The sound processing in the SGSII is via a Yamaha processor, you would expect a company of their pedigree would know a thing or two about that, but nevertheless its not up to the standard set by the Wolfson.
ReplyDelete