It's barely two days since I published an article about Canaree. An amazing music player which I've gotten fond of. But, I'm still considering if it'll be my daily driver. That's because I'm looking for a replacement for Retro Music Player, which has served me excellently well for seven months. My search for a replacement exposed me to so many other music players. I was surprised to see the vast number of music player(opensource) apps that were available in the market. It's 2019, but I don't think there'll be any stoppage in the flow of music player apps into the software market. However, we are being served almost the same thing(features) in all these apps. But some project owners have stepped-up the game, and we are seeing amazing kinds of stuff on music players now.
In my last article, I said reviewing music players isn't something I like to do. And I was being honest. Music players are designed in a similar fashion, so there's quite nothing new to talk about. What is in Retro Music Player can be found in several other music players. The only distinguishable factor/feature that can be talked about are the app's UI. Well, that's not the objective of this article.
In this article, I'll be talking about a music player I discovered recently. I didn't discover it by my effort though. I kept seeing several bug reports about the app. So I decided to check out the app's repository. It was the level of activity on the app's repository that spurred me to create this article.
ACG-Player; A music player with amazing prospects.
The app I will be discussing in this article is; ACG-Player. In this article, I'll be doing something different than what I've always done. I won't be doing an actual app review(although there'll be patches of it). Like I've said several times before, reviewing a music player app isn't something I like to do. What I'll do instead is; an overview of the project itself.
The objective is to show you why I think the app has amazing prospects. And if you find it interesting, you can contribute your quota to its development and advancement.
Project's brief history.
ACG-Player is a music player developed by GiKode(AugustToko). He is a student, and a start-up developer. ACG-Player is one of his projects. There are other projects which he is working on.
ACG-Player(or should I say the idea) is 7-months old. With respect to the initial commit on the app's repository. Installable releases of the app followed suit. The first version of the app was released on November 22, 2018. And since that time, there have 16 other releases. Taking the project's total tally of releases to 17(as at the time of this article). I studied the pattern in which the developer make these releases available (some projects time app releases). It was quite irregular. There's no definitive time interval between each release. And that's not a bad thing at all. I think the developer is working, and making releases available as it comes to him. However, what I noticed is that, most of the app's releases came just within the space of 7 days. To be precise, 11 versions of the app have been released within the space of last week(7 days). This proves one thing; the developer is keen about his project and is actively maintaining it.
What characterises most of these update releases are bug-fixes. The app is 'generously' buggy. At every turn or corner of the app, you are likely to experience an error(a bug). We all know bugs aren't a good thing. They(bugs) have a huge impact(mostly negative) on our 'User Experience (UX)'. However, bugs are part of program development. Like I said some time ago, you can't find an app that is 100% bug-free.
Aside from the numerous number of bug-fixes, there are also significant improvements to existing functions/features. In v2.6.2.5, released 7 days ago, the developer made two significant improvements. They are;
- Increase the running speed
- Increase the startup speed
In this release, v2.6.3.2, the developer;
- Improve the response speed of continuous playback,
- Increase the loading speed of album images.
There are other improvements in several other releases. But, in other to make this content short and concise, I'll skip those. You can get all the info you need about the app's releases from here.
I'll stop here about the app's history for now. I'm sure the information I've provided so far is enough to know about the app.
Why I think the app has amazing prospects. And how(why) you could(should) be a part of its development.
From all I have said so far, you can see that the app is still in its early stages. At its current level, I call it a Simple Music Player. That's because it's features/functions are basic for now. But, the developer is showing signs of wanting to make this app a big project. And that is achievable if he(the developer) gets the right push. So far, the issues he's being fed with are bug reports. So he is channelling all his mind into fixing things. But, it'll be good too if these(those) contributors took time out to suggest amazing ideas. The developer has shown great resolve by fixing issues very fast. I'm quite certain the same energy would be applied to improving and implementing new features.
The resolve of the developer is why I think the app has amazing prospects. There's no saying the level to which the app can attain if he(the developer) maintains this pace of development. But then, he's one person. Doing all these stuff(bug-fixing, improvements, and new features) by himself isn't easy. It's not impossible either, but it'll take a long time. Now, that's where were as opensource contributors need to step in(up). One of the beauties of opensource is 'collaborative development'. Development, in this case, doesn't only mean writing codes. You can contribute by submitting feature requests, helping out in documentation, bug reports(which is very active), etc. But, I think right now, helping out with the bugs are of more importance. Making feature requests are very important too. If all these components are put in place, we'll be staring at an amazing music player in a short while.
I've contributed my own quota by creating content for the project. I created a Privacy policy document. I also created FAQs and Contributor's guidelines. The contributor's guidelines will guide you on how to contribute to the project. There are other contributions I have in store for this project. As soon as I'm free with time, I'll devote a reasonable amount of time to make those contributions. I'm using this medium too to appeal to you to do your part in the project's development.
What the developer has done so far. (A quick look into the existing features of the app).
The developer has been able to develop the app to the status of a basic music player, which is great. I'll briefly discuss certain features in the app, and then list out the others.
ACG-Player's User Interface (UI).
ACG-Player is developed with Google's material design. So the player looks materialistic. But the developer decided to keep things simple. The full potential of Google's material design wasn't unleashed on the app. So the app doesn't look so beautiful, but it is useable(it's okay). I wish the developer would revamp the app's UI though. But that is rarely done. I have seen a few apps undergo a full UI overhaul. And those are 'big apps' with sufficient developers and financial. Asking the developer(of ACG-Player) to revamp the app's UI would be asking for too much.
There's compensation for the app's shortcomings though, in terms of UI. There are theme options and other UI options you can tweak. The theme options aren't the typical types we see on other apps(or music players). In other apps, you'd see either a light or dark theme. In ACG-Player, the theme options are different.
I don't know how to explain the theme options. The theme names are written in Simplified Chinese(which I don't speak). And I think the themes are fetched from an external source. Probably not directly maintained by the developer. I'm not certain though. But if it's the developer who maintains the availability of theme, I'd implore him to provide more options. The two theme options already available aren't bad though. In fact, I kind of like them.
Car mode.
Car mode is a feature I've never seen on any music player app. This would be my first time.
I used simple logic to understand what the feature is all about. And my assertions were correct. I know because I talked about it in the FAQs document I created, and the developer didn't question it.
When you select the 'Car mode' option, the app goes into landscape mode. The music control buttons become more legible and easy to reach. From the name of the feature, you can guess where it'll likely come in handy. Yes, I'm sure you guessed inside a car. There are Peripheral devices that allow us to connect our phones to our car's sound system. This means that we could play music from our phones in our cars. But, it is inappropriate to hold our mobile phones while driving. So to use this feature on the app, in our car, it is advisable to get phone-holders for our cars. With the holder, we can put our phones within our reach, put the music player on car mode, and easily use the app without a significant threat to our safety on the road.
The feature looks good, but, I'll not advise anyone to use it. I'm all about maximum safety and concentration when driving(not all the time though. I could be reckless sometimes).
Random play.
Once again, this is a feature I haven't seen on any other player. The feature almost works like 'shuffle', but is quite different. When you enable 'shuffle' on a music player, it selects and plays a random song on the list. On ACG-Player, the shuffle button is available, so also is the 'random play' button. The 'random play' feature is represented with a 'bolt' icon. When you tap the icon, the app plays a random song. The feature is quite cool.
NB; I was the one who titled the feature 'Random play'. I have no idea what the developer calls it.
These are the features I can talk about in this article. Hopefully, as the project advances, I'll find time to talk about its advancement. So I said I'd list other features of the app. They are;
- Playlist
- Equalizer
- Share
- File Viewer
- Playlist export(The app can export playlists, but can't import them).
What the developer plans to do.
The developer created a to-do 'issues' list. These are things he's working on, or plans to work on soon. They are;
- can clear notifications when music is paused
- add home page (show recent activities)
- dislike button
- fix "Multiple clicks caused multiple list overloads"
- add Add a privacy policy to the About page
- Playlist menu function.
Out of the six things on the list, he has executed 3 of them. I'm sure there'll be more things to do soon (I will make sure of it).
Summary.
In this article, I've discussed the 'ACG-Player' project in its entirety. The app is amazing and would be better if we put our hands to make it so. So far, so good, the developer has greatly impressed me with the work done. I hope to see this app bloom in the feature and attain its full potentials.
It feels good to do something different this time around. In this article, I've not reviewed an app per se. Instead, I've talked about the project. Although a little of the app itself was talked about.
I really feel good about this article. And maybe I'll publish more articles like this in the feature. But I'm not so sure about that though. We'll just have to wait, watch, and see.
Thanks for reading
Links
Project repository: https://github.com/AugustToko/ACG-Player
App download link: https://github.com/AugustToko/ACG-Player/releases
Resources:
- The content of this post was created based on my knowledge of the project, and mostly from my experience. The images used in this article are screenshots from my mobile phone or PC. Other images used, have their source links provided just below them.
Series Backlinks.
You can check out my review of other music players;
- Are open-source music players good enough to replace stock music players and non-open source music players?
- My review of AB music player. (Why it is great open source music player)
- Jockey music player. (The simple open source music player)
- Canaree; A Music Player with cool features and amazing UI, But.