Marcus Hellberg

Grooveshark recently released a “sneak peak” of their Android app. The application had already been shown in the Android Developer Challenge, but it got finally released for the general public to use.

The application is still a “sneak peak,” so many of the bugs I found are surely already being worked on. The application only works for VIP Grooveshark users, so if you want to try it out, you have to pay $3 a month.

The app opens up with a splash screen with the same yellow-blue background as the Grooveshark flash player has by default. The splash screen lasts for quite a while, making sure that you notice that the application is still in alpha.

I have to admit that I like the interface of the app. I don’t have a rooted Android device, so I couldn’t take real screen shots, these will have to do for now:

As you can see, the interface is dark and, at least in my opinion, quite nice. The application is very rough still. The parsing of the search results seems to take very long. Also, since the first day I used the app, I haven’t been actually able to listen to music with it. This seems like a big problem still. The application has also other issues, like the splash screen being displayed every time the application is taken into the  foreground. The application does not seem to start buffering the following track while playing the previous, so there is a long gap between songs.

So, it’s quite evident that the application is indeed a “sneak peek,” not a finished application. It does, however, show great potential for future versions. Like Spotify, it supports offline playlists. It also has the radio feature from the flash application enabled by default, which makes it ideal for just choosing a couple of songs and leaving in the pocket to play.

I’m eagerly awaiting an updates to the app, and will update this post with new impressions as the application is developed.