The developers behind the classic Winamp media player for Windows have launched a beta version of the app for Google Android. Sure, it doesn’t support video, have an equalizer, visualizations, or many of the other features that make the desktop version stand out, but Winamp for Android is a light weight mobile app which provides a nice interface for playing music on your mobile device — plus it supports scrobbling from Last.fm, has an very nice home screen widget.

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Oh yeah, it also has one killer feature: you can manage your music collection using the desktop version of Winamp and also transfer songs from your desktop player to your phone using a WiFi connection.

In order to synchronize your music, you’ll need to have Winamp 5.59 beta installed on your PC.

Even if you don’t want to sync your music collection, Winamp is worth checking out as an alternative to the default Android music app simply for the attractive user interface and home screen widget. I particularly like how there’s a bar at the bottom of the screen which always shows you the name of the song that’s currently playing, no matter which screen you’re on.

You can swipe this bar up to go to the Now Playing window, much as you would swipe the Android notification bar down to see status messages. I’m a sucker for developers who take time to understand the user interface of the mobile OS they’re developing for.

There are also a few other interesting features, including one that lets you tap and hold on any song title to interact with other apps on your device including Pandora, Amazon MP3, or a web browser. You can also hit a button to use any track as a ringtone.

Winamp is available as a free download for Android 2.1 and up.

You can find more screenshots below.

via Reddit

Brad Linder

Brad Linder is editor of Liliputing and Mobiputing. He's been tinkering with mobile tech for decades and writing about it since...

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