SO, there’s an Unofficial / Leaked version of the new Honeycomb music player from Android floating around out there, right? Well, we had quite a time getting this little APK to work once we got it, and we bet we weren’t the only ones. Therefor, we’ve whipped up for you this little guide and points post so that you might get the sweet updated music action working on your Android device with as little or no hassle as possible. Check it out – and REMEMBER before doing anything, backup your system. Always always always.

First, and foremost, you’ll most likely need a rooted explorer to be able to do step one. Step one is to locate and either delete or otherwise remove your existing Music Player app. This will more than likely be called GoogleMusic.apk and will be located under system/app.

Reboot.

Next, click [right here] to download the Android Honeycomb Music Player .APK file, and using your explorer app to place the file in the same place you deleted the original GoogleMusic.apk. There’s another file in that download by the name of JumperTest, which will not open for you. More about that file down below.

Two steps, that’s it! But wait, what if it doesn’t work? Try stopping what you’re doing, clearing your cache, and trying again.

Now as far as the source for this APK goes, the furthest back we can track it is, of course, XDA, to a user by the name of johnnie93, who posted the following video and gave a big happy face emoticon saying “I will not disclose my sources.”

Android Honeycomb Music Player demo!

[vms ac7ac872209342e62e8f]

JUMPERTEST! What is that all about? As far as we can tell, using all of our intuition powers, is that this is the key to streaming all of your music – from your desktop and from the cloud, back down to your handset. Sounds like a big deal? That’s because it totally is. This right here could be the key to spurring up competition for the iPod. Holy crap can you even believe it?

When you’re in the JumperTest app, take a peek under your Controls tab – you’ll see Start Peer, Stop Peer, and Import Local Media. Neato! Then when you’re back in the Music Player app, check under Music settings – there are straight up options for streaming. It even appears that you’ll be able to cache streamed music for later use – fabulous!

Then there’s a search function you can use on any song – all you’ve got to do is a longpress and it pops up with multiple options – the coolest of which right now is the ability to move right to YouTube. You like the song and want to see if there’s a music video to go with? Easy!

From there it’s basically a dream ride into the future. A simple widget for your home screen here, some sweet slides back and forth there, all kinds of great little features. Have a look at the gallery of screenshots we’ve captured below, then install this little lady yourself! Let us know how it goes here or in the Android Community Forums!

11 COMMENTS

  1. I hate they basically grabbed the same 3Dish UI of the “Gallery” and applied it to the new player.

    Just eye candy, no real user experience benefit but make the app even slower.

    This app needs to make features like Search Actually useful.

    If you want to play all songs of an artist you just can’t as it is. It will break all search results into albums and you have to go inside each and play them individually or create a playlist manually.

    Gotta use iTunes Search feature to understand it better.

  2. @enyibinakata: umm… no cooliris designed the gallery app for android and google applied it to the music player. get your facts straight!!!

    and yes, MeeGo will be great if it looks anything like the leak

  3. What’s so great about this player? They turned the original player into a “gallery” player. The stream function isn’t even original. You can do the same thing with Hectic Beats Pro right now…wait on it…for free. Plus, added bonus, you can even download the song you are listening to right then and there. Not worth the effort of hacking this one. I might download it when it hits the market…maybe.

  4. These screenshots are cool but this is only the beginning. This is the first of many steps into the Google Music platforms changes. See them here: “New Android music app, is this the first toe into the Google Music pool?” http://exm.nr/ft8I4i

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