Some of you following my micro-blogging on Twitter might already know about it: In the last few months I have been busy developing a new application. What initially just started out as a re-write of the user interface of Quasar Media Player has turned into a completely new application called QuasarMX. It is based on the very core of Quasar Media Player but stripped of all the legacy and third-party code. The completely new UI is based on Qt Quick / QML, a new technology which simplicity and elegance I fell in love with over the past year. For me QuasarMX also marks the start of two experiments:
1. How many platforms and operating systems can I port my app to?
2. Is there any commercial viability at all in publishing the software to various app stores (Nokia Ovi store, Android Market etc.) ?
The first experiment is important to me. Now that Nokia put the Qt project into open governance, the Qt community has the unique opportunity to extend primary platform support to Android, iOS and possibly even Windows Phone 7, thus extending the possible market cap and audience for mobile apps based on Qt dramatically. This experiment is largely about experiencing first hand what changes are required to get my application running on these platforms and as a matter of fact what needs to be done in projects like Necessitas (Qt on Android) to make that goal happen.
As for the second experiment I am actually just interested in getting to know the mechanics of the various app stores. I am pretty confident that there is little to no money to be made from yet another music player app. Yet, it is still interesting to see what happens, what works and what not, especially in regards to future apps.
In July Nokia accepted my application and invited me into the Qt Ambassador program. As part of this program Nokia loaned a N950 developer device to me, which I extensively used to develop and test the Harmattan UI for QuasarMX. The new user interface is very much inspired by the simplicity of the MeeGo Harmattan Swipe UI.
As of yesterday the open Beta 1 of QuasarMX is available for the Nokia N9 and N950. Releases for other platforms will follow shortly.
Hi,
I checked QUASARmx out and I have to say: It is absolutely great! So much features, not only the best music-player on MeeGo, but also better than anyone on iOS or Symbian! This App is worth to spend 4.99€ or more, so go ahead an take it to the final release, I will be the first customer to buy it! Thanks for that great work, I love QuasarMX!
Agree, it is better than any other music players on meego, ios and android.
Waiting for final release
Very promising, very usable already at this point.
Couple of questions
– what is the battery usage compared to the stock player? Does it use the same backend with HW acceleration (i.e., optimal hw usage)
– Is the equalizer goint to use the DSP or the main cpu?
Awesome!
Tried it out and I really like the UI.
Please join the official Maemo forum and get in touch with the community! :)
http://talk.maemo.org
Great app!
But I hope this to be more improved with fix any bugs.
(ex. It read ID3v1 tag when a mp3 file has ID3v1 and ID3v2 at same time. So, I can’t read the tags because of the garbling when with multi-bytes code tags.)
Thanks!
plz plz plz release it fast for n900(maemo) also….i and many maemo users are waiting for such awesome musicplayer since long time…plz
@Nrde: Battery usage is on par with the default music player. Even with a connected bluetooth headset and AVRCP it plays for 10+ hours.
As for the equalizer: we are still working out how to best integrate it in QuasarMX. I am not satisfied with the equalizer filters that come with the N9 since all of them use the CPU, the device gets warm and the battery is drained pretty fast. So yes, we are experimenting with other options, possibly even DSP or a simplified equalizer (bass boost, treeble boost etc.) that is not as computational expensive as a full-fledged 10+ band equalizer. Luckily I have somebody specialized in this area helping me.
@htsign: I have a similar case where CJK tagged files are not correctly read, which is already fixed. It would be nice, if you could mail a test case file to quasarmx@katastrophos.net . Huge files are okay.
@nisheet: The N900 port will follow, hopefully this month. I need to fix some UI issues first.
@Andre Beckedorf,thanx for responce…we will be waiting….
This is the best music player on meego hartmann. Respect!
Great app!
when the port for n900 will be released……..plzzzzzzzzzz make it we are waitinggg…………..
Thanks for the app, Beckedorf: congratulations, great job.
Two questions:
1. when can we expect the release of the equalizer function? I’m dying and willing to pay for it.
2. when can we expect the release of the payed version?
Can you give us a hint?
Thank you
I have a N8 with Belle. I am not techie minded but enjoy the N8, except that the music player does not play albums. As a result I came upon QuasarMX and what a find!
Thanks for such a great player; I feel at home with it straight away and it is so good to get back to an intuitive player.
Just one question – is it possible to directly incorporate the Play by Radio function of the N8?
Thanks again.
The Player is awsome! I only have one complain, the downloaded Cover Art are on drive C… this is a nightmare when you have a lot of albums and low memory on C. Could it be changed to drive E or something? Thanks.
Great job.
Installed on N8 with Belle. I have a 26 GB music collection. When I synced my music folder it took up approximately 30 MB of c drive so I decided it wasn’t for me. However after uninstalling the program I didn’t get the 30 MB back! How can I reclaim the space?
Never mind. Found it all in the C:\.config\katastrophos folder. Any chance the cover art could be saved on E:?
Hi, this player is very good, but i have one problem, and that is, that i have 13 GB of music, and i must scan folder with music, but this program scan 10%, and then show error – memory is full… but i dont know which memory it is (RAM, or Memory Card or mobile memory) Can anyone help me ?
Andre, great app, but for me still useless, for the app doesn’t have an equalizer. A pity. Without this feature, sorry to say that your player – although well crafted and with some nice features – is par to the default player for me. And for that I still need to use Sigma Player – an terrible player, BTW – only because of the equalizer.
I have asked you this question 4 months ago and still got no answer, man. When can we expect the equalizer function? when we can expect the payed version?
Thanks for the attention
Hi Andre Beckedorf
I listen to music everyday and everywhere and ur player is very great!
But now for now I prefer TTPOD because with TTPOD with extra key funcion enabled I can change the song even when my phone is locked just with a long press of vol keys (Long press Vol Up key -> Next Song)
An example when i do It?
When I Running or When I driving I hate to watch the display for change a song and the touchscreen is not very suitable when you are sweaty.
Please introduce this new function in next release of QuasarMX.
Graphics and searching song function in QuasarMx are amazing better than ttpod.
I am a student of computer science, if you need a beta tester let me know, currently I noticed some bugs in Beta 4 of QuasarMx 1.
I’ve got a Nokia N8 with Symbian Belle (111.040.0904)
and a Nokia 808 PureView (Nokia Belle 112.020.0310) and some friends with N9 (Meego).
Sorry for my english I’m still learning.
Thank you for your attention to my request.
Great app! But i have a question: I’ve load flac files, and QMX see it, but don’t play. Is that a bug or QMX does not support that format?
Great application, best there is on symbian belle and i’m very sorry that i actually payed for another app that was vastly inferior to this.
Keep on developing it and i will gladly pay for it.
I’m using QuasarMX on my C7 with Belle Refresh. Every single song I have to re-adjust the volume. If there is any ways you can fix that I’d really appreciate it. Other than the volume issue I’d like to say thanks for developing this, it’s close to being better than the stock player + last.fm combo, which is what I have to use alternatively. The volume thing is the only thing holding me back.
@Mike, please update to the latest version available from the Nokia store:
http://store.ovi.com/content/241788/reviews
http://store.ovi.com/content/331752/reviews
The volume bug was a specific problem to Version 1.1.180 and is fixed in 1.6.394.
Nokia N8-00. Everithing works, but amplifire conrollers works unstable – targeting on the right position to encrease or decrease by thinger is very difficult. And is it possible to add balance regulator?
On my Nokia N8-00, when playing my entire collection in shuffle mode, QuasarMX occasionally repeats songs three times before moving on. It happens with about 50% of the songs. I do have some songs duplicated but with over 2000 songs it would be exceptional if it played those duplicates all in a row when on shuffle. I should say that I have 48Gb of music on my 64gb microsd card so maybe it is a quirk caused by using a strictly unsupported size of card.
@Andre Beckedorf
Will be avaible a version of QuasarMX for Windows Phone 8 ?
The freemium model is a growing approach. Changes in the app-making world are to be expected. All we can do is remain open, and keep learning.
Amazing web-site. Plenty of helpful details the following. I am sending them to a couple friends ans moreover discussing inside yummy. And clearly, good work!
Hi, I’ve just got the full version and I’m very glad to have done so! However, I do have a comment to make about an improvement that would be very useful to me, and maybe to a few others too. I have a Nokia N8-00, which to me is still a very good phone particularly because it is able to emit on FM radio waves (I’m not aware of any other phone that does so??, I use this in my van at work which only has an old cassette player in it, no bluetooth etc but there is no way of turning on the radio emitting function in your app, I have to go back out and turn on radio function then go back into the app which creates stuttering in playback and is a little awkward to do. So if it was possible to add such a feature in the future I would be totally satisfied. Other than that it is really excellent, thank you