A week ago, Yahoo! released their music app “Play” for Android based smartphones. The music player with features like song identification, smart shuffling, music sharing, etc. received mixed reviews from users. Some called it a hybrid of iTunes Genius and Shazam while some felt that the app lacked certain features that other players offer. Well, that’s the reason I decided to check out this app myself.
To start with, I was really impressed by the clean and simple interface of Play. It has a simple, easy-to-use interface and a homescreen with 3 basic options : Library, Shuffle and Identify. ‘
Library – As you all know, Library is the place where you will find your entire music collection. Like any other music player, this app too organizes your music collection based on artists as well as albums.
However, a unique feature about this player is that it integrates with Yahoo! Music news to provide you the latest updates about your favourite artists. Unlike most players, Play fetches missing album cover arts automatically.
Smart Shuffle – The Smart Shuffle feature of Play lets you create custom play-lists based on your mood. You can create a playlist based on a single song or even create playlists from the songs that you mostly listen to. The more you play, the smarter the song selections will be.
Identify – With the Identify feature, Play enables you to recognize the song currently playing on the radio, in a bar, a disco or even on TV. While there are many other Android apps available that enable you to do so, then why use Play? Well, compared to other apps in the Market, Play gives you an added feature. It lets you set the app in “Continuous” mode, which means it continuously listens to the music playing, takes samples every 30 seconds or so and builds a list of tunes. This can be really useful, if you want to know the songs that are playing in a club or at a party.
Highlights
- Cover art – Automatically fetches missing album cover arts.
- Artist News – Provides you the latest news about your favourite artists.
- Built-in scrobbling to Last.fm – Automatically scrobbles the songs you listen to your Last.fm profile to track and analyze your listening history.
- Social Integration – Easily send status updates about the music you’re listening to using Facebook, Twitter, E-mail or even text messages.
- Identify songs – Identify a single song or a series of songs as they’re played.
- Smart Shuffle – Automatically create custom playlists based on your mood.
Disadvantages
- Insufficient music identification – Compared to standalone music recognition apps like Shazam, Yahoo! has a smaller library.
- Lacks basic features – Basic features like equalizer and screen lock controls are missing.
- Not suitable for Tablets – It is designed specifically for smartphones and doesn’t look good on a bigger screen.
Conclusion
Well, looking at all the features, I personally feel that Play is a really good music player for Android. But it still needs to improve the music identification feature as well as include certain basic features. Other than that, it is really a complete music player for Android.
You can download Play for your Android device by searching for “Play by Yahoo” in the Android Market or from the link below.
Do drop in your commments.
Link: Yahoo’s Play for Androidrom
Editor’s Note: This post was written by Guest Author Karthik Prabhu. If you would like to write Guest Posts on Devils’ Workshop, join us here.