Dragging around an MP3 player and a phone in your pocket or briefcase these days just seems silly. There are plenty of applications available for Android that can turn your smartphone into a fully fledged jukebox, even if you don’t have much space left available on your SD card or internal memory. Whether it’s radio or streaming you’re looking for, Android has apps to help you rock out wherever you are or whatever mood you’re in.
Pandora:
Pandora is an internet radio streaming service that’s gotten damn good at determing what it is you like listening to and playing more just like it. Pandora works by creating customized stations around a certain band or artist. Pandora plays a song for you from that artist, and based on the thumbs up or thumbs down you give to the song, it bases future plays on your decision. Each song has the ability to be favorite, disliked, or skipped.
These decisions help Pandora really hone in on what you like and don’t like. For an internet radio service, it’s quite possibly the best in the business.
Grooveshark:
At the time of writing, the Grooveshark app is currently out of service. There is rumor that it will be making a return sometime very soon, and that makes us excited. Grooveshark for Android lets you search for anything you want to hear while on the go. Hear a song in the store that you want to jam out to in your car? Search for it on Grooveshark and let it rip. Grooveshark also has customized radios, similar to Pandora, that play songs similar to the one you were already listening to. With apps like Grooveshark that let you build playlists of any songs you want, there’s no need to even have a music library on your phone.
Subsonic:
Tired of not being able to listen to that mountain of MP3s you have on your home computer while you’re out and about? Subsonic fixes that problem. A simple application install on your home computer provides instant access to your entire music collection from your smartphone. The Subsonic app is easy to install on your phone and provides you with the ability to play almost any music formats (including obscure ones like OGG and FLAC) streamed directly from your home computer to your phone. Subsonic is just like having your massive iPod with you, but on your phone. The desktop application interface could do with a little redesigning, but otherwise, it’s a fantastic app.
Songbird:
Lastly, if you’re looking to keep things “old fashioned” and want to play music directly from your phone without using the somewhat shabby preinstalled music player, give Songbird a try. The simple and streamlined look makes browsing your music easy, and with Flickr integration, automatically pulling photos of the band and album from Flickr as you listen to a song, we think Songbird may be our favorite music player out that lets us play tunes straight from our SD cards.