Jockey music player. (The simple open source music player)

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Introduction

This is the last post in this series about some open source music players. The series in my first post was aimed at comparing open source music players with proprietary ones. In the first post, I briefly talked about how and why open source projects are often underrated especially music players. In that post, I reviewed one of the three open source music players I know of and use which is Retro music player. Furthermore, I compared Retro music player features with my device stock music player "Mi Music". The review and comparison showed that Retro music player which is open source had more value than my stock music player. In the second post, on the series, I reviewed another music player, AB music player. There was no comparison with another similar project.
In this post, I will be reviewing Jockey music player. Furthermore, I will also compare all the music players I have reviewed in this series. The comparison is to find out which is the best amongst them. This decision is solely my opinion.

Post body.

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Jockey music player is an open source music player characterized by simplicity. What this means is that the app was designed to simple and smooth.
According to the words of the project owner,

Jockey is a music player for Android based on Google's Material Design standards. The point of Jockey is to be a simple, lightweight media player with features designed for music enthusiasts and casual listeners alike.

This doesn't mean the app is only equipped with basic music playing abilities. There are some more functions the app offers and all are still music related.
The project is two (2) years judging by the initial commit on Github. The latest commit is five (5) days ago as at the time of making this post. This suggests that the project is actively maintained by the project owner.
The stats of app downloads on google play store is 10,000+. This is quite poor for an app that has been existing for over a year. This may be that a lot of people don't find the app good enough to use it over their stock music players or other music players.
Without further ado, let's review Jockey music player.

REVIEW OF JOCKEY MUSIC PLAYER.

The review of this app will be the review of its features. The features will be split into the user interface and functionalities like I always do.

User Interface (UI)

The user interface of any software is the first thing that captures the eyes and attention of an end user. This may be untrue but for me, the user interface has a huge impact on my likeability of a software.
The user interface of Jockey is designed with google's material language. This is explicitly described by the project owner on google play store and also on Github. This reduced my burden of finding out what type of design language was used on the interface. Google's material design language is so common and it's used on virtually every app. But, some apps still look basic even with the design being used. This is the case of Jockey music player. The user interface is basic but it is smooth. The reason for the basic interface is in line with the app's description which is to be, "simple". The user interface is not the best but it is okay.

Functionalities.

The functions of Jockey music player are not so many. You should already know the reason why it is that way. The app was designed to be simple.
The features of Jockey are, but not limited to;

Gapless playback

Gapless playback sounds like a really big and important feature. It is not exactly that. But, it is important to some people. Gapless playback simply means there is no gap in the transition from the end of one song to the beginning of the next song.
Jockey music player is equipped with this feature. There is, however, no option to switch it on or off. Jockey music player from what I experienced, uses crossfade transition. This means the music playing fades out at the end and the new song fades in.
The unavailability of a switch is not a big deal for me as I'll turn it on anyway. But, I don't know if other people share this opinion.

Smart playlists

There is a normal playlist, and also a smart playlist. The playlist is a common and basic feature of any music player whether it is open source or proprietary. The normal playlists require manually adding tracks to it. This is not so with the smart playlist. Songs can be added automatically using the customized parameters you set.

last.fm integration

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last.fm is a tool that is now being integrated on almost every music player. On Jockey music player, it is used to retrieve artist images and information. That is not the only function of last.fm in a general sense though. This feature on Jockey music player is not overly important but, it is nice to have it on the app.

Equalizer

The possibility of finding a music player without an equalizer is really slim. It is safe to now call an equalizer a basic feature in music players.
Jockey music player has an inbuilt equalizer that comes with some presets. Like I stated in my previous post, I don't really care about the sound production of my device. But, I like a little bass boost. There is no ready-made bass boost function on Jockey music player, unlike AB music player. This means I have to do it manually. I always end up messing things up so I stick to the default settings.

Sleep timer

Sleep timer isn't considered a big feature on music players anymore but, it has its importance. One of the powers of music is the ability to make you fall asleep. That's not so true for me as it rarely happens to me. But for the few times I slept while listening to music, I was lucky and grateful I used the sleep timer on the music player.
Jockey music player has a sleep timer. The maximum time limit is one hundred and twenty (120) minutes.

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These are all the features of Jockey music player I'm aware of. They are not so much but each of them has their respective values. I'd wish there were more but, that will mean changing the original objective of the app which is to be "simple".

Comparison

This is the comparison of all the music players I've reviewed in this series. The music players are ;

• Retro music player
• AB music player
• Jockey music player

The aim of this comparison as I stated in the introduction is to find the best among them. The best I choose is my opinion and your opinions may differ.
The first feature I will be comparing is the user interface (UI).
All the music players use google material design according to the description of the app on google play store. But which of them use the most of this design and which is sleeker.
Here's a screenshot of their interfaces on my phone.

From the image above, Retro music player has the best interface. There are colors, sleek fonts. AB music player comes second in the UI department. This means Jockey music player comes last and it is understandable for me.

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To compare the functionalities, I'll first outline the functionalities of the apps in a table. Some features that might be seen on this table might have been omitted from my reviews. This is because I found out about them after my review. Some were purposely omitted by me.

Retro music player	AB music player	Jockey music player
Tag editor	Tag editor	nil
Gapless playback	Gapless playback	Gapless playback
sleep timer	sleep timer	sleep timer
lyrics	lyrics	nil
last.fm	last.fm	last.fm
nil	gesture control	nil
nil	lyrics card	nil
lockscreen control	lockscreen control	nil
nil	youtube search	nil
lockscreen album art	lockscreen album art	nil
normal playlist	smart playlist	smart playlist

From the table, AB music player has more functionalities than the rest. Retro music player comes second and Jockey music player comes last again.
They all have quite a handful of similar features though. AB music has three (3) distinct features from the rest.

• gesture control
• lyrics card
• YouTube search

Retro music player does not have a distinct feature comparing the three (3) apps together.
The question then is, which one of them is the best?
Like I earlier stated, the best music player is based on my own opinion.
Retro music player is the best for me. The user interface is the most attracting factor coupled with a reasonable amount of useful functions. If I was to choose based on the number of features each of them had, it would have been AB music player definitely. It is good to point out that both Retro music player and AB music player are not totally free. Retro music player has a pro version, AB music player has ads. However, Jockey music player is free and rid of ads. This is a good reason to use the software.

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Summary

In this post, I reviewed Jockey music player. Furthermore, I compared all the music players reviewed in the series. The comparison showed that AB music player has more functions than the rest, However, I chose Retro music player to be my best. This doesn't mean the others are inferior. All the apps are great especially considering the fact that they are open source software.
Retro music player is the best by my choice doesn't mean I don't utilize the others. All the music players reviewed in the series are used by me. I use any of them depending on my mood. But I use Retro music player more than the others.
Conclusively, the initial aim of this series was to find out if open source music players are good enough to be used over proprietary ones. From this series, it is safe to yes. But, this is my opinion. What's yours?
Thanks for reading!
Leave your opinions in the comment section.
Feel free to recommend any other open source music player and I'll be glad to check it out and review it.

Links

Projects repositories:

• https://github.com/marverenic/Jockey
• https://github.com/amit-bhandari/AB-Music-Player
• https://github.com/h4h13/RetroMusicPlayer

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Resources:

The content of this post was created with my knowledge of the project. No part of this content was ripped off from any source.

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Series backlinks:

Are open-source music players good enough to replace stock music players and non-open source music players?
My review of AB music player. (Why it is great open source music player)

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Download links

• Retro music player
• Jockey music player
• AB music player

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Github profile:

• https://github.com/HarryHeights