Music / video players on Android Phones

[NexusWon]

Am I missing something or is there something about Android that makes it difficult to make a decent multimedia player? Is the default player just good enough that people don't really care except iPhone fanboys reviewing it? Is google intentionally making it difficult to build because they're planning on releasing something epic soon?

I know there's issues with Apps storing information on the MicroSD card memory (which Google has said they'll fix in a future update to give developers encryption access to the SD card), is this why there's not any awesome media players?

Just purely from a business perspective, why hasn't some relatively proficient developer blown the doors off this by creating an awesome multimedia player app like SingBird/Media Monkey/Winamp/whatever floats your fav. flavor player is?

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! This seems like a no brainer. Music and video is so huge in people's lives and it's one of the biggest selling points for the iPhone & Pods. It's been talked about rather frequently as a problem with Android apps for more than a year. Why hasn't anyone stepped up to the plate? There's so many potential business models around a paid app like this or even just building an awesome free tool and getting affiliate fees from Amazon sales. They have a very powerful library of MP3s which aren't DRM and often beat iTunes prices. I wish I was a more skilled developer because this is the juiciest, ripest fruit on the tree right now and for some reason it's not getting plucked.

While we're on the topic, what do you think is the "best of breed" app for android media players so far?

[coreymcl]

I agree the lacking of an elegant sync'ing solution is my biggest complaint with Android devices, for that matter my problem with WebOS as well.

Like you said there is some money to be made if someone does this right. I half way expected Google to announce something during the presentation on Jan 5th. As this is the last piece of the puzzle they are missing. Somehow Amazon needs to get into this fight more, there half hearted approach to digital content simply amazes me. They are 2nd in the market and don't even try. Music is the easy part, video is where it gets tougher.

Keep your eye on the folks at dazzboard (dazzboard.com), they have some good idea's but it's not quite there, it is only in beta now though.

[akwebb1]

I don't watch videos on my Nexus One but I use MediaMonkey to sync my music and it works flawlessly. I have it set to only sync certain playlists which makes it as easy as adding your new music to one of those lists and they will sync the next time I connect.

Currently you need to tweak an INI file as shown in this post:

Sync to Zen device is incomplete and uses wrong mask - Powered By Kayako eSupport

or all of your music will sync to the root folder.

I hope this helps a little.
Andrew

[Sonhectic]

Yeah, I tend to agree. I've always thought that if N1 was to seriously contest the iPhone, it would have to step up the music player, because right now Apple has a good stranglehold on that, and truth be told, it's my most used feature day to day.

Once Google addresses this, I feel the iPhone will get a run for its money.

[jdeproductions]

MediaMonkey is windows only.... BOOOOO!!!

[LMControl]

This, to me, is where Android (so far) comes up really short against the iPhone. The default player works nicely, but the lack of content and having an easy path to acquire content is lacking.

I've messed around with converting .avi files with Handbrake and it works, but is a pain.

I really like what they did with integrating the Amazon MP3 store and hope that somehow they can get with Amazon and do the same with their video store. It would seem an obvious and mutually beneficial partnership. This would certainly put them on par with iTunes.