Alternate Music Players for Apple's iOS 8.4

Gorts, feel free to move this if you think is belongs in the Hardware forum.

Like many, I'm frustrated by the changes made to Apple's iPhone Music player with the release of iOS 8.4. The focus has changed from people that own their own libraries of downloaded or ripped music to people subscribing to Apple's Music service. Content from your own library is now relegated to one section at the far left of the menu bar at the bottom of the app, and you have limited abilities to change how the music looks, which makes it difficult to find what you are looking for. Some information, such as total album time, has been removed entirely. I find the new interface cluttered and hard to use.

So far I've tried two music apps from the App Store.

1) Picky ($2.99) Visually, this looks very much like the previous vesrsions of Apple's app. Your music is displayed almost exactly the way Apple used to display it, the only difference that I can see is that the fonts are bolder. It also integrates with the Apple app, so your play counts are updated - I use a series of dynamic playlists that remove music once I've played it, so this is essential.

2) Ecoute ($.99) Initially, this app looks very different from what you are used to. Upon launch you see your artists grouped in a series of tiles that fill the screen with a representative album cover shown. If you click the artist you are then shown a list of their albums, with track count and times, and selecting the album takes you to a list of the songs on the album. It works very similar to Apple's pre iOS 8 app, though I do not believe it updates your play counts. Visually I like this one, though the loss of maintaining play counts is a deal-breaker for me.

Are there any other suggestions or opinions out there?

 

I'm a big fan of TapTunes. A great app if you're the type to listen to full albums rather than individual tracks. Needless to say, I wanted too impressed with the new Apple app.

 

CanOpener (supports FLAC, comes with stereo crossfeed speaker simulator for headphones, various EQ options and decibal dosimeter calibrated to various brands of headphones), $3.49 by Good Hertz.

 

I was afraid of that; I have not updated yet. I will be interested in this thread for sure now as that does not sound good.

 

Give Cesium a try. It's tailored to the actual album listener. I used it before I started using the Tidal app to easily download albums.

https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/cesium-streamlined-music-player/id924491991?mt=8

 

I'm on the Apple platform for computer, tablet and phone but the only thing I do with iTunes is stream radio. The rest of iTunes is a mess.

 

I just updated to 8.4 and haven't yet had a look at the music player... I'm afraid I won't like it though. Certainly something which we'll need to voice concerns about so it can be changed in the future. I really didn't like it when iOS 8 removed the albums tab entirely.

 

If you can wait awhile, foobar2000 for iOS is currently in alpha. In the meantime, Equalizer Pro is a very good player.

 

VOX

 

I apologize for not offering up my personal choice in my earlier post - I like Oplayer - very flexible with audio and video files, and has a great UI. I'm certainly interested in trying out some of the others mentioned here though

 

I second the VOX suggestions.......has free version.

 

... and another for VOX. TuneShell is also worth a look and it too has a free version.

 

Look up EQu. As the name suggests it's a music player built around a user configurable parametric EQ curve. It will sync your iTunes playlists and you can further sort by Artist, Album, Genre etc.... It also has support for Audiobooks and Podcasts though I have yet to try those features.

 

How about the McIntosh AP1 Audio Player app. I have been using that with good results. Interface is awful but it is designed with their signature blue VU meter. No cover art if that is important to you. Streams from ITunes Match as well.

 

+1 for VOX !

 

I don't know what's so big of a deal, I think they put a lot of thought in to design, and it looks really nice in my opinion. All the colours are great, and they've got albums separatively in artist category like it used to be (honestly all albums from one artist bugged me if I want just to listen to one album). Also mini player is very usable in my opinion. You can always turn off Apple Music in settings if that is a problem.

 

Thanks for the tip about turning off Apple Music. I just updated my phone and was trying to sort out my music. Once Apple Music was turned off I was up and running again.

 

Turning off Apple Music and/or using Parental Restrictions to disable "Connect" gives you the "Playlists" button back at the bottom in the Music app. That was sufficient for me to be able to stick with it.

 

I tend to use either ecoute or Smartplayer. The latter is probably my fave.

 

Can opener.

 

I like Onkyo HF Player. Free, but have an in-app purchase for high res files. Works with FLAC and DSD files. Plays 24-bit/192khz FLAC files and DSD128 files (both DSF and DFF) without problems to my Oppo HA-2 DAC/amp. Has a built-in graphical equaliser and a crossfeed option.

 

Just turned off Apple music and connect, much better. Thanks for the tip.

 

Where is Connect located that you can turn it off?

 

I the Restrictions section (Settings -> General -> Restrictions). You have to set a Restrictions password and then Connect is one of the things you can disable.

 

another vote here for Onkyo HF Player.