Making a better Music (Xbox Music) Experience

[Ali El]

Yeah, the whole Silverlight 8, WinRuntime, Win 8 thing can be a bit confusing. Just as a tip, take a look at the XNA stuff as well. I don't know if you'll be able to use it with the WinRT/Universal stuff, but there's lots of media stuff there (I built a music player back in 7.5 days....hmm, I should revisit that...eventually).

Thanks for the heads up. Now that you mention XNA, I remember messing with the MediaPlayer and the MediaLibrary classes. They were decent but I never got to get the Media Association to work. Man that brought up some bad memories, it almost felt like they made sure we couldn't go far with anything media related, or maybe that's just me.

 

[Ali El]

Taking a break, decided to mess with some UI. Tell me what you guys think.
(Not the most original, as well as some spacing fixes needed, but this is just a layout I wanted to see, this is a screenshot straight from my lumia 920)

Screen: "Currently Playing" (Quality was chopped :eck: )


Let me know what you think.

 

[Desynthesis]

Hmm, looks very practical so far!

I'm sure I'm not the first person to say this, but I really suspect that anyone who put a "psuedo-Zune" app onto the WP Store with the following:

1) Now playing Live Tile
2) Artist backgrounds
3) Music Bio/Background information

In other words, imitating the features of the old Zune/WP7/WP8 player could really clean up for a low-cost app (heck, I would probably pay a pretty high price if it were very Zune-like). If they added features like some album art assignment, basic information editing, or made it supportable with MPATool (this would be very hard and take some cooperation), I suspect they could basically charge, well, almost anything!

You're going for your own direction though, so I'll be watching this with great interest.

 

[amitnahar]

Taking a break, decided to mess with some UI. Tell me what you guys think.
(Not the most original, as well as some spacing fixes needed, but this is just a layout I wanted to see, this is a screenshot straight from my lumia 920)

Screen: "Currently Playing" (Quality was chopped :eck: )
View attachment 73229

Let me know what you think.

Ok. I really love this but I think a lot of space is wasted in the bottom half of screen. Good UI btw.

 

[Ali El]

Hmm, looks very practical so far!

I'm sure I'm not the first person to say this, but I really suspect that anyone who put a "psuedo-Zune" app onto the WP Store with the following:

1) Now playing Live Tile
2) Artist backgrounds
3) Music Bio/Background information

In other words, imitating the features of the old Zune/WP7/WP8 player could really clean up for a low-cost app (heck, I would probably pay a pretty high price if it were very Zune-like). If they added features like some album art assignment, basic information editing, or made it supportable with MPATool (this would be very hard and take some cooperation), I suspect they could basically charge, well, almost anything!

You're going for your own direction though, so I'll be watching this with great interest.

It's important that it stays as practical is possible.

You see, what you mention there is possible to some extent, I would need an external source as well as a name or a lead on a song to get as much info as possible on it. I am not sure how far those features can go but I will try my best. thanks for the cc though, it helps a lot. Oh and my apps are all free, so this one is not going to be any different.

Ok. I really love this but I think a lot of space is wasted in the bottom half of screen. Good UI btw.

Thank you, this is only a working concept to see what elements I can take from it. The space at the bottom is slightly intentional as I don't want the user to accidentally press the hardware keys if they want to play or skip, I am taking in consideration big hands and big fingers. Although I can see putting some non interactive info there, but again, this is just an early concept. Thank you for your appreciation. I hope to only improve.

 

[amitnahar]

It's important that it stays as practical is possible.

You see, what you mention there is possible to some extent, I would need an external source as well as a name or a lead on a song to get as much info as possible on it. I am not sure how far those features can go but I will try my best. thanks for the cc though, it helps a lot. Oh and my apps are all free, so this one is not going to be any different.



Thank you, this is only a working concept to see what elements I can take from it. The space at the bottom is slightly intentional as I don't want the user to accidentally press the hardware keys if they want to play or skip, I am taking in consideration big hands and big fingers. Although I can see putting some non interactive info there, but again, this is just an early concept. Thank you for your appreciation. I hope to only improve.

You can also implement like this. Tapping on screen play/pause music and swipe changes track.

 

[Topataco]

Looks great, I find the buttons small and too close together for my usage, buy you said it's an early idea so you could update that before the release. As the others said, there's a lot of space down there, so you could either fill it up with something or just enlarge the buttons. Adding swipe to skip would be good for when we aren't looking at the screen. I'd kill for a little button that would bring up your now playing music like in the old music hub or in the Zune HD. And I just had an idea about a hybrid of the old Zune twist UI mixed with the current WP8.1, but I'm horrid at drawing things up. If I ever come across similar designs on Deviant Art I'll make sure to pm you the links, I think I came across a few ages ago looking at rain meter things...

 

[Vitor Salvatore Pierce]

You can put, maybe, lyrics auto-scroll there? :smile:

 

[Aditya142]

next update gonna make all things perfect as said by joe belfiore..he and his team are working hard

 

[Vitor Salvatore Pierce]

next update gonna make all things perfect as said by joe belfiore..he and his team are working hard

They say that, every 14 days!LoL

 

[Ali El]

They say that, every 14 days!LoL

And Who will ever say no to a free alternative?

 

[guillams]

But where is your app?

 

[Vitor Salvatore Pierce]

And Who will ever say no to a free alternative?

 

[mattss]

I think this is a great idea! I've just made these concepts, what do you think? In the second pic there are just little changes.

 

[JamesPTao]

Well lets see, seems like a system would have to be built for the rating feature (which I really want), I think it can be done, I am not so sure. For the automated playlist, I don't know yet, I'll keep you peeps updated. Thank you guys for the help and the goodluck wishes, lol it's like a mission. If you peeps could help out with the testing, that would be really appreciated. Don't worry about the design Topotaco, I will be studying and really try to bring something fresh to the platform we know and love (I think ).

I will be writing down these features and by the amount of demands a certain feature gets, the priorities will change, making sure what we need comes first, and the rest follow.

You nice people have given a nice list, this is going better than I expected.

Thanks again.

Let me know when the beta is available. Would love to give it a try and helpful feedback. Anything to help get some better music apps on WP.

 

[btbam91]

Joe Belfiore did say that a significant update is coming to Xbox Music. I'm looking forward to that.

Sent from my Aspire S7-392 using Tapatalk

 

[Ali El]

I think this is a great idea! I've just made these concepts, what do you think? In the second pic there are just little changes.
View attachment 73434View attachment 73435

Oh nice! I am liking the ideas. You are giving the user functionality, that's pretty awesome. I like the second one but won't that make it a little difficult if a user wants to scrub through a song? The space is a little tight.

 

[Ali El]

Just posting to let you peeps know that this project is not dead, just been a little busy lately with some uni registeration and other stuff while trying to do some work here and there, so I see the Xbox Music update is out, how do you guys like the new update? Did it do it for you or still "meh" ?

For me, it did absolutely nothing on the speed and performance (maybe I just have a bad 920 ) I do like the RECENT feature, but just doesn't really work like I want it to, seems like it picks what it wants to store, over a more constant feel, for example: I tapped on the first song in an album worked perfectly, it saved that album in the recent, I went and tapped on another song in another album and nothing, I closed and restarted the phone and tried again and still nothing, but it is still a step in the right direction, but that is just my experience. :smile:

 

[hs k]

You can do what you wanna do, but for heavens sake have a live tile

 

[Ali El]

You can do what you wanna do, but for heavens sake have a live tile

hahaha, that makes me laugh because remember when MSFT went on a rampage about live tiles? and now they're not even interested and leaving it to "We'll add that later" sort of thing, don't worry, I will try to, I have to relearn Live Tiling in Runtime.