Have you every tried playing songs on YouTube for an hour and realised that you have ended up using half your data? Or downloaded the YTMusic app just to realize that it doesn’t have every song that is available on YouTube. Well, here’s something you probably didn’t know about. This app which is available outside Google PlayStore (obviously Google doesn’t want you to listen to songs without ads. That’s how they make money. Duh!) allows you to play only the music saving your precious data, listen to them without ads and wait for it……. download them too!!
All you need to do is head over to this website here and download the apk file and install the app.If you are still hesitant about downloading let me take you through some of it’s features.
Not a lot of permissions required, so that’s cool. Not another chinese app asking suspiciously all permissions that doesn’t even make sense (cough.. cough.. SHAREit).
Library allows you to play existing songs on your device and hence use it as a music player. Not that useful but it’s thereDiscover takes you to the top songs being played in your country and has sorted most based on genres just as in youtube.
Then there’s the Trending section that’s same as one on youtube that sometimes gives you dumb set of cringy videos that majority of people watch.
There’s a search bar on the top where you can search for the song you are looking for. This will show the same results as on YouTube.
Sign-in to use your entire browsing history stored on google servers to suggest you recommendations. This will also help in feeding Google more data and let them know your music preferences so that the next time they show you an advertisement it’s exactly what you want to see!! (yet I always end up with “Order Food Online on Zomato” ad for no reason even though i watch only tech videos on YouTube. Maybe they were able to hear my stomach grumbling through the smartphone mic which they always monitor incase you have enabled OK GOOGLE keyword for Google Assistant).
The player itself is minimalistic with Android 4.4 era design. Nothing to complain here, but it could have been more flashy. A really good feature here is option to enable Captions which usually contain the song lyrics. (So the time you feel singing like Michael Jackson, you don’t have to howl some gibberish.)
On the top there is a download button using which you can download the songs in desired format. I would recommend the 320kbps for best quality. You also have option to download the video of the song incase you feel the need to do so. This is a nice addition.
There are no advertisements in the app which then would have been hypocritical. (You might find it funny but there are actually apps like Opera browser that advertise themselves as having inbuilt adblocker. Then later they end up showing their own ads that are even more intrusive. Now who’s going to block their ads?)
If you are interested in tweaking the app to your liking you can do so in the settings.
Appearance allows you to change your theme. You can select any color for accent. Choose between 3 backgrounds – Dark, Light and Black (useful in case of amoled display or if you are one of those who listens to music after jumping into bed and turning off the lights.)
Content Settings allows you to change the country. Useful if you listen to songs from other countries as this will give you trending songs of that country. (Same settings is available on YouTube app too. That’s how I defend myself from the cringy songs that has flooded the Indian Trending section ever since internet data got super cheap.)
Downloads gives you a bunch of download controls that need not be played with as default settings are good enough.
Finally the Playback settings always you to enable Inbuilt Equaliser (incase your phone doesn’t have one) so that you can fine tune your listening experience. Also you can enable Video Playback incase you have lots of data to spare or felt the need to watch a bunch of crazy guys dancing.
If you haven’t felt they need to download this app, there could be only two reasons – either you have so much data that you don’t care about loading video every time or you love music so much that you already have a Spotify/Wynk/JioSaavn subscription. Either way this one of those apps that make your life a little less annoying and is worth a try.
Please let me know in comments if you have any query. Share it with your friends so that they can spare you extra minutes that they used to lose to advertisements.
Don’t forget to follow my Facebook page so you don’t miss my post next year (kidding!!).
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