XBox Music - Enough is enough...

[Nimdock]

I just switched from an Arrive to a L920 and have been a Zune pass user for almost 2 years. From all the horror stories I really thought I was going to have a hard time going to Xbox Music from Zune since so many people are complaining.

I have to say I actually prefer the new system. Set up of my new phone was a breeze and I love I can just drop songs through the file explorer (for the songs I own outside of Zune) without the need to add them to any library.

I am happy with the new system and have not had any issues. I also disabled the cloud music on my phone since I want all songs to be available on my phone offline.

 

[Nimdock]

Live tile
Why is it that horrible ugly color green instead of my accent color?

Hehe, I have found myself wishing the tile had the accent color. I don't think that the current green is horrible and I actually like it but I prefer that the tiles to have the accent color. Not a fan of it displaying xbox with the logo since sometimes I press it by mistake wanting to go to the games hub.

 

[Simon Gregory]

Well, if you're happy with how it is then that's good for you. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who aren't, and regard the new system a considerable backward step.

The addition of cloud streaming and file manager copying is all well and good, but not to the detriment of the other features that cause users great inconvenience now they are broken or removed.

 

[Trainwreck_0532]

I have been complaining to both xbm and Microsoft on a weekly basis about these issues since end of January. For the last 2 weeks they have told me that their top echelon techs and programmers are looking into it. Hopefully something gets done soon. Try the customer support chat on Xbox.com and let them know your issues.

 

[fardream]

Definitely with you. There should be an article on it. The stupid cloud collection is a joke. We are even allowed to edit that thing on a phone.
Whatever, my patience is running out. An iPhone will solve all the problems.

 

[ash29k]

Lol, are you expecting everyone to beg you not to get an iPhone? Its not like Xbox music is the only music app available mate. Enjoy your iPhone... :/
Mod Edit: Do not launch personal attacks on other users as per the rules.

 

[Nimdock]

Well, if you're happy with how it is then that's good for you. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who aren't, and regard the new system a considerable backward step.

The addition of cloud streaming and file manager copying is all well and good, but not to the detriment of the other features that cause users great inconvenience now they are broken or removed.

And that is also fine. If you notice in my post I don't say I think people are wrong. I am just telling my experience because just as many people have had a bad experience I have had a positive one.

 

[GSOgymrat]

The only real problem I have with the WP Xbox Music app is the terrible management of playlists. The Xbox Music Windows 8/RT app is a whole different matter. It needs to be completely redesigned:

Playlists need to be easier to create.
Play history needs to be available.
It needs social integration.
There should be lists of top songs in my area, different cities and countries.
I should be able to pin playlists, songs, albums and artists.
I should be able to wirelessly download songs to my phone from my computer with one click.
Features such as "Rewind 1986" should be singles, not albums
I should be able to see which songs have videos and view the video in a divided screen so it doesn't take me out of Xbox Music

This is all just off the top of my head.

 

[wpn00b]

Hi Simon. Thanks for bringing this thread to my attention. I really hope that WPC writes an article because I feel that the majority of Windows Phone users would live the chance to sync with Zune (or a revamped XBox Music client with the same capabilities that Zune has). I was initially drawn to Zune and wondered aloud "what if Microsoft makes a phone based on this?". I work for Verizon so I was happy about the Trophy, but I honestly didn't feel WP7 was ready yet. Now that WP8 is here I feel better, but the Zune client was essentially wiped off the face of the earth upon its arrival. I just don't get it.

Give us a louder voice WPC.

 

[Piratelooksat40]

I agree this needs to be addressed in a larger forum. I would give them the benefit of the doubt if this was their first attempt at music. But they actually had a great solution in zune. Having worked at Microsoft for 17 years, I can assure your this turned into a political battle and not a technical issue. I am positive that the Xbox Music team thought they could do it better and came up with this solution without ever talking to the Zune team. Then when it came time to choose, the Xbox Sr Leader won the fight and put Xbox music in. I am sure that they explained it by saying if we just get the Xbox Music app to ship in the box of Windows 8, even if it is not up to speed, we can updated through Windows update. Revenue did not meet projections, so they trim staff wherever they can. I am sure that they "Reorganized" and don't have that much focus on music now. I have seen this happen too many times to know that this is not the case. Don't believe me? I can assure you that the Media Player dev team is not the same as the Xbox Music team. So they have at least two teams working on ways to play music, you can bet there are others.

For me, I worked very hard to get Zune and the Zune pass to work for my family. I have a central Windows home Server(Another product Microsoft has abandoned) that stores all of my music. I have over 10,000 songs on my server, I have the old style Zune pass that gives me 10 free songs. Of the 10,000 songs about 3,000 are Zune DRM's songs and cannot be played on any WP8. There is no app to go through and change the DRM, or automatically download songs, I am just screwed. Microsoft abandoned the app and basically flipped off the users.

My work around is that once a month, I log onto Zune, download my 10 songs, and manage all of my music and playlists through Windows Media player. I am actively looking for another music service that I can use. I am 100% positive that Microsoft will once again change their direction on music, when the next powerful senior leader of a group comes in and wants to take over music. I refuse to put any time or effort into Xbox music.


If you do decide to right the article, here are some questions you need to ask.

1. The Zune community has put a lot of effort into trusting Microsoft and making Zune work for their lifestyle. With Xbox music, you completely turned your back on them and provided them no support or bridge to the new product. Why should Xbox Music trust you won't do this again in 3-4 years? What kind of Guarantee around support will you offer. With your track record, what advantages would it be to go to Xbox Music?

2. iTunes has had the same DRM and same structure since it was released, why did you change? Why can't you be consistent like apple?

3. Why does Xbox Music not support the same features as some peoples Zune pass. Some Zune Pass subscriptions offer 10 free downloads, Xbox Music does not support that.

4. Why did you not offer some kind of conversion program that would allow people to convert their old Zune music to the new Xbox Music without having to re-download all the songs.

5. Other than it is the only music player/music Store front on Windows Phone 8, what are the advantages of Xbox Music over iTunes. With Zune it was easy to identify the advantages, with Xbox we don't see any.

6. Will Microsoft prevent Apple from releasing an iTunes app on Windows Phone?

I am sure that there are other good questions. Those are the first I would ask.

 

[Piratelooksat40]

Has anyone dropped Zune and Xbox Music for Spotify? It seems like it is almost exactly the same as Zune used to be(Minus the free tracks)

 

[wpn00b]

Has anyone dropped Zune and Xbox Music for Spotify? It seems like it is almost exactly the same as Zune used to be(Minus the free tracks)

I have not, but a friend of mine did and he seems to like it. I have the free tracks so I am clinging to it for now.

I really hope Microsoft comes to their senses and fixes this mess. It really needed a couple tweaks, not the overhaul they gave it.

Remember those commercials..."the smartphone beta test is over"? Hmm...Nokia must not have really known what Microsoft had planned for the next year when they ran those ads.

 

[JamesDax]

This is actually one of the few complaints that I agree with. I loved Zune. I hate Xbox music. Hopefully MS will get this fixed.

 

[dgr_874]

Yes, fixing this is make or break for me. If they don't fix this in the next major patch I'm out of windows phone until they do. Come on Microsoftt! You have the beginnings of something awesome, don't let inter office politics screw it up!

 

[Kevin Rush]

Yes, I want the Zune PC software to sync with my WP8! Xbox music has made such a mess of my music / playlists and I don't have the time to sort it out. Why should I have to? If someone did this sort of thing at work, to work files, they would be fired as inept. It is ridiculous.

 

[Trainwreck_0532]

Yes, I want the Zune PC software to sync with my WP8! Xbox music has made such a mess of my music / playlists and I don't have the time to sort it out. Why should I have to? If someone did this sort of thing at work, to work files, they would be fired as inept. It is ridiculous.

+1. Fully agreed, I unfortunately lost all of my playlist trying to figure out this damned Xbox music experience.

 

[Simon Gregory]

Piratelooksat40, I agree, I think that's exactly what happened. MS never really got behind the Zune platform, but the sad thing is that the hardware and software were very high quality. It's so frustrating that common sense doesn't seem to prevail in a company of that size. There are all the thousands of votes on uservoice, and the (now defunct) MS answers thread, but I can't see anywhere high profile picking up this cause. From what I've seen from MS, they still don't seem to understand what they have broken.

Please WPC, champion on behalf of us for a better music experience....

 

[jrlive]

I like xbox music and I have never had any issues with duplicates and never felt the need for any sync software.

I load my music into my W8 library:
Xbox music on W8 finds it, matches it and makes it also available in the cloud.
It is now automatically available on my phone
I can then download it to my phone if I choose to (in order to not stream it and use data)

There are some glitches such as:
When you download music sometimes it doesn't actually download, so you have to do it again. Its is easy to check which songs are on the phone and which are cloud streamed. An icon by every song tells you and also you can filter to show only those songs saved to the phone.
You cant download whole albums with one click - you have to check every song then download
When xbox music on W8 CAN'T find your song/album in your library then it tends to split the album up, associating to other albums where the song is also listed
You cant manage your own meta data

Overall the approach xbox music is taking is brilliant in my view - manage once then available everywhere and the library of songs on xbox music is so vast you will hardly ever return no matches with a search for a song, artist or album. Twice the catalogue of Spotify.

By far the best music concept there is, with some glitches that need to be ironed out. I don't understand all the moaning - it sounds like a 'change is not good' mentality, but I guess we all use these apps in different ways so some might find the glitches more severe than others. I suspect that if you have a vast music collection of your own prior to using xbox music then there might be more problems.

 

[Muessig]

I know this is a fairly established thread at this point but thought I'd point out that there's a sticky thread to do with some of the topics discussed here like duplicate songs and playlists over here: http://forums.windowscentral.com/windows-phone-8/222709-windows-phone-music-tips-tricks.html

 

[wpn00b]

I don't understand all the moaning - it sounds like a 'change is not good' mentality, but I guess we all use these apps in different ways so some might find the glitches more severe than others. I suspect that if you have a vast music collection of your own prior to using xbox music then there might be more problems.

I have a huge collection of music. I spent nearly 12 hours ripping it all over 3 days from my cd collection using Zune (desktop). I also have a grandfathered $15/10 mp3 Zune pass. The issue I have is that I prefered using Zune's social aspects as well as it's gorgeous interface to listen to my music and at the end of the month I would choose which 10 songs to include in my personal collection. I had an iPhone at the time so I had to import songs separately from my library to iTunes so I could load them to my iPhone. How I longed for the day that all of this functionality could be contained in one program. I just needed to switch phones.

As soon as my employer got the phone I jumped. I took it home and plugged into my PC...NOTHING! How frustrating is that? VERY. So I get on Microsoft's support site and find out that there is a sync software I can use. I download it, install it, and use it. Basically its iTunes in a Windows Phone compatible container, and that is being generous. Microsoft took the best part of their empire(other than Xbox) and flushed it down the toilet.

Wireless syncing? Nope. Playlist syncing? Nope. Number of listens? Nope. They just ruined the whole experience when a simple rebrand and a few lines of code would have sufficed.

That's what all the complaints are about. It was easy, effortless and beautiful. Xbox Music is not.