Party Player Accepts Song Requests By SMS & Plays Them [Android]
If you’re hosting a party and would like to get your friends involved with choosing what music to play during the party then Party Player is a new music application that lets you do just that. Available for free at Google Play, Party Player enables your smartphone receive song requests via text messages and play them from a temporary playlist which automatically fills up as more requests are generated. The app is amazingly smart; if your friends text a song or a word that appears in the title of more than one song, the app will send a text message to them asking them which song they want to play. The text message will list all songs that match the word and your friend can simply reply with the song number in that list to tell the app which one they want. For everyone, this is a simple text message interaction and no one needs an internet connection to make it work.
After launching the app, the first thing you need to do is tap ‘Accept requests’ which enables it to start accepting requests (I’m not sure why it isn’t enabled by default). Nevertheless, if you don’t know how to use this app, you can simply tap ‘How-To Screen’ button to view the syntax that your friends should send their song requests in.
In layman terms, Party Player basically runs in the background and quietly monitors your default text messaging app. Your senders should use a specific command format when sending requests, which is basically ‘Play (Song Name)’ (without quotations and brackets), to let Party Player treat that SMS as a song request. If the requested chorus isn’t in your library, then Party Player simply states it so in the same messaging thread (sent from your number, text message rates will apply). If the song is found, the app plays it or adds it the queue. It sends a message to the sender letting them know that the song they requested has been queued.
The app also enables you to block certain people from requesting songs, let’s say, requests from unknown numbers etc. This can be done from the Contact Permissions screen where checkmarked items indicate that song requests are enabled from those people.
Party Player is not very resource hungry, although I can’t really tell how leaving it on all the time can effect your device’s battery life in the long run. But overall, it’s a good and simple application that doesn’t put much strain on the battery, and adds some some collaborative elements to your music listening experience.
Party Player is essentially a very simple app. You do not need to register any account, nor create any password or enter your personal credentials online. It serves its defined purpose very quickly and all of it via a simple SMS. On top of that is its barebones interface, which comprises of grey and faded background, carrying a large logo at center, three buttons at bottom; Previous, Play / Pause, and Next. making the app insanely easy to use. You can download it for free via the link below.
Install Party Player from Play Store
Actually would be great if more than one person requested a song it would bump up in the que and not be repeated until it had been played
Hmmm. This is actually kinda’ cool… maybe even potentially MORE cool if used in a larger dance or even a bar or something.
Some thoughts, though…
FIRST, I understand that a text’d song can interrupt the “background” music; but one text’d song cannot interrupt another text’d song, can it? I mean, it cues-up text’d songs and plays them in their entirety, in the order received, right? If not, then idiots in the crowd will just be trying to bump each other’s songs (and there will *ALWAYS* be idiots in the crowd).
SECOND, the app should sense when a song is text’d more than once per however many minutes or hours the party host would like to specify, in order to keep some idiot from just repeating and repeating the same song. The app should allow the host to set the minimum number of minutes or even hours that must elapse before the same song may be played again.
THIRD (related to the SECOND), a setting that simply disallows duplicates, at all, for the entire duration of the party or evening should be in the app so the host doesn’t even have to specify how many minutes or hours must elapse before a song may be played a second time during the party or entire evening.
FOURTH (related to the SECOND and THIRD), since any given song may be covered by numerous people, the app should contain a “by” command variable (in addition to the existing “play” command) so that both of these texts…
Play Happy by Pharrell Williams
Play Happy by Kina Grannis
…would both be allowed, even when what’s described in items “SECOND” and “THIRD”, above, are enabled.
By the way, for anyone who’s not heard Kina Grannis’s version, enjoy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lwy8ZEaRByg
FIFTH, the app should be capable of split-screen when the Android device is rotated to the horizontal (landscape) position, with the PARTY PLAYER screen, showing the cued-up songs on the right, and then on the left can be some kind of cool visualization; which would allow the Android device to be connected to a giant screen TV or something.
SIXTH (related to FIFTH), for times when the main playing device’s screen is, indeed, connected to a giant screen, displaying a visualization on the left half, and the PARTY PLAYER app’s screen, with list of cued songs, on the right, there probably needs to be another app — a controller app — which can connect to the player so that it can be configured, and given users can be blocked, and songs can be removed or re-ordered, all “behind the scenes” so that it’s not displayed on the player screen.
SEVENTH, (related to the FIFTH and SIXTH), the background of the PARTY PLAYER app needs to be configurable so that the ugly gray musical note isn’t the only choice. Perhaps whatever is the visualization described in the FIFTH item could also be the background for the PARTY PLAYER, but with a gray background to just the PARTY PLAYER that could be set to whatever percentage transparency (actually, technically, for as long as the background may be seen (and seen through), it’s “translucency”) the host desires.
EIGHTH, it would be nice if there were another way, besides SMS texting, to message the PARTY PLAYER app. Once someone has the PARTY PLAYER phone’s number in his/her text log (or even his/her contacts list/address book), then s/he could sent texts to that phone later, during a completely different party, even if s/he’s not present at said party. The opportunity for abuse seems both high and easy. Of course, being able to block certain people from texting could help; but a better way might be for there to be a companion app that all party-goers could download; and then the host tells everyone a code number that they must key-in to said companion app, and once they have, everything they specify in the companion app that they’d like to hear goes straight to the PARTY PLAYER. At the end of the party, the host simply disables that code number.
NINTH (related to the EIGHTH), one advantage of having a companion app on the party-goers’ phones could also be that said app has a directory, in it, of something like all songs that have ever made to to any Billboard Top 100 list going back to the 1950s (which is easier to do than it sounds). By having that, party-goers can look-up songs and just press on them, once found, to select and send them to the PARTY PLAYER device. In addition, though, they could also specify other songs, but at least the most popular ones could be selected by essentially point-and-click.
TENTH, (related to the EIGHTH), another thing that the PARTY PLAYER app could do is work with one of the temporary phone number providers out there to use a special number just for that one party; which would, then, make it so that the problem described in the EIGHTH item would become moot.
That’s all I can think of for now.
Interesting app. I can think of a bunch of uses for it, already…
…but only if the above-listed things were incorporated. Until they are, yes, it’s still an interesting app; but little more than a kid’s tool. Serious users — maybe DJs doing big dances, or large bar owners, etc. — would need the kinds of features I’ve herein listed.
Still, very interesting app. Innovative. Its maker is to be congratulated.
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Gregg L. DesElms
Napa, California USA
gregg at greggdeselms dot com
Veritas nihil veretur nisi abscondi.
Veritas nimium altercando amittitur.
You completely don’t get the point of the app. Yeah, the duplicates thing is smart, & even the disposable number (Though it would be easier to have the app recognize a shortcode at the beginning of the message (I have apps that do that like SeekDroid) So you would text “MagicMusicFrog play ‘Til My Heart Stops Beating” or just ‘PartyPhone’ or ‘R76804’
But having people download an app at the party means that half the people won’t, anyone who doesn’t know the host shouldn’t, & some people without smart phones can’t & they are going to go mess with the playing phone or ask you anyways which is kinda what this is supposed to avoid. Simplicity is the key here.
As far as the “By” thing it’s kinda there, if you put in “Superman” it will either give you a selection or just play REMs or The Clique’s “Superman but if you put in “Play Joe Brooks Superman” it plays “Superman” by Joe Brooks.
The Split screen/Visualizations thing would be an anti-selling point. Most of the time at a party you don’t want stupid visualization on the TV, if you do you can get a program that will render by what the mic hears. No reason to make the app bigger & drain the battery more for that.
As far as 7? It’s not supposed to be looked at, it runs in the background, at a party you want your phone to play while being locked. But you have the option of having it show the instructions to request a song, which is smart.
If you want people to be able to browse for a song there are plenty of apps that do that, they can browse your library. If someone is requesting something at a party they are going to know the song they want, otherwise why request it?
LOSTONTHELINE WROTE: You completely don’t get the point of the app.
MY RESPONSE: And you clearly didn’t really read, carefully, every word of what I wrote, in context. Moreover, nothing in what you wrote supports your thesis: all I saw in what you wrote were alternative methods to what I wrote, which is your right to proffer. Were that you had as much respect for my suggestions as I have for your alternatives.
Maybe, in the future, you could grow-up and more maturely suggest your alternatives, stating why you believe they’re better, without opening with an insult.
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Gregg L. DesElms
Napa, California USA
gregg at greggdeselms dot com
Alright 1st, it wasn’t an insult, it was a statement of confounded incredulity. I read your post & thought “This guy doesn’t like the app because he wants it to be a completely different app” I didn’t mean it to be taken as an offense so I apologize. But saying that you’re old & I’m “too young to know anything” (I guanantee I’m older than you think, I’m sure you ARE older, but “older” in no way automatically equals “wiser”) in a passive-aggressive self-inflation had no intent other than to assert dominance.
I did read your post, quite thoroughly.
I acknowledged the idea about duplicates being a good 1.
I acknowledged the disposable # being good too & offered a possible, simpler & potentially cheaper alternative to accomplish the same goal.
I addressed how #4 was already covered (& making “by” a keyword makes it impossible to suggest “Down By The Lonely Water” FYI)
The rest was about how you don’t understand the app. The app is intended for use at a house party or get together. It isn’t for DJs or Bars. If a DJ is playing music off a phone playlist you better not be paying him. At a bar you should at least be playing off a computer & there ARE apps that do what you want for Windows & tons for Mac/iTunes.
So you said the app is useless unless it’s a completely different app. You missed the whole point of the app.
Being that its intended use is house parties having a companion app doesn’t fulfil the need. It’s supposed to make it simple to request a song & less work for the host & less worry about people messing with your phone. Everyone has a phone or a friend who would let you send a text, it’s all-inclusive easy. When hosting a house party your phone playing music is generally running off battery, you don’t want visualizations draining your battery faster. The great thing is, if you turn off data people can still suggest from you library since it goes via text. A companion app would require data & therefore more battery. Having the ability to set your own background image, sure, but if it takes more cycles for rendering or makes the app more than a few K bigger, I PERSONALLY would pass.
So yes, you DON’T understand THIS app. It’s designed for ease of use at a home venue. Not just for kids, my 50 year old parents & 80 year old grandparents will play music off their phones at parties or family gatherings. Though they wouldn’t download the app or take requests in general