THE BASICS
Keep discovering
Don’t be that person who insists music died after an arbitrary year that’s in your head. Your phone provides access to countless songs. Use digital radio and streaming service recommendations to seek out music that’s new to you, and ensure your listening habits don’t become as stale as an Osmonds tribute act.
Test your ears
Are you an audiophile? Are you sure? Do yourself a favour and blind-test whether your ears can actually tell the difference between good-quality streaming and hi-res audio downloads. If you can’t, that might make you glum, but it’ll make things a lot simpler when playing music on mobile.
Buy the right kit
What is it you want to do with music and your phone? Block out the world? Get a pair of noise-cancelling in-ear buds or, for maximum isolation, over-ear cans. Blast your favourite songs into every room in your home? Try Apple HomePods or a Sonos setup. Pretend it’s 1983? Search for ‘cassette player phone case’ on Redbubble.
Pin your picks
There will always be albums that are special to you. Flag their tracks as favourites in streaming services to serve up more of the same. Pin them in Spotify. Also, add them to home screens as shortcuts or widgets. The free iOS app Albums: Music Shortcuts has great widgets for that – and within the app itself there’s also a nostalgic Cover Flow view.
Take it offline
You won’t always have instant internet access. So unless you want to listen to what an airline foists on you at 30,000 feet, or birds arguing when hiking in the wilderness, download favourites and keep them on your device. Maybe even consider buying DRM-free albums to own, rather than being at the whim of streaming services.
STASH TRACKS
Build playlists
If you like a tidy music library, chuck all the things you’ve not listened to yet into a bespoke playlist. Even better, if you’re on an iPhone/iPad, use MusicBox (R60) as a place to audition tracks that you’d like to check out later.
Swipe it up
For a handy combination of discovery and stashing, Recs by Discz (free with IAP on Android and iOS) is excellent. It borrows from Tinder, having you swipe through a stack of song cards to dismiss or like each one. The latter tracks go onto a Spotify playlist.
RETURN TO ALBUMS
Shift your habits
Turning decades of recorded music into a giant jukebox is fine, but delving back into the art of the long player can feel great. Filter your streaming view to albums, pick one, and resist the urge to skip.
Force LPs
If you don’t trust yourself and have an iPhone, Longplay gives you a grid of synced albums that you can re-order via various means. Tap one and it starts to play; further options lurk behind a long tap, but avoid them for best effect.
FINE-TUNE SOUNDS
Go Mono
Apps and operating systems can convert stereo to mono output – which is handy when wearing a single earbud to keep one ear on the world and avoid getting run over, or when your phone’s playing music in portrait, which makes nonsense of stereo.
Use EQ
Even the best phones have weedy bass when you play audio through their speakers. Try boosting it at the system level, or use a player that lets you fiddle with EQ levels.
Sing your heart out
Spotify provides lyrics for personal karaoke sessions, but Apple Music goes much further. If you see a mic button in the lyrics view, tap it to silence the main vocal and croon with your own gorgeous voice instead.
GO RETRO
Bring back the iPod
Because Apple lacks a nostalgia gland and a sense of humour, it smashes iPod tributes to dust (RIP Rewound). Google has no such cruel urges, and so retroPod (free) brings clickwheel glee to Android.
Try virtual vinyl
Should your format choice be more old-school, try the suitably named iOS app Vinyl Fetish (free with IAP), which bases playback around virtual records you can customise. This app gives you a virtual record for entire albums, not individual tracks.
PERFECT PLAYERS
Poweramp | Android
Poweramp is packed full of features. It’ll play almost any audio file you load on your phone, whereupon you can fiddle with everything from skins to EQ… and thereby consider yourself a unique genius until your friends bring you to your senses.
Dopper | iOS
If you’re an iPhone owner who still buys music (albeit digitally), Doppler will happily play whatever format you throw its way from any source. It’ll organise your audio too, searching for missing artwork and combining albums with multiple discs.
Cs Music Pro | iOS
If your main gripe with Apple’s Music app is that it was fine before Apple sidelined your music in favour of its streaming service, Cs will be bliss. It reimagines the classic app focusing on what you love – not what Apple wants you to love.