XBOX Music - 6 Months Later

garak0410

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I am a long time Zune and ZunePass user and I really love the music ecosystem that Microsoft has.

That said, it is easy to see that XBOX Music is an "alpha" release at best, even 6 months later. Little (if anything) has been added to make its experience any better. No clear indication from Microsoft on how it is really to work or what they plan to do about it. There is the XBOX Music Appp on the XBOX, PC and Phone. There are weak apps for "Modern" and "Desktop" for Windows Phone to help sync music. There are usage right errors now and then...there is no easy way to make playlists on the phone...nearly impossible to work with the cloud collection and even add music to it that they do not have cataloged.

I've tried to live with and work around ALL of these issues and it still is not a fun experience. But here's what I currently do.

  • First, if I want music on my phone and want to keep it in playlists, I manage music in the Zune Software by making playlists and adding music to those playlists...if I need music off my XBOX Music pass, I download it here and add to play list.
  • I use the DESKTOP Windows Phone app to sync the selected playlists to my phone. Since I am on the 32GB Lumia (used to a 64GB ZuneHD), I usually only copy over my "most" favorite music.
  • In the XBOX Music app on my PC, I make playlists to be played by Streaming. Since they are for some reason limited to only 1000 songs, I sometimes have to make two playlists per category and then choose both in the XBOX Music app to play or play one on my phone and add the other to NOW PLAYING. I then fire these playlists up when I am able to stream.

So, this is really not the ideal way to do it but for now, it gives me some peace as I wait on Microsoft to finally tell us how XBOX Music is intended to be used. SO, to recap, items that still need to be refined or fixed:

  • An all in one solution to Music syncing (like Zune Software)
  • Better playlist management on the phone.
  • Sometimes changing songs stutters the album art/song title on WP8, regardless of streaming or not.
  • Album art is often incomplete and I have to use a (useful) third party app to fix album art.
  • Allowing more than 1000 songs in a playlist.
  • Allowing XBOX Music on the XBOX to play multiple playlists since we are limited to 1000 songs.
 

gsquared

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I'm surprised you are still following it Garak,

I gave up on it a while back. While my sub is still active until this Sept (paid by the year... stupid me), I've given up on it as I don't think MSFT knows what they want to do with it. For a brand new user that doesn't have an existing music library its great. From that perspective I'd still say its the best music service out there. But man did MSFT really throw us old users under a bus.

My latest XBox Music pet peeve is the messge when selecting Smart DJ for an artist. Something to the effect "We cannot find enough information on this artist to compile a Smart DJ playlist." This is for artists where I played a Smart DJ playlist the previous day. If Nokia Music comes up with a desktop app (and XBox app as a bonus) I'll switch over to them in a heartbeat.


For the record though. I still like XBox Music. Sometimes....
 

garak0410

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I'm surprised you are still following it Garak,

I gave up on it a while back. While my sub is still active until this Sept (paid by the year... stupid me), I've given up on it as I don't think MSFT knows what they want to do with it. For a brand new user that doesn't have an existing music library its great. From that perspective I'd still say its the best music service out there. But man did MSFT really throw us old users under a bus.

My latest XBox Music pet peeve is the messge when selecting Smart DJ for an artist. Something to the effect "We cannot find enough information on this artist to compile a Smart DJ playlist." This is for artists where I played a Smart DJ playlist the previous day. If Nokia Music comes up with a desktop app (and XBox app as a bonus) I'll switch over to them in a heartbeat.


For the record though. I still like XBox Music. Sometimes....

I am trying to be patient...I want this to succeed. I totally loved ZuneHD and the Zune Software...(I still get my 10 free songs a month :) )...doing to hang with it a little longer...
 

Gurggles

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I have been using zune/xbox pass for over a year. While I do enjoy the service, it is a pain to make a playlist in Windows 8, which makes it a pain to put the music on my phone! I wish Microsoft's teams would work together more to make this Music more successful. Where is the iOS or Android app they promised would be out for Xbox music? How is this service supposed to compete with the likes of Spotify if it only works on one small (but growing!) mobile OS. I almost feel like they came out with it and hoped people would use it more on their Xbox(e)s, but even that app is frustrating to use. Smartglass only works some of the time!

Fortunately I did not pick up my Lumia for Xbox music alone.
 

Piratelooksat40

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It is shocking to me that there is not more of an uproar over this. I guess I am really the only person that really uses their Windows Phone for Music. I thought I would be smart and get a Lumia 820 because it has and SD card slot so I could get more music on my phone. The problem is that the OS gets so confused, I have yet to successfully get a playlist on my phone. It is a total disaster. I worked for Microsoft for 17 years, and I have to say this is the most embarrassed I have ever been on anything they put out. I will give them to their next release to fix it. If Music is not fix, then for the I am going to convert my 13,000+ WMA file to MP3's and find another phone that can actually play music. This worked perfectly fine with Win7 and WP7. Win8 and WP8 is a complete disaster.

I know that one person leaving will not make a difference. But I am as loyal as they get. I have never not had a Windows phone, but they are losing me.
 

phonohead

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Only reason I am 'loyal' to Xbox Music is the fact that it's the only streaming service that allows me to save "offline" tracks to the SD card. Had this been an option/possibility on, say, Deezer or Rdio, I'd be spending my money elsewhere.
 

flyinion

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Man, as a potential new WP user, this is not cool to hear (Zune/Xbox Music is probably 75% of the reason I'm looking at WP or more). I've been a loooooonggg time Zune subscriber and still use a little 8GB blue Zune (non-HD) and had been looking forward to combining my Zune and phone into one device. Something like this might just push me to stay with Android and switch over to Google's new music service which reportedly has higher file quality (the service seriously sucks up bandwidth when streaming). I'd lose the 10 song credit thing and have a useless device (other than for songs I already own) but at least I'd have a decent experience :unhappy:
 

dgr_874

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Ya, its still rough and the only thing keeping my Lumia in the desk drawer still. There is supposed to be a new Xbox music app in windows 8.1 which gets a preview this June 26th. I'm giving Microsoft one last chance to at least bring it to par with Android and iOS if not make it better.
 

Kahuna Cowboy

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It's like Microsoft gave up on XBOX Music before it was even launched.

Announcement: XBOX Music will be the future of music! Take it with you everywhere! Cross-Platform! Never before seen features! Music on demand leveraged by the Power of Microsoft!

Pre-launch: Stay patient, we know a lot of people are not happy about the Zune brand reaching end of life, but every one will be impressed when XBOX Music is ready.

Launch: Meh, here it is. It does not have half the stuff we promised. In fact it has less going on with it then the Zune service it replaces. We will fix it later.

8 months later: *crickets*

It's pretty apparent XBOX Music was merely an afterthought and not much in the way of resources was thrown at it. It was half-assed at launch and remains that way 8 months later. Spotify continues to gain even more market share, Google Music just launched a splendid music service that is really good and i think will be some stiff competition to Spotify. Meanwhile XBOX Music flounders away in mediocrity. It's sad. If you're not serious about offering a great pay for service why not just partner with Spotify, MOG, or Rdio be a music solution to the MS eco-system and be done with it?
 

dgr_874

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Not sure how many of you have seen this but I just came across this floating around. A closer look at what's new in Windows 8.1 | ZDNet Scroll down to where it says improved apps and from the sounds of it the Xbox music app for Windows 8 is going to be way better. That makes organizing music on the PC better, and we can only hope Xbox Music for WP8 gets similar treatment.


Nice find! This updated music app will be the 'make it or break it' for me over the next year. If its good I stick with windows, if its bad, I'll say goodbye untill Windows Phone 9.
 

garak0410

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Nice find! This updated music app will be the 'make it or break it' for me over the next year. If its good I stick with windows, if its bad, I'll say goodbye untill Windows Phone 9.

I read that and it still doesn't sound encouraging. The app should be your all in one destination for music and syncing it to your phone. Not everyone wants to stream, in this age of no more unlimited data.
 

gsquared

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I just did a reload of my desktop OS and thought I would give XB Music another go. I was plesently surprised how far they have come with it. Its still not right but certainly 100% better than when Win 8 came out.

Although only around 50% of my library gets matched up to XB Music at least the client will pull the correct tags from the .mp3 instead of marking that 50% as "Unknown Artist". I'm now exicited to see what the Win 8.1 update will bring to the table.
 

garak0410

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Good to hear...I really need to begin the task of converting from my ZunePass files to XBOX music files. They are virtually the same but just need to get them all together.

I wish we can SEND TO CLOUD music they don't have.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using WPCentral Forums mobile app
 

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