Poweramp v3 Project Update (please read first post for latest info before commenting)

[Luke Bryan]

How do i download the new Poweramp v3

[andrewilley]

3 hours ago, Luke Bryan said:

How do i download the new Poweramp v3

Either accept the 'Beta Tester' option within Google Play, or manually download and install the APK file from the Downloads tab at the top of this page (choose build 704, or the latest currently available).

Andre

[spacebar2011]

So.. March is history now. Would be nice if Max uttered a word by himself about the current situation, I guess he owes at least that much to loyal customers that have stuck by Poweramp since 2010/11. I have massive respect for his work and greatly appreciate the product, but, it's getting a bit too long in the tooth now and not hearing a word from the developer in over a year just makes it look bad! I think a lot of people have lost patience already (and yes, the developer should care because these are paying customers and many of them influence potential customers).

[Kabisi]

1 hour ago, spacebar2011 said:

So.. March is history now. Would be nice if Max uttered a word by himself about the current situation, I guess he owes at least that much to loyal customers that have stuck by Poweramp since 2010/11. I have massive respect for his work and greatly appreciate the product, but, it's getting a bit too long in the tooth now and not hearing a word from the developer in over a year just makes it look bad! I think a lot of people have lost patience already (and yes, the developer should care because these are paying customers and many of them influence potential customers).

I couldn't have said it better

[BROKEN]

This is why devs don't like to give ETA's.

To many people whinning. 

[crashjant]

44 minutes ago, BROKEN said:

This is why devs don't like to give ETA's.

To many people whinning. 

I agree with the speakers above. This is, to put it mildly, disrespect for its users. It's my opinion. But of course I'm waiting like everyone else. I hope that our expectations will be raised in the coming days. That would be pretty cool.

[eddie_the_man]

Im 100% sure the final product its gonna be amazing. Come in guys .. Dont complaint all the time. Its alpha... And damn for and alpha works very good. If not happy just unistall it and use normal v2. Just respect the developer and the developing time. 

[Fakename McMadethisup]

2 hours ago, eddie_the_man said:

Im 100% sure the final product its gonna be amazing. Come in guys .. Dont complaint all the time. Its alpha... And damn for and alpha works very good. If not happy just unistall it and use normal v2. Just respect the developer and the developing time. 

I find it hard to believe you're '100% sure the final product will be amazing'(paraphrase ?) when you've basically seen 0% of the 'final product', thanks to the (imo) ignorance of people voting for "material design", style over substance, as if people spend that long in a music player.... point being, with seeing nada of what the final product might end up looking like how do you have the slightest of clues, you also mention respecting a dev, that apparently doesn't have 2 minutes of his life to spend updating progress to his paying customers....a'ight like, nae danger pal ? respect is earned, not given, once he comes through and actually tells people what's going on himself he'll regain my full respect, a year is a long time man, I've flagged apps to Google for being paid abandonware, clearly just left in the store to collect up money with utterly 0 support anymore, if it wasn't for having lurked this forum for the past year I've have flagged Poweramp to Google as abandonware too, even with this forum it's hard to tell sometimes, one sentence from him every 2 or 3 months isn't too much to ask is it? I doubt people want debates with him, or conversations, just a simple single post to update up and reassure us it's actually genuinely progressing. Think of Schrödinger's cat, if the cats in a box and you can't see it, how do you know it's alive or dead? Same deal here, with no word from the dev how do we actually know it's progressing or not, altho Andre does an awesome job of modding here, it's unfortunately no substitute for the occasional update from dev....

[spacebar2011]

Exactly. We're not complaining, in fact most of us haven't even asked (let alone demand) much over the past year or more. I cannot fathom why and how it could be so difficult to leave a few lines of an update on this forum to reassure users of any progress. Andre has been handling queries (with his hands proverbially tied) for a long time and I do feel a bit sorry for him tbh.

I think it's rather reasonable to expect a word once in a good while from the developer without being called a naggy bugger.

[Brainscollector]

Oh Im so sorry I was so ignorant ant arrogant that I have voted for material design. Damn I was even that ignorant that I spent time on making concept mockups for Max to look at. Damn, I will be damned for my ignorance. Style over functionality. Wow what the heck, let's make the best functional player even more functional, but stay on gingerbread era with style, because we spent time only on listening to music not on using app itself. Let's make this player even better than PC programs to music listening and leave the design like for 5 years untouched. 

[andrewilley]

3 hours ago, Fakename McMadethisup said:

a year is a long time man, I've flagged apps to Google for being paid abandonware, clearly just left in the store to collect up money with utterly 0 support anymore,

While I'm as eager as the next person to see what Max has been working on (I haven't even seen a screenshot or anything myself either) I don't agree with the logic of the above part of your statement. If I buy a good book I don't expect the author to pop round and bring me revised editions for free every so often, nor DVDs, cars, etc. While it's great to get new features, I don't think you should feel cheated because you don't get them. You have paid 'as-is' for the functionality that you received after your two-week trial period ended (and bug fixes if something turns out to be broken) and anything further is a bonus.

I also personally agree with the 'form over function' statements here. For myself, I would have much preferred to have seen a year's worth of great new operational feature requests addressed rather than an updated interface, but that is what the userbase voted for. For me, I use the interface to set things up the way I want, sort and adjust my music collection, tweak the audio settings, etc - but while I'm actually using the product for its intended purpose (i.e. listening to music) the screen is normally off anyway, so the UI makes little difference to me 99% of the time. I can see how a stylish UI is nice eye-candy to attract and reassure new users of the quality of an app though, in much the same way as publishers re-release books with updated covers to attract new buyers although the actual words inside the covers are still the same.

 

1 hour ago, Brainscollector said:

let's make the best functional player even more functional, but stay on gingerbread era with style

I know that comment was intended to be smothered with sarcasm, but ironically I actually 100% agree with it. Some of my most-used PC programs are only one-step up from DOS or Windows 3.11 / 95 interfaces (indeed, some of them ARE command-line driven). For example, for detailed file management I use Total Commander, which has tons of useful stuff under the hood but an ancient interface that you could never in a million years use with stubby finger presses on a trendy Windows-10 tablet.

Andre

[Niles]

Although this time is a bit long but we all know beautiful appearance and powerful features are indispensable, something needs to change

 

[yuuki]

1 hour ago, Brainscollector said:

Oh Im so sorry I was so ignorant ant arrogant that I have voted for material design. Damn I was even that ignorant that I spent time on making concept mockups for Max to look at. Damn, I will be damned for my ignorance. Style over functionality. Wow what the heck, let's make the best functional player even more functional, but stay on gingerbread era with style, because we spent time only on listening to music not on using app itself. Let's make this player even better than PC programs to music listening and leave the design like for 5 years untouched. 

And what is so bad about the current design? To be honest material easily be very bland to look at. I don't get why people praise it above anything else. Oh yeah it's by Google and everything Google makes is good... That's why pure stock android devices were such big hits. Let us face it most users don't care for the usual bland material design only a few actually do. To be fair through your design where good.

TO elaborate a bit on what I mean with bland, just look at the thousands upon thousands of material music player. All looks the same.

[andrewilley]

36 minutes ago, yuuki said:

TO elaborate a bit on what I mean with bland, just look at the thousands upon thousands of material music player. All looks the same.

While I totally agree with you on the blandness of blindly following an OS's style guidelines (whether that be Google of Microsoft) the one plus of every interface looking pretty-much the same is that if you can use one app you can use them all. A common interface methodology does help with the learning curve. I'd just prefer if it looked more interesting than Google's Material Design or Windows 10's flat blandness. 

Andre

[FREEscanRIP]

1 hour ago, andrewilley said:

Some of my most-used PC programs are only one-step up from DOS or Windows 3.11 / 95 interfaces (indeed, some of them ARE command-line driven). For example, for detailed file management I use Total Commander, which has tons of useful stuff under the hood but an ancient interface that you could never in a million years use with stubby finger presses on a trendy Windows-10 tablet.

I have several linux installations where I almost never use the GUI, just the pure CLI. For what I need it, the command-line interface is actually better, I can do things more quickly than if I was clicking around with the cursor.

But this doesn't mean I'm against good graphical user interfaces. A smartphone is something that needs a good interface, so you can achieve the most in the shortest time.

Just look at Neutron. I've heard that it has awesome audio quality, but its GUI made me feel like I was poking a weird rock which has some inconveniently placed buttons that, if pressed in a certain way, do basic things.

Now I'm not saying Poweramp has a bad UI, becuase it has been great for what it was capable of doing. But a new, clean, easy to use UI will definitely make your life easier and it's likely that you will be able to do the same things in less taps, or maybe in a more intuitive way. It's also better to have a clean UI so you can find all the great funcionality the app has without going through endless submenus. Not to mention that newbies will find it much easier to start using the app the way they like it.

[yuuki]

5 minutes ago, andrewilley said:

While I totally agree with you on the blandness of blindly following an OS's style guidelines (whether that be Google of Microsoft) the one plus of every interface looking pretty-much the same is that if you can use one app you can use them all. A common interface methodology does help with the learning curve. I'd just prefer if it looked more interesting than Google's Material Design or Windows 10's flat blandness. 

Andre

The problem with everything looking the same is that no app has any visible uniqueness to it. When you see a screen of Poweramp right now you will know its power amp. But if Max goes full on material(which I don't think will happen) then you can't tell whether it's Poweramp or one of the other thousands material music player.

[Kvarkmeister]

As I understand, V3 will not be supported for Android versions under 5.0? Huh, that's a bummer. I am able to use the alpha version on it so what about the beta version?

[andrewilley]

3 hours ago, Baconhead said:

I am able to use the alpha version on it so what about the beta version?

The alpha version will continue to function as it currently does, and if that works well for you on KitKat/etc then just block updates and continue using it. However the new interface that will come in the next release will require a minimum of Lollipop.

Andre

[AkioBrian]

Personally I think that what Max prepared us will be something of high quality, it was true that it was a long year but it would have been worth it, I feel it was the best investment mine in the Google Play Store.
Andrewilley I congratulate your great work in this forum, for being day by day pending of the users inpancientes and especially for never letting die this community and give life to the forum of Poweramp.

Greetings from Argentina, AkioBrian.

[KopaneDePooj]

On 01.04.2017 at 3:15 PM, BROKEN said:

This is why devs don't like to give ETA's.

To many people whinning. 

 

23 hours ago, andrewilley said:

While I'm as eager as the next person to see what Max has been working on (I haven't even seen a screenshot or anything myself either) I don't agree with the logic of the above part of your statement. If I buy a good book I don't expect the author to pop round and bring me revised editions for free every so often, nor DVDs, cars, etc. While it's great to get new features, I don't think you should feel cheated because you don't get them. You have paid 'as-is' for the functionality that you received after your two-week trial period ended (and bug fixes if something turns out to be broken) and anything further is a bonus.

+1
I haven't seen this amount of complaining on a similar product forum before... Everyone feels entitled to whine and ask for deadlines and promises just because they paid 2 bucks for an existing product.
It has gone so far as to posting things like this "Are you 100% Max hadn't died already and is still alive? " for which I think the op should be banned and post deleted.
 

On 02.04.2017 at 10:25 AM, Brainscollector said:

Oh Im so sorry I was so ignorant ant arrogant that I have voted for material design. Damn I was even that ignorant that I spent time on making concept mockups for Max to look at. Damn, I will be damned for my ignorance. Style over functionality. Wow what the heck, let's make the best functional player even more functional, but stay on gingerbread era with style, because we spent time only on listening to music not on using app itself. Let's make this player even better than PC programs to music listening and leave the design like for 5 years untouched. 

I'm with material design too! Where do I vote?
But the way I see it, material design is more functional as well, it is not about style. I would like a lean app that has great usability and uses today's standards not because they are pleasing or not to someone's eye, but because they are better integrated with current Android OS at system level and this is the way to go for a product that needs to be above all - functional. I don't care if all material design players look the same, all I care is for it to be light and the UI more intuitive. For example I would like to see on the main screen if my EQ is enabled and what preset is active. And yes I would like a dark theme as well but that's it. The rest of the developing work should be targeted towards sound quality, hi-res functionality and support for current devices, which are the main reasons we all love this player. For all I care visualizations should be ditched all together, they are dated, childish, and serve no real purpose. The EQ spectrum is enough. I listen to music, not stare blindly at my phone screen enjoying psychedelic trips.

[jaxtherogue]

4 hours ago, KopaneDePooj said:

 

+1
I haven't seen this amount of complaining on a similar product forum before... Everyone feels entitled to whine and ask for deadlines and promises just because they paid 2 bucks for an existing product.
It has gone so far as to posting things like this "Are you 100% Max hadn't died already and is still alive? " for which I think the op should be banned and post deleted.
 

I'm with material design too! Where do I vote?
But the way I see it, material design is more functional as well, it is not about style. I would like a lean app that has great usability and uses today's standards not because they are pleasing or not to someone's eye, but because they are better integrated with current Android OS at system level and this is the way to go for a product that needs to be above all - functional. I don't care if all material design players look the same, all I care is for it to be light and the UI more intuitive. For example I would like to see on the main screen if my EQ is enabled and what preset is active. And yes I would like a dark theme as well but that's it. The rest of the developing work should be targeted towards sound quality, hi-res functionality and support for current devices, which are the main reasons we all love this player. For all I care visualizations should be ditched all together, they are dated, childish, and serve no real purpose. The EQ spectrum is enough. I listen to music, not stare blindly at my phone screen enjoying psychedelic trips.

For my part I think it's somewhat unfair to expect much from a 2$ app and I think even in its current state Poweramp represents tremendous value.  On my desktop I paid $80 for my music player/manager more for every version number upgrade (.i.e. version 20 to 21, not 20.1 to 20.2). At that price i expect frequent updates and feature additions and guess what, that's what gets delivered.  It's hard to expect much from a $2 phone app, especially what is essentially a niche app. I think Poweramp should cost more (perhaps not $80)- and then maybe complaints about updates would be more valid.

I am also in agreement that a good UI and eye pleasing design is functional, not mere eye candy. A frustrating, busy and ugly design makes an app more difficult to use (especially while driving, working out, etc).  The app must also do its job of course but I think it's proper to expect good quality on all levels.  But this gets back to the silly prices we expect of phone apps: time, quality and cost have to be balanced- when one facet is out of wack the other facets seek equilibrium.

[Kado]

I really don't get what's wrong with Poweramp's interface besides not being "material". It's kinda "dated" but it's neither ugly or difficult to use. 

My only issue is lack of a volume control on the main screen. 

I'd rather have network support and other advanced audio features like compressors and audio normalizers but that's just me. 

[talios]

On 2017-4-2 at 2:38 PM, eddie_the_man said:

Im 100% sure the final product its gonna be amazing. Come in guys .. Dont complaint all the time. Its alpha... And damn for and alpha works very good. If not happy just unistall it and use normal v2. Just respect the developer and the developing time. 

Works very good, except where it doesn't.  I never thought I'd miss a working scrobbler so much. Yes v3 is awesome currently, but it would have been great to some some minor fix releases along the journey. Version control tools do branching quite well these days you know...

[martinkem]

Any updates on when the new Poweramp would be available for download? 

[underskyzx]

Ugh white ui

Hopeful there's a dark skin built-in I can't stand white backgrounds.