Playing music on an Android device

[Russell]

I can't believe it but it looks like Android does not have a music player built in.  Even my aging Blackberry has an icon called 'music' which offers to play all the music on the device as is or random.  But neither fo my Androids do that.  I can search and find one song and play that but it won't play continiously.  Surely there must be a way.

Do I really have to download an app?

R

[fuaran]

Depends on what phone, and what version of Android. I thought anything recent would have Google Play Music.
But some brands might have replaced it with their own customised version.

I prefer Vanilla Music anyway, its a lot simpler, and lightweight, and free/open source. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ch.blinkenlights.android.vanilla

[Russell]

Yeah, it has Google Play but that wants me to subscribe before I do anything.

[Russell]

I've just installed Vanilla Music and it does what I want except it does not shuffle.  I like a random selection rather than choosing an album/artist to play.

Thanks

R

[robgul]

We got rid of our CD/tape combo, ripped all the CDs to MP3 and now have an old HTC phone with a couple of powered external speakers (Amazon for ten quid) as our "music centre" - quality is adequate for what we want.  The Android app is Pi Music Player free from the Google shop - it's pretty simple ... plays records!

There are loads of free players - some of them try and dictate what you listen to - I just have the CD's in folder by artist and select what I want.

Rob

[fuaran]

For Vanilla Music, on the playing screen the shuffle icon is on the bottom left.

[mrcharly-YHT]

You don't have to subscribe. It tries to integrate with google play and the store, reasonably enough.

the google store has a lot of free players.

Don't really see this as a problem, personally. Put it this way. On an Android device, you can install the music player of your choice.

[Russell]

For Vanilla Music, on the playing screen the shuffle icon is on the bottom left.

I've found something that looks like a shuffle icon - yet to be convinced it is shuffling all tracks and not just within a genre/album/artist selection.  We shall see.

Is shuffle on when the dot appears?

What is the dice/loop/1 icon supposed to mean?

[fuaran]

For Vanilla Music, on the playing screen the shuffle icon is on the bottom left.

I've found something that looks like a shuffle icon - yet to be convinced it is shuffling all tracks and not just within a genre/album/artist selection.  We shall see.

Is shuffle on when the dot appears?

What is the dice/loop/1 icon supposed to mean?

The shuffle icon switches between no shuffle/shuffle album/shuffle all. The other icon is for repeat etc.
If you hold down the icon for a second it gives a menu, which lists all of the options.