If you like exploring free music of all types and genres, including indie artists, classical music, or even audio books and need an all-in-one file manager to do it, Free Music Download Pro could be put to good use. Currently available in the App Store at the reduced price of $0.99, Free Music Download Pro is packed with a web browser, download and file manager, and audio player. A few legal, free music sites are even bookmarked to get you started.
The primary features of Free Music Download Pro include the built-in web browser and bookmark feature for browsing the suggested sites, or for perusing your own favorite download sites. Not every site is supported of course, but with the most recent update, quite a few are. The default bookmark sites include Free Music Archive, Last.fm, and Librivox for audio book classics. There is a also a link to the Free Music Download Pro home page for instructions on how to transfer downloads to iTunes and vice a versa.
The download manager provides real-time download progress and supports multiple downloads while the built-in file manager lets users organize their files by renaming, deleting, moving, etc. The audio player is full-feature and is pretty much equipped with what you would expect, including shuffle, repeat, set as background (iOS 4.0 and later), shake to shuffle, and swipe to advance to the next track. A couple of features that are missing include a settings option to do things like toggle shake to shuffle on and off and a sidebar search for really big playlists.
Features aside, Free Music Download Pro is quick, efficient and easy to manage. It wouldn’t be ethically correct to not point out the obvious – Free Music Download Pro is designed to be used with sites where free downloads are legal, so browse at your own risk. Obviously, the majority of recommended sites are comprised of public domain and indie artists, but this can be a fun way to discover new music and public domain. Of course, there may be other sites users are already familiar with and as long as the site is supported, the ability to download right to your device is convenient.
Free Music Download Pro is definitely worth exploring for a mere dollar, but recommending it for the original four might be considered bad advice – especially for some users. As it is, it is a practical download manager and the audio playback is more than sufficient. For a buck, it may not be perfect, but it’s definitely good enough.