Thought i’d drop it here as well, after communication with Plexamp Devs ..
My previous phone was a Galaxy S20+, with 1TB MicroSD which housed my entire Music collection.
Meaning no matter where I was, driving through a tunnel or whatever, no data connection, out camping,.. I always had my music on the go and non-stop playing.
That phone got stolen, and I went on to buy a Galaxy S24, only to realize that MicroSD’s are just no longer supported over the past few years.
Hence, I am stuck with the bit of onboard Storage I have on my phone, even with going for the one with the largest capacity I would of only be able to house a piece of my Music Library.
This is where you have come in to save to day.. as Plexamp allows me to play from my already set-up library in just a few minutes.
My issues.. I am coming from years of using Poweramp on my Phone, which.. I mean… just use it for a bit and you’ll see how it shines.
What it entirely lacks, obviously, is playback from my NAS. With their help I have got it working via WebDAV over the internet, but since originated for local playback, their app lacks Network Buffering options for now.
The amount of options and configurations they support are too many to count. And I would think that a Company like Plex could easily match, and out-perform this.
What Plexamp could do better:
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Allowing to add a local Library, would at least allow me to play local music when I have no data connection
Yes, I have the ability to download songs via Plexamp, but this is not what I’m looking for.
I don’t intend on using the “Media on the Go” in the way it seems to be implemented, like.. download a song here and there to local storage
No, I rather drag a music folder over to my phone via Explorer, add it as a local Library to the music sources, and play from that.
It’s not like I can select a folder in Plexamp and select it for Download.. so .. yeah -
Allow adding entire folders or genre’s to a playlist, not just song by song (how is this not even default). Right now the expectation seems to be to.. what.. add 12000 songs one by one to a desired playlist ? Here’s an idea: Create a playlist, and be able to add/remove folders or Genres or whatever to them, not song by song.
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Missing Auto play/pause on Audio Device Connect/Disconnect is something that immediately ran me up the wall.
I have gotten so used to just grabbing my headphones, earbuds, or just.. connecting to anything, turn on my speakers,.. and my music would start playing.
Whether I connect to my Bluetooth stereo, the Bluetooth receiver in my car, wireless earbuds, or plugged in the audio jack for my headphones.
· Music always instantly started playing when an audio device connected, and paused when that device disconnected.
I have found a sort of quick fix for this lacking feature: Bluetooth connect & Play
But Plexamp always has some.. extra steps. I miss the “pick up my headphones and music starts playing”, and “turn on the Bluetooth stereo and music automagically starts playing”
· Addition to Auto-play: I need Plexamp to set and continue playing a specific playlist depending on what device get’s connected. Example: When connected to Car bluetooth i want it to play the playlist of PsyChill, when it get’s connected to my home audio device i need it to play the Progressive Playlist, when connected to the bedroom speaker it should start playing the Sleeping Playinst. And not just from the start every time, but pick up where it left off last time it was connected to that device, playing that playlist. -
Shuffle: a few things..
For instance, i have a folder “Rock”, in there folders with artists, in there albums, and then songs..
I can go select a song, hit Shuffle, and it will obviously just shuffle songs within the folder that song is in.
Not exactly what I’m looking for. I would like to just open the folder of an Artist, start playback and shuffle all their songs (regardless of albums).
Or open the “Rock” folder, and shuffle any song in there regardless of their lower hierarchy.
Yes, it seems obvious to me that the app is more centered to work around Artists/Albums/Genres/etc… like in Plex itself
But with a Library of 20 years of collecting, live mixes, etc .. you can imagine that the metadata isn’t exactly always "up to standards”.
Personally I often simply prefer browsing by Folder, as it is already organized and I know where to find what.
Every time I for instance go up the hierarchy in the App, and select another artist and song to play, I have to hit Shuffle again..
Would very much just like to open any folder, and press play, preferably with Plexamp having remembered the previous shuffle setting.
Extending the Shuffle, with Poweramp as example, would make it much more powerful (Categories in my sense would be a Folder, depends on how you browse what the shuffle would affect)
· Shuffle Off: Plays the contents of the current category in its assigned order.
· Shuffle All Available Songs: Completely randomizes playback of all available songs from any category.
· Shuffle Songs: Randomizes the songs within the current category, but keeps the categories in order.
· Shuffle Categories: Randomizes the categories, but plays the songs within each category in order.
· Shuffle Songs/Categories: Randomizes both the songs and the categories.
In general: Shuffle is lacking a bit..
The ability to just select a folder and set it to play and shuffle whatever is in there would make this app a lot more enjoyable. -
While playing, on my Android Phone, Plexamp seems to.. sort-of run in the background, but not really ?
The Widget I have of it on the Desktop doesn’t always load it’s last played item and status, is sometimes just blank.
With only a plexamp logo, no play button, no nothing.. If I click it, it obviously opens Plexamp, where I can initiate playback.
When I then open my running app list, and select to close all: Plexamp stops playing !?
At this point the Widget on the desktop is loaded, I can click Play there, and Plexamp does start playing again: in the background this time (no app in the app list)
This can easily be repeated, if I just open Plexamp, or have it open in my applist. When selecting to Close All foreground apps, it does not continue to run in the background but again stops playing.
I would hope this would more run as a background service, with some GUI elements for user input and feedback ?
You can easily demo this yourself:
1 On boot, blank Plexamp widget. On clicking the widget and opening the App, it clearly remembers where it last was
2 UI is open, initiate playback. When opening the running apps, can clearly see the UI in the foreground, and the service in the background running
3 closing the foreground UI stops the background service, and stops playback. This is, when using it, just.. frustrating
4 However, since the UI has been opened, the Widget is now loaded.
And when starting playback from the widget, you can clearly see Plexamp service running in the background.
So: I can open and close as many foreground apps as I like, as long as I haven’t opened the Plexamp UI and initiated playback from the widget, it will keep running just fine as it should
But just in case the foreground UI has been opened at any point, if I close foreground apps, the background service will stop running and stop playback -
Home Screen: For me personally, this screen is useless. I have gone through it’s options in the settings, but the only useful thing on there I found is History to quickly pick up play again.
Again, I understand the experience is more tailored to work like a Spotify, and go through Artists & Genres etc, but this approach is just not applicable to everyone.
I would love to just set a certain folder or source as my homescreen location.
To be perfectly honest, I was pushed into your hands purely because my ability to carry and play my entire Library locally has dropped away.
I am very grateful however that your option exists, but I really do miss my Poweramp. (and it’s spit and polish)
As for right now Plexamp can’t hold a candle to it.
My suggestion would be to use Poweramp yourself for a month or 2.. you will discover an experience much more enjoyable and feature-rich.
That would hopefully carry over to Plexamp .. as for now, yes.. it plays, but ….
One of the main pro’s of using Plexamp though, is that I no longer have a split library ..
Now If I come across a mix that after 30m of play turns out completely different than it started and I dislike it, I can delete it and it’s actually permanently gone.
I no longer have to sync from my NAS towards my Phone. This is helping to clean up the Library.
Their response:
It seems like the feedback was heard (no response to it), and I hope they do something with it.
They did respond to the issue where Plexamp will stop running in the background when the UI has been opened and is being closed however..
Mind you, this is perfectly possible (look at Poweramp as an example)
- the app will stop playback if you swipe it up from recently opened apps, this is by design. The app has to be running for music playback to happen. This will be the case with Spotify etc as well. In addition, the app has to be running for the widget to show data.
- Due to the underlying technology we built Plexamp on to be cross-platform, the app does need to be running to manage playback; we can’t just exist as a background service. I would also argue that’s a rather strange priority for a music player
Why not let the app run?
Right .. I do understand that they used cross-platform development tools, which would probably be the limiting factor here, instead of a dedicated app tailored to each platform & experience.
This for obvious reasons, centralizes the code-base. But you will not get a polished and smooth experience on every platform ..
My response:
Currently, when I close the Plexamp app from the foreground, it also stops the background service, which in turn halts the music playback. In contrast, when I initiate playback directly from the widget without opening the app, the music continues to play without interruption.
I find it inconsistent and inconvenient that the app requires the UI to remain in my active foreground apps once it has been opened in order for music playback to continue. Given that the app has a functioning background service, it seems more logical that closing the foreground UI should not terminate the playback.
It would greatly enhance the user experience to allow continuous playback while the app runs in the background, similar to how some other music applications operate. This would align Plexamp with user expectations for seamless multitasking and prevent interruptions during listening.
Many of us frequently have multiple apps running simultaneously throughout the day, which can lead to a sluggish device.
It’s quite common to open the “Running Apps” list and choose the “Close All” option in order to clear up resources and enhance device performance.
However, it’s counterproductive that this action causes Plexamp playback to stop, unless the user hasn’t interacted with the app’s UI and has initiated playback through the Widget.
