Know of a good iPod-like music player/manager for your mobile phone?

September 5, 2006 5:56 AM

Have you ever bought or downloaded an application for your mobile phone that gives you a music manager and player just like the iPod? If so, I'd like to hear about it.

I'm doing some research of the availability of applications for mobile phones that provide iPod-like functionality.

In other words, an application that you load onto your mobile phone that allows you to navigate your music using the meta-data (album/artist/song/genre) of the files on your phone and then play them. Supporting of playlists, ratings and some kind of synchronisation with a computer would be an added bonus.

The operating system of the device you have it for it doesn't matter too much (so Symbian, Palm, BREW and Microsoft are all fine), I'm more interested in what the application was called, who made it and whether you thought it was any good.

I'm not interested in pre-loaded applications provided by the phone vendor (eg. Sony Ericsson and Nokia's own music applications) and of course, the iPod since this research would be used to directly compete with them.

posted by mr_silver to technology (12 comments total)

Do you consider Windows Media Player to be just like iPod? If so, my T-Mobile SDA does this, I have a 2GB miniSD card in it for storage. However, it was "provided by the vendor," so maybe not useful to you.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 6:09 AM on September 5, 2006

As someone who does a lot of research for the UK mobile market, I would suggest (in addition to following up any answers in this thread): checking through the relevant download sections on Handango; getting hold of the latest Mobile Media magazines from Informa; checking the archive of the peerless MoCoNews.

Also, you don't say what the geographical scope of your research is - if you're interested in the latest mobile developments, it's always good to include South Korea and Japan in your research; a good starting point here might be Wireless Watch Japan.

Also, bear in mind that the sorts of pre-loaded applications that you say are out of scope come from operators (e.g. Vodafone's Radio DJ) as well as from handset manufacturers...
posted by runkelfinker at 6:23 AM on September 5, 2006

The rapidity of the ipod interface is due to two components: the PC-installed itunes manager, and the iPod-installed database browser.

The PC component creates a compact database file that contains a view of your metadata that is very highly optimised for rapid access using a few static fields.

The ipod component contains a browser that is very highly optimised for rapid browsing using a few static fields. The main drawback of this approach is that it is usually very difficult, if not impossible, to update the device knowledge about new files without tethering it to the PC and running the database creator again. You also cannot usually run custom queries against the database, which means that the playback interface is static or non-customizable.

Replicating the rapid metadata experience is tricky. Unless you have users willing to tether their devices to a PC for database optimisation, you will have to do it on the device. Some mp3 players do this, and you can recognise them because they parse new songs and write the metadata to their database during startup ("Please wait...").

Many manufacturers try to avoid having to support any extra PC software and just support basic synch to their devices. And then they often want to avoid the perception of long duration device lags so they avoid metadata pre-parsing. And that is why you mainly find simple filename browsers on many devices.
posted by meehawl at 6:37 AM on September 5, 2006

You also cannot usually run custom queries against the database, which means that the playback interface is static or non-customizable.
Smart playlists update on the fly on the iPod, which suggests some sort of querying.
posted by bonaldi at 8:52 AM on September 5, 2006

I have a Nokia N70 and use Oggplay as a music player. It's no iPod - but it's better than Nokia's own music player and manager, Nokia Application Suite (which needs a bit of work). Given that I'm restricted to 1GB of music anyway the Oggplay interface does the job, and it's free.

There are some important things it doesn't do - you can't rate music, it doesn't keep a playcount, can't create playlists 'on the go', doesn't equalise volume, doesn't show cover art or notes, won't replicate with the PC and doesn't know about podcasts. I use iTunes and a little free utility called iTunes Agent to burn playlists to my memory card.

Well actually I use my iPod - given the list above, you can see why.

If you are sniffing to see if there's a 'gap in the market' and a 'market in the gap' then yes, I would say that there is.
posted by grahamwell at 8:55 AM on September 5, 2006

Smart playlists update on the fly on the iPod

I have not created smart playlists on the device, so I cannot comment directly on this. I suspect that if this is possible, it is limited to a core set of static fields, and does not encompass custom fields or calculated fields, or that the lists themselves cannot combine results from other smart lists. Then again, the ipod's CPU setup is quite robust and often underutilised, so maybe it can be hammered extra hard to perform complex queries...

Handhelds usually have a limitation in CPU and RAM that is quite severe. Also, you do not want to exhaustively parse the on-device disk files because that eats up battery. Therefore, most devices take advantage of their relatively expansive space and rely on the host PC to upload to them a database that is relatively large but requires minimal calculation and disk thrashing.

The design of the "Tag Database" for Rockbox exploits these very principles to use the host to create a large, economically parsable metabase that is then downloaded to the device. The device then uses a small database browser to represent the files using ID3 metadata instead of the fily hierarchy. The code and design is GNU - perhaps it can be altered to sync with a desired mobile device?
posted by meehawl at 9:52 AM on September 5, 2006

I know this doesn't help you much today, but I wanted to point out that during Apple's Q306 earnings call, CFO Peter Oppenheimer said "As regards cell phones, we don't think that the phones that are available today make the best music players. We think the iPod is. But over time, that is likely to change. And we're not sitting around doing nothing." (emphasis added)

It may be worth the wait.
posted by trevyn at 11:07 AM on September 5, 2006

Also, an interesting post this morning on AppleInsider: Apple cell phone is real and ready for production
posted by trevyn at 2:48 PM on September 5, 2006

Does Apple still limit the current ROKR to 100 songs? I found it unusually annoying with v1 that using the "itunes" app on the phone you could access only 100 songs, but that using the Moto mp3 player you could access thousands.

Doesn't Apple always face the problem that a sufficiently good itunes phone will cannabilise ipod sales?
posted by meehawl at 4:21 PM on September 5, 2006

I can see Apple taking the same approach that they did with the iPod nano and the video iPod.

i.e.: Introducing the new iPod. Now with SIM slot.

All of a sudden, the genericness of the iPod brand makes sense.
posted by trevyn at 5:23 PM on September 5, 2006

Have a Palm OS Treo and a 4GB card. Use Pocketunes. Love it.

I had used an iPod, but I gave it to my wife. I burned all of my iTunes purchased music to CDs and reimported it into Rhapsody, which can also play my other AAC files. Synced to my Treo, and is good.

Pocketunes also syncs with Napster, Urge, and WMP.
posted by 4ster at 8:05 PM on September 5, 2006

Damn. I was hoping no one suggested Pocketunes yet. That would have made a sweet first post.

Oh well. I second 4ster reccomendation for pocketunes.

pocket tunes + 2mb sd card + treo 600 is what im running. With my eyes on the 700p if/when it comes to cingular

My only complaint- the treo needs a small adapter to plug in head phones. I found and bought a nice inline adapter that originally came with a Motorola Rokr. At least that thing was good for something.
posted by Ryaske at 9:44 PM on September 7, 2006