Music a sign there are bigger problems with Windows?

[TonyDedrick]

If you want great finished software. Why do you install a Developer Preview on your phone??? I dont get it.

The wack *** music app has nothing to do with the 8.1 beta. This has been an issue from the get go. Its absolutely stunning a company this big and with experience in music allowed this to continue.

 

[pvcleave]

How is that idiotic? It's a valid point. I didn't download the preview expecting everything to be smooth (although, I haven't experienced hardly any problems that isn't the result of lack of proper firmware). If Microsoft is doing a bi-weekly update, then they'll have already had 3-4 updates by the time any average consumer gets it and probably like 8 updates by the time most people get it. That is plenty of time to fix almost all of the problems with it.

The reason that it is idiotic is that there are problems with this app that will not go away with the software going live. This is not a beta it is the developer preview. It will not have everything final, but MS, believes it is good enough to ship to customers. The direction that MS is taking with the music app is what they started in version 8. Many of my and other peoples problem is not that it is buggy. Once many of those bugs are fixed, those problems are still going to be there, just as they are in Windows 8.1. There are bugs, and I would like those fixed. However the point of this post is that the problems with music is not because of some bugs. It is what they did in Windows 8 and the app in Windows Phone 8. For some of us, music is a big deal, we have nice collections, mine is mainly CDs that I convert and tag very nicely. I do have Xbox music to find new music, that experience is going down hill on Microsoft's phone and windows 8 app. Even once the bugs are worked out, if they do not change there direction, I have a problem.

So to sum it up, it is idiotic to say it is a preview, when my problems are not that it is buggy, I don't like what they are doing with the app.

I do love 8.1 I just do not like the music app.

 

[herbertsnow]

Are you still here man? Haven't you bought that iPhone yet?

 

[Robinsonmac]

To be honest both the phone app & desktop app suck compared to what we had in WP7. I don't know why they didn't just port the WP7 apps to 8. Instead they had a new dev team in France create a whole new app and the result is that it is not very good...... It's almost like they had the "Not invented here syndrome"

 

[pvcleave]

Everyone that is not happy about something, with windows phone, should buy an Iphone?

 

[pvcleave]

To be honest both the phone app & desktop app suck compared to what we had in WP7. I don't know why they didn't just port the WP7 apps to 8. Instead they had a new dev team in France create a whole new app and the result is that it is not very good...... It's almost like they had the "Not invented here syndrome"

France, that explains a lot. :smile:

 

[ULOP3Z]

I just don't get it, they had Zune perfected, I also don't like being a hater but this app is such a downgrade and if I were to switch to iPhone I would probably be the only iPhone user with music on my phone, I'm not joking I don't know about any of you but it seems that every time I see someone with an iPhone they never have any music on it, they always use Pandora and YouTube, I'm guessing they find it to complicated or dont know how to sync their devices with iTunes (literally my friends, brother, sister, everyone at school, everyone at work, other family members)

 

[dimatador]

Haha funny and true!

If you want great finished software. Why do you install a Developer Preview on your phone??? I dont get it.

 

[Brad Pedersen]

This is how I feel about the separate XBox Music app

 

[Brad Pedersen]

But in all seriousness it does. MSFT has slowly been getting worse from the Zune HD to now. I don't know why they had to take the music hub out of windows and use a separate app anyways. So they could update it more often? The Music Hub worked fine, I never had any issues with it and I used the app daily and extensively, so I really don't think taking it out and using an updatable app is acceptable or even reasonable when quarterly issues with the built-in hub are more than we really need anyways.

Also in regards to the hub found on 8.1, from opening it up this isn't the old Music Hub from 8.0, its some revamped version for 8.1, but seems like it wasn't quite completed, probably so they could spend time working on a ****ty app not built into the system. It is very similar, but actually quite a bit different from the 8.0 version, again like I said I used it every single day so it was pretty easy for me to notice the changes. I do like that you can access the store from the built-in hub. They should honestly just finish it, add a few features such as being able to edit playlists, and use it with 8.1. Forget this "separate-app-that-needs-to-load" ****.

 

[loofmodnar]

The current XBM app is slow and just about unusable but also it's pre-release software, at least until WP8.1 is available outside of the preview. Between the uservoice site and bi-weekly releases they're clearly committed to fixing it so I'm taking the "wait and see" approach.

 

[neo158]

There has already been an update to Xbox Music for 8.1. It is not just laying there.
In release v2.5.2842 you will find:

Numerous stability fixes, including many of the reported black screens
Full Cortana integration including playing Playlists by name
UI Polish to improve animations and transitions between UI views
Improved messaging for encountered errors, such as unplayable content in collections

Some of what is targeted for the series of coming releases:

Continued focus on Stability and Performance improvements
Background initial sync of local and cloud content (Note: This had been targeted for the last
store update, but we pushed it out one more release to do some additional testing)
Fast Forward/Rewind by sliding progress bar in a song
UX layouts on buttons and metadata in now playing to better utilize space and make for better interaction
Support for large play queue(including playlist) greater than 100 songs
Improved load times for long lists through better list virtualization
Swipe Gesture to Advance on Now Playing
Live Tile and Transparent Tile support
Design & Layout improvements to get you to your content faster
Kids Corner support
UX improvements (Search result grouping, creating new Radio Stations, improved Network status messages,
Blue UI language alignment, and more)

This is the exact reason they decoupled it from the OS itself, what people fail to take into account is that they installed a developer preview and that this app is the same one we had on Windows Phone 8.

 

[Keith Wallace]

If you want great finished software. Why do you install a Developer Preview on your phone??? I dont get it.

Except this isn't just an 8.1 app. This is available in the Store on 8.0, and has been for some time. They never improved that version, and even though they've had months to do so, they made no effort to prepare it for 8.1, preview or not.

 

[Keith Wallace]

This is the exact reason they decoupled it from the OS itself, what people fail to take into account is that they installed a developer preview and that this app is the same one we had on Windows Phone 8.

No, we get that. That's the dang problem--they took an 8.0 app, called it 8.1 preview, and left us all in a crappy bind. Thankfully, we had a phenomenal developer get that app out to get to the old player. I MUCH prefer my instantaneous music access and full collection of album art to waiting 45 seconds to get my music loaded and having 65% of the album art missing for no reason.

 

[anon5997296]

Well.. Beta or not, developer PREVIEW or not, I still think, a SMARTPHONE OS shouldn't suffer in handling local music, which even my zillion years old, JAVA S40 phone, Nokia 6303 classic could handle very well..

 

[neo158]

No, we get that. That's the dang problem--they took an 8.0 app, called it 8.1 preview, and left us all in a crappy bind. Thankfully, we had a phenomenal developer get that app out to get to the old player. I MUCH prefer my instantaneous music access and full collection of album art to waiting 45 seconds to get my music loaded and having 65% of the album art missing for no reason.

Take a look at the post I quoted, it's a list of things that are or are going to be implemented. Software development isn't a case of slap something together and hope it works!!!!

 

[gapost]

The issue is probably one of time and resources. They promised 8.1 and had to get that out, but obviously, the updated Music wasn't ready. Because of all the problems with the 8.0 Music, they probably told the Music programmers to work overtime and get something out, hence the recent update, but just the first of several. Come on, this is a developer preview and problems will be found and fixed. The Windows Phone division, is obviously lower priority at Microsoft, and if they want to be successful, they need to devote some more resources, both people and money.

 

[Ankit Nawlakha]

The reason I think there is bigger problem, is that this is not one isolated incident. Microsoft seems to not understand many of the people using its product. How does one get it so wrong for so long and not hear any of it customers.

You've got a point.!!

 

[Ankit Nawlakha]

The issue is probably one of time and resources. They promised 8.1 and had to get that out, but obviously, the updated Music wasn't ready. Because of all the problems with the 8.0 Music, they probably told the Music programmers to work overtime and get something out, hence the recent update, but just the first of several. Come on, this is a developer preview and problems will be found and fixed. The Windows Phone division, is obviously lower priority at Microsoft, and if they want to be successful, they need to devote some more resources, both people and money.

But dude music app had problems from WP7.5!!
They are just downgrading it!

 

[gapost]

The music app with WP 8 wasn't that bad. It may not have had all the features everyone wanted, but it worked pretty well. I never used Zune, but I understand it was very good. It just seems that Microsoft is not devoting enough resources to Music. Hopefully they will do better.