MusicPod, an all-in-one music, radio and podcast player for Linux created in Flutter, has matured at a clip since I first looked at it in the spring.
The app was already in pretty good form then, able to play local audio files, browse and manage a audio library, create playlists, browse, download, subscribe, and listen to podcasts, search for and stream internet radio stations, and pin things to the sidebar.
It can still do all of that plus a bit more, such as play video podcasts, notify you when a new episode of a subscribed podcast is released, and give you service-agnostic sharing links for podcasts and radio stations.
Aesthetically, MusicPod has been refreshed its appearance to better mimic the split-pane look modern GTK4/libadwaita apps use. This helps the player harmonise with other apps on the modern Ubuntu desktop:
In my previous hands-on the app didn’t always remember settings, exhibited quirky behaviour when trying to play tracks from the library view, had an unpredictable progress bar, album art wasn’t always displayed, and streaming podcasts and radio stations could be hit or miss.
I’m please to say that’s no longer the case; all core features work impeccably — though in the case of this paranormal podcast, I wish I hadn’t 😱:
One cool thing about MusicPod are the different looks. You can turn on a “focused” mode that hides the library to show now playing (and tell you what’s next), and you can maximise the app to enjoy a triple pane layout:
Recent versions of MusicPod reduced memory usage (always music to my ears, ho ho) and there are plans to port the app to Windows and Android – so if you’re an OS-hopper, you’ll be able to enjoy a consistent music and podcast experience regardless of device.
That’s it in a nutshell; a solid set of refinements over the past few months.
If you’ve not checked in for a while (as I hadn’t) go grab MusicPod from the Snap Store and take the latest release a for a spin – chances are you’ll be as impressed as I am!
