GoneMAD Music Player 4.0 is now fully rolled out! After 14 years since initial release as being a paid app, I've decided to try something different and switch to being free with ads. The market is completely different nowadays compared to the early 2010s. Ads are everywhere and users typically do not want to pay for apps / games / etc. But don't worry, those users who previously purchased the unlocker or in app purchase unlock will continue to get an ad free experience. New users will also have the option to purchase an in app purchase to permanently remove ads.
Note: There is a bug with 4.0 where users with the standalone unlocker may see ads when they first upgrade. You typically fix this by just force stopping the app and restarting. Ads should not come back after that. Alternatively you can contact gonemadsoftware@gmail.com and I can help you out as well. I have no intention on making users who already paid see ads.
What's New in 4.0
New UI Defaults
4.0 will now default to using bottom navigation, now playing layout 3, and the gradient now playing background. These were introduced in 3.5 and are now the default. The old 3.x defaults can be easily switched to by using the "Drawer" UI preset. The "Bottom" UI preset now represents the defaults.
Revamped Android Auto Support
Android auto support was first added to GMMP back when Auto was first released back in 2015. The auto apis were pretty limited and google also enforced a bunch of restrictions in how the user interacts with android auto, so GMMP's android auto integration was based around what was possible at the time. Since then the android auto apis have improved significantly, but I really adapt any of the newer capabilities.
That has changed in 4.0. I rewrote the Android Auto support from scratch building a brand new experience that is significantly better than 3.x. ALL content should now be accessible and there is now a home screen tab which will give quick access to play music.
Note: Android Auto screenshots were taking using the Auto Emulator during development so it will likely look slightly different on your car's display.
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| Top Level View |
Home View
The home view (shown in the screenshot above) contains a bunch of quick play options. You cannot dig deep into any selection. It is intended for quickly finding something to play. Home has a bunch of sections that contain a few selections each:
- Quick Actions: Shuffle, Album Shuffle, Play Random Album
- Recent: 3 of the most recently played selections
- Playlists: Shows 5 playlists
- Smart Playlists: Shows 5 smart playlists
- Top Albums: Top 9 Albums
- Top Artists: Top 9 Artists
Recent View
Shows recently played album artists, albums, and tracks. GoneMAD will analyze the last 100 played tracks and attempt to group them in ways that make sense. I won't go into the exact details but if a single song from an artist/album was played it will be listed on its own, if a few songs from an album were played it will list the album, and if multiple songs from multiple albums of the same album artist were played it will list the album artist. Selecting an item from recent will play that selection.
Library View
Library view will give you full access to browse your entire collection. The top level of the library will match the views you have enabled in GoneMAD's main UI. So if you have bottom nav enabled it will match the library view in app. If you are using tab navigation it will show an entry for each tab enabled in app. Smart playlists turned into views will also be listed if you have any. Each category you can navigate into when selected. Sort order will also follow the sorting you are using for the associated view in app.
Each view after the top level will start off with 2 quick actions: Play and Shuffle. The action will be applied to whatever selection you navigate into. After the quick actions, the rest of the content will be listed. Android Auto does limit how many items it can display, so if the results are too long it will create "groupings" and list the grouping instead. Example would be if you are sorting albums alphabetically it will group selections by first letter, so after displaying a bunch of albums, it will start to group the remaining by letter and just list the letter. Selecting the letter will display all albums that begin with that letter. This was the best way to work around Android Auto's item limit.
Folder View
Folder view is the equivalent to the folder browser in app.
Search View
A magnifying glass icon should be visible from everywhere in auto now that will bring up the search. The results are presented in a similar way as the in app search and should list the same categories that are selected in app.
Artwork in Queue and Track based views
The queue, bookmark, and track list views will now default to showing album art. Art can be turned off by using the "List: No Art" view mode. I do eventually plan on also adding artist to the folder view and playlist details view. It is a bit more difficult to get associated art from the views that are based around filename (which is what both of those are), so it is a larger effort and why it was not included in 4.0
Full Changelog
4.0.0 (2025-07-25):
- GoneMAD Music Player is now free (ad supported)! Those who purchased the unlocker will not see ads. If you have the unlocker and are still getting ads please contact gonemadsoftware@gmail.com. It is not intentional!
- Updated target sdk to 35 (android 15)
- Complete rewrite of android auto support
- Added album art view modes to queue, bookmark and track list views
- Default bottom nav, layout 3, and gradient background for new installs
- Added support for UNSYNCEDLYRICS in xiph tags
- Added view mode options to bottom nav library view
- Bottom nav library will update counts when music is scanned into database
- Added additional help links in the settings
- Renamed Default UI preset to Drawer
- Updated about section
- Updated ffmpeg to 7.1.1
- Rebuild audioengine with NDK 27
- Updated translations
- Updated kotlin version, build tools, and other dependencies
- External tag edits will no longer cause split albums when multi-folder albums is disabled
- Improved initial display of metadata in album details layout 2
- Bottom nav starting view can now be set to library or now playing
- Fixed a lot of lint warnings