Finally, another post after months. My hunch is such big intervals will still last for quite a long while.
Today's post remarks a successful attempt (finally) to get a music player with external cue support on my legacy Xperia Arc with android version 4.0.4.
I should have learned it many years ago since I upgraded the android version from 2.x to 4.x, but since back to that time my main purpose was to upgrade the OS, I didn't pay attention to anything else.
More recently, when I re-charged my over-10-year-old music player, I noticed its earphone socket became buggy and I could only hear both channels when the cable ~50% inserted. Though it still works now, it probably will be undone soon.
A quick search on Amazon showed a review-based okay player (with SD card support) won't cost more than 50, but I'm not in the need of getting a new device. At first I was thinking I could use my 1-year Samsung A31 to play music, but quickly dropped this idea considering the battery consumption. Then I remembered my legacy Arc, which lied in a drawer since the beginning of WFH.
Apparently an old phone with bluetooth, etc. (though I don't need them really) would be better than a budget player, but I also feel tired already before converting a chunk of 64 GB of music as single tracks. I'm too used to one image file + cue index file.
With the thinking on using A31, I discovered
AIMP being a nice one for android that meets my requirement, but on google store, its minimal version is higher than 4. Another big problem, it seems Arc can't connect to the store properly at all, very likely due to the old version.
I do know you can install apk on android like running an exe file on Windows and have done so before. it's fairly easy to discover a couple of apk files, but Arc doesn't have a built-in file manager and I was stuck again.
So I tried a few attempts again trying to installing a newer OS to Arc, hoping to get back the connection to the store to find something useful, but all failed due to the inability to unlock its bootloader. I did find some programs that claim to do the trick, but being afraid they're potential viruses, I didn't try them on Jupiter (my surface laptop 3). Instead I tried to use my VAIO as the laboratory mouse, which has been literally hibernating since a year ago, it soon turned that the VAIO's long-lasting hard-drive issue has worsened and I couldn't start even a window explorer.
Maybe it could perform a bit better if I stop ignoring it's asking for a disk check. So I did the check, but ended up with it shuts down and never starts up again. Did the disk check kill its power connection? I don't know but that's the end of it, very likely.
Finally, right in this afternoon, I learned about ADB -- should have known about it years ago! -- and all issues were solved. Could easily install any apk matching the current version. Tested v2.9 of AIMP and it works great. Before AIMP, I have tried winamp and another neutron player, but neither allows you to select music from a specific folder -- like what I do on the computer -- both require to first scan your given library folder and you get nearly no flexibility.
Many people on the AIMP page complain its "old school" style, but it's actually easier to manage. My music folder and its subfolders are well organised and don't require further of the so-called "modern" ways of library management.
I'll see how long Arc's remaining battery can last!
