AUDIO GUIDE
PLAYERS
FOR
PL AYA Z
You’ve got the hardware, you’ve got
the playlists... now pick from these
six superb apps that’ll help you get
more from your music collection
OLongplay
The most opinionated music
player we’ve ever seen, Longplay
doesn’t so much urge you
to play albums as force you.
Launch the app and it’ll show
a grid of cover art, which can
be reordered in various ways.
Tap a cover and the album starts,
and that’s it. There’s no messing
about with individual tracks.
Entertainingly, though, you can
set the app to shuffle... entire
albums, one after the other.
£2.99 / iOS
OCs: Classic
Music Player
Apple’s Music app for iOS/iPad
focuses on the company’s own
streaming service, marginalising
your own collection. Cs instead
rethinks the original iPhone Music
experience for modern devices.
It’s retro in all the right ways:
your tracks are front and centre,
whether on-device or in the
cloud, and the refined interface
offers plenty of sort/tab options.
£1.99 / iOS
ODoppler 2
Apple’s always pushed its own
ALAC format hard... but if you
want to play the most popular
hi-res audio files on an iPhone,
you’re FLAC out of luck. Unless
you install Doppler 2, that is. This
app will play all sorts of formats
and, usefully, import files from
pretty much anywhere, along
with integrating anything you’ve
downloaded from Apple Music
to your iPhone. The interface is
rather nice too.
£15.99 / iOSOCloudPlayer
This app will play songs you
store on your phone, but the
clue’s in the name regarding
its true calling. Pay to connect
Dropbox, OneDrive or Google
Drive and you can fashion a
giant cloud jukebox. Worried
about data charges? The
creators have thought of that,
with a cellular data switch (off
by default) and a ‘downloaded
only’ option for longer periods
when you’re offline.
£free or £8.99 / AndroidOPoweramp
For grumps unhappy with
Android’s music playback,
Poweramp bypasses it by way
of a custom audio engine. Music
sounds great — punchy and
clear. For further audiophile
glee, the app bundles a range
of controls, including an equaliser,
smart stereo expansion, and
some frankly fairly dubious
reverb. The interface is good,
if transition-happy. In all, it’s
a bargain at four quid.
£3.99 / AndroidOPi Music Player
You can get a smart playback
experience here for nowt, if
you’ll put up with ads — or 99p
if you won’t. But cheap doesn’t
mean lightweight: you can
create smart playlists, edit song
info and fiddle with EQ. Pi adds
two further standout features:
a lawyer-baiting ringtone maker,
and the option to add YouTube
tracks to playlists and watch pop
stars being terribly earnest in a
floating window.
from £free / AndroidMINI MEME