Musicolet has been the go-to App for playing music & podcasts on my phone. Does the job, period. I have been using it for the past 2 years, since shortly before Google Play Music shut shop.
- It caters to a niche, where the audio files are stored on the device itself & you want to play them back. 21,000+ files & counting, aggregated over the past couple of decades, requires me to never ever have to stream music.
- My files encoded in a salad bowl of formats - mp3, m4a, opus, FLAC etc. & the player hasn't ever played truant.
- It requires no Internet connection, is free, ad-free & does not throw up any pop-ups.
- Allows you to playback audio at upto 3X the speed. Perfect to consume Podcasts, which I normally listen at 2X. For some, like 'The Seen & The Unseen' & 'Hardcore History', the 3X playback is apt.
- One major gripe I have with the Musicolet, though, is it's poor shuffle algorithm. Can't shuffle very well, bunches them together. [Ref: screenshots below].
- I resort to tapping on the shuffle button, from time to time, or 'Next'-ing to reach the immediate dissimilar song, as a workaround. Not a deal-breaker, as I like all the songs I have.
- Krossbits, the developer of Musicolet, is an Indian endeavour, something I discovered now, while looking it up in preparation to write this.
- Another nifty feature, the App allows you to take & share a screenshot being played, & the audio file itself. Convenient way for sharing interesting podcast episodes.
- The free version is fully-functional itself. You can show support to the project by making a nominal payment of Rs. 85 [~$1.02 USD].
- Musicolet is currently available for the Android platform only.
Godspeed