Music Player

[Fred S]

With my old ipod on its last legs this seems a good time to get my first smartphone, with the intention of using this to play my music. The Wildfire looks ideal for me but I'd be grateful for any feedback about how good it is for playing music and whether it would do a good enough job to replace the ipod for this.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

I have never had an ipod so I can not compare. However I can tell you that with a good music player application you can create playlists and shuffle your songs.

Sound quality depends on the headphones.

TuneWiki is a good music player, but it is also worth trying last fm. This is a radio app which streams music based on your own tastes.

 

[turfer]

I have a quick question about the music player that comes installed in the Wildfire.

It plays my music just fine and sets up playlists no trouble at all as well. The one thing that's annoying me about it at the moment though is when I transfer an album over from my PC, and then try to play the album on the phones player it is playing the songs in alphbetical order rather than track number order. I'm having to re-order and save every album I transfer over. Is there a setting I can adjust so that it plays the songs in the correct order?

 

[Fred S]

It plays my music just fine and sets up playlists no trouble at all as well. The one thing that's annoying me about it at the moment though is when I transfer an album over from my PC, and then try to play the album on the phones player it is playing the songs in alphbetical order rather than track number order. I'm having to re-order and save every album I transfer over. Is there a setting I can adjust so that it plays the songs in the correct order?

This sounds a bit worrying. Can you browse by Artist and then get a list of albums for that artist, and if so do the songs play in the right order then?

 

[turfer]

This sounds a bit worrying. Can you browse by Artist and then get a list of albums for that artist, and if so do the songs play in the right order then?

Yes there are tabs to browse by artist ( you can also browse by album, by song or by genre or by playlist) and you do get a list of albums by that artist, but when you enter any album the tracks are listed alphabetically and need to be manually reordered to the actual album tracklisting.

I can't find a setting that would disable this automatic alphabetical ordering, so I'm thinking it might be better downloading a different music player app. If anyone has any suggestions it would be very much appreciated

 

[Fred S]

Yes there are tabs to browse by artist ( you can also browse by album, by song or by genre or by playlist) and you do get a list of albums by that artist, but when you enter any album the tracks are listed alphabetically and need to be manually reordered to the actual album tracklisting.

I can't find a setting that would disable this automatic alphabetical ordering, so I'm thinking it might be better downloading a different music player app. If anyone has any suggestions it would be very much appreciated

Is this thread for the HTC Hero relevant here? Someone says that "if you click on selected album instead of longpressing the tracks are listed properly". As I don't have one of these phones yet I don't actually know what this means!

 

[turfer]

Is this thread for the HTC Hero relevant here? Someone says that "if you click on selected album instead of longpressing the tracks are listed properly". As I don't have one of these phones yet I don't actually know what this means!

To be honest Fred I don't really understand what that is on about. No matter what list I access or how I press anything almost* everything is listed alphabetically.

Worse though is the fact that the player will not remember my manual re-ordering of the tracks. So an album I reordered yesterday is all messed up again today when i try to play the album again. Infuriating!!

I actually really like this phone it has alot going for it and it's great value for money at the price. This problem with the android player seems quite widespread throughout the range though. I'm astonished Google haven't done anything about it (I wonder if in 2.2 froyo it'ill be any better). The problem seems to be the way it reads the mp3 file ID3 tags.

Anyway I have tried a couple of other players from the market:

Mort Player :which plays albums in order, but i didn't like the browse/search function, so I've uninstalled it.

Meridian Media Player: again plays the albums in correct order, allows browse/search by album, artist, song, playlist, genre or writer and also shows album artwork. This is the player I'm going to stick with try out for a while. It's just not quite as pretty as the standard Android music app but at least it's playing things properly.



* incidently when I said almost everything is being listed alphbetically, i loaded a live concert bootleg recording and maybe because this didn't have any id3 tags all the songs were listed in the correct order. So if you steal all your music you might not have any problems at all *

 

[Fred S]

On the subject of music, how does the Wildfire deal with incoming calls and texts while listening to music with earphones? Does the ring tone/message notification sound only in the earphones when the call comes in? And will this be the same in whatever music app is being used e.g Meridian as opposed to the default player?

 

[turfer]

On the subject of music, how does the Wildfire deal with incoming calls and texts while listening to music with earphones? Does the ring tone/message notification sound only in the earphones when the call comes in? And will this be the same in whatever music app is being used e.g Meridian as opposed to the default player?

I'm using Meridian Player ( and quite liking it) and an incoming call rings in the earphones and on the hanset as well, (though at a reduced volume). As soon as a call is detected the track playing is paused while you take the call, then automatically resumes when the call is ended. I imagine for a text or email alert the track only pauses long enough for the alert tone to be heard.

 

[hunta]

Is bTunes available on the Wildfire? It replicates the iPod look and feel (with widget ;=) )

 

[steviecvr]

Is bTunes available on the Wildfire? It replicates the iPod look and feel (with widget ;=) )

When I tried this, the resolution is all messed up! Dissapointed

 

[hunta]

As mentioned in another thread, but it's worth emailing the dev. It might be a relatively simple job and definitely in their interests to increase compatibility.

 

[Fred S]

The one thing that's annoying me about it at the moment though is when I transfer an album over from my PC, and then try to play the album on the phones player it is playing the songs in alphbetical order rather than track number order. I'm having to re-order and save every album I transfer over. Is there a setting I can adjust so that it plays the songs in the correct order?

I have now finally got the Wildfire and the normal music player is playing the songs in my albums in the correct order.

 

[turfer]

I have now finally got the Wildfire and the normal music player is playing the songs in my albums in the correct order.

That's cool Fred. Maybe the ID tags have been removed from your music files. Hope you like the phone, and it might be worth checking out some of the other media players anyway to see if theres anything you like better.

 

[Fred S]

That's cool Fred. Maybe the ID tags have been removed from your music files. Hope you like the phone, and it might be worth checking out some of the other media players anyway to see if theres anything you like better.

My music files still have the id tags. Anyway I've also downloaded Meridian, just trying to decide which one I prefer, the default music player or Meridian. At the moment Meridian is just shaving it.

 

[Fred S]

Anyway I've also downloaded Meridian, just trying to decide which one I prefer, the default music player or Meridian. At the moment Meridian is just shaving it.

One thing I do find slightly frustrating is not being able to drill back up if I've gone out of the app. So firstly I select Artist, then drill down to Album, then select the song from the album I want to start with. In Meridian I can then drill back up in reverse, which is really handy. But if I've popped out of the music player to do something else and then go back to it I can't drill back up from the song that's been playing, I have to start from Artist again.

Am I missing something here? Can any other music player do this?