Android Music Apps: A Disgraceful Experience

The Decline of the Dedicated Music Player

The dedicated music player has faded into insignificance due to the widespread use of smartphones. As a result, it's reasonable to expect that the experience of listening to and purchasing music on a smartphone today would be excellent. However, this is only true if you own an Apple iPhone. On Android, the experience is quite different—often described as embarrassing.

A Personal Journey with Android Music

I recently revisited the Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro and thought I'd test them on various phones, including the Motorola Edge 70 I've been reviewing. While I usually use YouTube Music for reviews on Android, I wanted to go deeper and live with an Android phone and Samsung earbuds for all my usual musical needs. What I found was a confusing world of substandard apps, in-app payments, a heavy push toward subscription-based streaming services, and an overwhelming number of ads.

As someone who primarily uses an iPhone for music, I found the Android experience to be disorienting. If this is what awaits newcomers, and if someone told me that music and audio were their most-wanted feature on a new phone, I’d strongly advise them to avoid Android entirely.

Music Done Right: Only on the iPhone

I understand that everyone listens to and purchases music differently, but here’s what I want from my phone. I mostly discover new music outside of apps, and if I like a song, I buy it through iTunes and store it in my own curated playlist. No ads, no skipping tracks I don’t like, no subscription—just the music I want.

I have a small list of podcasts I listen to regularly. I stream them and download them to store in an offline playlist I can use anywhere at any time. I also subscribe to YouTube Premium (for no ads on YouTube), and YouTube Music takes care of any further requirements, whether that’s listening to entire albums before purchasing individual tracks or discovering new songs.

These are fairly simple requirements, and they’re all handled through Apple’s excellent Music and Podcast apps, plus iTunes for purchases. From the attractive designs to the simplicity of locating playlists and songs, I’m never more than a few taps away from playing my music or podcasts, finding something new, or buying a track ready to put into a playlist.

Everything is seamless, fast, and logical, with a cohesive design throughout. The apps are baked into the operating system, and unless you subscribe to Apple Music, they're completely free. Even if I started over, I’d know exactly where to look to get started with my podcasts and where to find music I purchased through iTunes or synced from my computer.

Not the Same on Android: An Awful Experience

When I fire up an Android phone, where exactly do I go to find my podcasts? Where do I buy some music? Where will I store my playlists? Is there a standard app?

Since Google Play Music and Google Podcasts' demise, there’s nowhere obvious at all. Sure, as a YouTube Premium subscriber, YouTube Music is an option, but if I weren’t, I’d be forced into the Play Store. Searching for “music player,” the top results are both called Music Player, and they appear to be essentially the same.

The first screen I get when I open Hitchhike’s DD Music Player app is a massive, timed ad. It’s there every single time, often with a deliberately obfuscated option to close it, and it’d cost $2 per month to remove the ads. This app has over 100 million downloads and a 4.6-star rating, yet it’s a terrible initial experience.

Inshot’s Music Player app is no different; it’s just a bit cheaper to remove the ads. The functionality is fine, but if these are the most popular music players out there, it’s a terrible start.

Costs Rack Up: Nothing Gets Any Better

How about podcasts? Outside of more standalone apps, such as BBC Sounds, YouTube Music will play podcasts, but none of my most listened-to podcasts are listed. You can add them via the RSS feed, though, like it’s 2010.

Instead, I downloaded the podcast app most recommended on Reddit. It’s Podcast Addict, which turns out to have a bland design and more ads, which I can remove for another $1 per month or $10 per year.

The thing is, it’s slow and poorly designed, with an ugly interface that often makes no sense. Why are there different play buttons on podcasts? I have no idea. Like YouTube Music, it also forced me to find the RSS feed so I could listen to the podcasts I wanted. After fiddling around with links that didn’t work, where did it find one that did? Yep, Apple Podcasts.

If I want to buy digital music, like I’ve been for years, it’s also a pain. I can find the most recent song I purchased through iTunes on Amazon Music and Qobuz, but to actually buy the song, I have to do so through the website, not the app. It’s laughable.

Seeing as a MicroSD card slot is mostly a thing of the past, I’d have to rely on internal storage for offline music organization, should I buy tracks from different companies. Not terrible, just yet another step in the long, laborious process of listening to something on Android.

If I’m happy to just stream music and podcasts, which I understand many are, I have to pay for an app like Spotify. That’s potentially four, five, or even six apps, all with different designs, none of which talk to each other, and all either having ads or monthly payments attached just to listen to something.

It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way

It’s not that I couldn’t survive using these apps and processes, but it not only feels messy and incoherent, but also like I’d be making do. I’d end up dissatisfied, thinking there had to be a better system.

I can see myself asking other Android owners what music or podcast app they use, just in case musical nirvana exists and I’d missed it. It shouldn’t be this complicated.

Google has failed to compete with Apple on music and podcast delivery, and the transition to YouTube Music doesn’t seem to effectively replicate services available in the past. This, in turn, drives people to the Play Store, where an overwhelming choice of mostly substandard apps, many with an associated cost, awaits. Or, you can fill the pockets of apps like Spotify.

A year-old Reddit post made me chuckle. An iPhone user asked how people bought music on Android. Almost everyone recommended a different app, talked about servers, more apps to download Spotify playlists, and one aggressively said buying music was stupid, and that streaming was all anyone needed. Not one person could point to a simple way to do so, and clearly nothing has changed.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Buy an iPhone, and you’ll find out. Unless things dramatically change in the future, I can’t imagine ever swapping iOS for Android when it comes to listening to, streaming, or buying music or podcasts. What a sad state of affairs.