Thanks to all of the great apps being developed for the Android OS, your smartphone can now be used to create the perfect portable music experience. Forget your iPod, you won’t really need to embarrass yourself by taking it outside anymore. With the following list of my 5 personal favorite music apps, you may even stop using your phone for making actual calls. They just interrupt the music, man.

Winamp

This is a very cool music player with one killer feature – wireless desktop sync. Make a playlist on your computer in Winamp and all the songs are sent to your phone wirelessly. It is the kind of geek magic that makes my heart flutter and the main reason I bought a new Android phone instead of the iPhone 4. Sure, it takes a little work to set-up and you need Android 2.2 or above, but this is surely one of the road signs that mark our approach towards mobile music nirvana.

Cost: Free.

Download: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.nullsoft.winamp

Pandora

If you don’t know what Pandora is yet, it is time to get hip to the future already. Create your own personalized radio stations by naming only one artist or song and watch it evolve based on your tastes. The Pandora app lets you carry your radio stations in your pocket and stream them anywhere – including plugging your phone into your car stereo for long road trips through musical dead zones.

Cost: Free.

Download: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.pandora.android

Shazam

This app can hear just about any song ever made and tell you the song title, artist and album. Now there is probably a very complex sound-wave algorithm to explain exactly how this happens, but perhaps they have just hired an army of audiophiles in India who sit around and identify the songs as they come in. In any case, this is a really cool way to impress your friends and or cheat at Name that Tune.

Cost: Free

Download: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.shazam.android

StreamFurious

Choose from a huge list of streaming radio stations all over the world and stream them directly to your phone. BBC News, Classical, House, French Techno stations and anything else you can imagine. Hell, you can even listen to police radio with this app. The free version has some limits, so upgrade to the paid version if you want to unlock all the features.

Cost: Limited Version Free/ $4.99 Full Version

Download: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.streamfurious.android.free

Remote for iTunes

This is the only app I am recommending that you actually have to pay for – and that pains me to no end. However, ask yourself if, philosophically speaking, it is worth $4.99 to be able to control your entire desktop iTunes library from your phone and in the process make another step forward in your quest to truly become master of your musical domain. Get that power in your hands and the answer will invariably be yes. There are a few free versions of this same idea, but none work as well in my experience.

Cost: $4.99

Download: https://market.android.com/details?id=hyperfine.hftunes.release