The jury is still out on what we regard as the best music player application on the Android platform. One of Android’s key strengths is the flexibility it gives its users. One is spoilt for choice since different developers exploit various capabilities of the “open” platform to come up with amazing applications with interesting use cases. However, you still can never go wrong with some of the applications that device manufacturers preload on their hardware. Even though most of them are either bloatware or [crap]ware, a few standout. Like Samsung’s music player. And the video player too.
Since the Galaxy S III shipped with a new version of TouchWiz four years ago, the company has gone on to iterate and make better what was already a good music player in 2012.
Despite Samsung’s music player being a fantastic option, there have been several limitations. The biggest one is not some unnecessary features you end up never using (like those hover gestures that debuted on the Galaxy S4 three years ago). It’s availability and updates.
Samsung’s newest devices, the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, ship with a new version of Samsung’s customized software. As is always the case with every new version of TouchWiz, the two devices’ software brings with it newer versions of apps like the music player. All devices currently expecting the Android Marshmallow update from Samsung are sure to get most of those features but what about those that won’t? Previously, they would be forever condemned and be stuck with the old. Going forward, that won’t be the case as far as the music app is concerned.
The music player app is now in the Play Store. Finally.
That means updates will be pushed directly to users’ devices as soon as they are made available and not have to wait to be bundled with the next batch of software updates being pushed to devices which never get to most users and devices anyway.
This move is not new. Samsung has previously done the same for its other apps like the browser. We hope the video app is next on the line since it’s a fantastic app.
There’s one problem, though: unlike S Health which Samsung opened up to all (compatible) devices last year, the music player on the Play Store is only available to compatible Samsung Galaxy smartphones. So, no, you can’t have it on your ageing smartphone. At least, we’re halfway there, though.
