A New (and Better) Media Player, Mobile Media Manager

[Catholic Tech Geek]

A new media player app that is claiming to be on par with (and some areas, better than) the default Xbox Music/Groove Music media player has made its way into the windows phone marketplace.

Features include:

• big buttons and slider designed for people with big hands
• fast resume/load time
• ability to see contents of more than one album at once and pick from multiple albums at once
• search music library for any artist, album, or song
• ability to fully customize Now Playing or a Playlist to one's liking
• playlist creation/editing and importing of items from Now Playing
• shortcuts on player screen to get to what you want to add to Now Playing or a playlist
• frequent scanning of music folder for changes
• uses album art from file metadata

I think this is a great little media player, simple and also very useable. It's still a young app, but the author of the app is willing to take any and all suggestions to help improve it.

N.B. Only local playback of non-Groove Music files is supported for this release. Support for Onedrive and Groove Music store is planned for a future update.

The Link to the media player (paid version) in the marketplace is https://forums.windowscentral.com/e...nager%2F9wzdncrfjwkc%3Frtc%3D1&token=WN-kN0FT. In the Store, it's in the Music + Videos section.

Latest Version: 3.0

 

[TheWeeBear]

Thanks for sharing your app and welcome along to WPCentral Catholic Tech Geek.

 

[Catholic Tech Geek]

If it's at all possible, could WPCentral possibly (please) do an app review on it?

 

[TheWeeBear]

The WPCentral writers / reviewers are always checking the submitted apps for reviewing so you never know.

 

[Catholic Tech Geek]

I have updated this thread with the link to the free version of my media player app. Check the first post for the url.

 

[Catholic Tech Geek]

Pending approval from Apphub, updates to address some performance issues + crashing for both the paid version and the free version should be available soon.

 

[Catholic Tech Geek]

Ok, the update for both the paid release (came out 1 or 2 weeks back) and the free version (just came out today) are out.

For my next release, I will be including the ability to add items to Now Playing or a new playlist via (web) url. The capability to change the player background to any photo in your photo library will also be included.

 

[Catholic Tech Geek]

A new update for both the free version and paid version of Mobile Media Manager (this update will be version 1.3) should be out soon, depending on the speed of apphub certification.

While we are waiting, please see Catholic Tech Geek: Frustrations of an Uninformed Developer for an important and helpful message for both app users and developers.

 

[Catholic Tech Geek]

Update(4-2-2012): The 1.3 update is out for the free version, but not for the paid version.

Version 1.4 is in certification right now (for both paid and free version), and fixes some bugs found in version 1.3. There will also be live tile support as well.

 

[Catholic Tech Geek]

This is a late post, but version 1.4 has been out for a while for both paid and free versions. Now, you can set a playlist as a live tile.

 

[Catholic Tech Geek]

It's been awhile since I updated this thread, but version 2.0.1 for both the paid and free versions is now out. This update is a major code revision, so if you aren't using it now (or had it before, but dropped it), you should check it out (again). Links for download are in the first post.

It's also helpful to me if you rate and review the app (on the applicable version) as well. Any bit of (honest) feedback helps.

 

[Mahdi Ghiasi]

Looks awesome, Going to install and try it!

 

[Catholic Tech Geek]

Let me know how it goes. If you can, please rate and review it on the marketplace please.

 

[Mahdi Ghiasi]

I've just checked your app, it's nice and functional.

However, here are some notes for your app:
1. Music slider is not easy to use, I had to make many taps to grab it.
2. From Now Playing, There is no way (or maybe I couldn't find it) to back to main page (artists/albums/etc.) If there is, then it is not easy to find
3. Splash screen is not good for a Windows Phone 8 application!
4. UI Should be more Metro-ized.

Also, I have some suggestions for further releases of your app:
1. Add "Shake to go to next track" ability to app. It's useful when I'm listening to music in bed
2. Add ability to modify Music Artist, Album, etc. data.

I don't rate it on the windows phone store now, I'll wait for the next release of your app

Also a note: Searching "Music Player" should bring your application in the first results. include "Music Player" in the first lines of app details.

 

[Catholic Tech Geek]

I've just checked your app, it's nice and functional.

However, here are some notes for your app:
1. Music slider is not easy to use, I had to make many taps to grab it.
2. From Now Playing, There is no way (or maybe I couldn't find it) to back to main page (artists/albums/etc.) If there is, then it is not easy to find
3. Splash screen is not good for a Windows Phone 8 application!
4. UI Should be more Metro-ized.

Also, I have some suggestions for further releases of your app:
1. Add "Shake to go to next track" ability to app. It's useful when I'm listening to music in bed
2. Add ability to modify Music Artist, Album, etc. data.

I don't rate it on the windows phone store now, I'll wait for the next release of your app

Also a note: Searching "Music Player" should bring your application in the first results. include "Music Player" in the first lines of app details.

Thanks a bunch for the feedback. First, could you please be more specific by what you mean by "music slider"? Next, to get to the list of artists, albums, and songs from the Now Playing list, all you have to do is either press the "plus" button in the menu or press the "add to now playing" option in the menu (same thing in the playlist editor as well). Next, in regards to the splash screen, I sized it for wp7.x (which has a resolution of 800x480). If you are using a device with Windows Phone 8, could you please tell me which device you're using?

In regards to the shaking, I could work on adding it in. However, I was under the impression that shaking usually means shuffling the current playlist. Am I wrong on this? For now, you can use swiping gestures by swiping your finger from the left of the screen to the right (or vice-versa) to easily move through the playlist.

Finally, in regards to modifying music data, I use whatever data it has when it got synced through zune. I admit I haven't done much research on how you can access the media library in WP8(since I don't have a WP8 device at the moment), but I can look into it to see how it differs from wp7.x.

If you want to help me beta test and give me valuable feedback on the (next beta) build before I go ahead and submit it for release, please pm me.

 

[Mahdi Ghiasi]

About splash screen, It's showing correctly, but I'm saying that it is too much colorful! I think such splash screen is for a kids game, not a music player

And about Music Slider, it's thing that shows how much of track is played and how much remaining (in now playing page). I can grab it and move it (not easy), but it doesn't even work. Please make it work so users can move inside a track.

I don't know what exactly shaking should do, but going to next track on current playlist (maybe randomly) is nice, I think.

And about testing next beta build of your application, my phone is not developer unlocked right now, and I'm not able to test it (am I wrong?) But I'm looking to make it developer unlocked with a DreamSpark account. If I make my phone dev unlocked, then I'll pm you

Regards

 

[Catholic Tech Geek]

The sad thing about the music slider is that the Windows Phone SDK does not allow you to move to a specific point in a song if it's taken from the media library. You can play, pause, move to next track, move to previous track, repeat, and shuffle, but not fast forward or rewind (within the song). If it was possible, I would allow you to do it.

As for testing the beta build, I can submit a build to the Windows Phone marketplace as a "beta" and allow users to test it out (specified by a list of windows live ids). You don't have to have your phone dev-unlocked in this case (and if you do, it doesn't count towards your limit of unsigned apps). All you have to do is pm me with your windows live id, and I will take care of the rest.

 

[Mahdi Ghiasi]

Oh, Why do they putted such silly restrictions in Windows Phone 8 SDK? I hope they'll fix it in the next WP update, Maybe WP Blue...
It's interesting that Xbox Music CAN fast forward and rewind, but they didn't allowed it in the SDK!
But, is it possible to read music from somewhere else (inside SD card, but not Music folder)? If so, then is it possible to seek through music?

And about beta testing, I just sent you a pm containing my live ID.

Thank you!

 

[Bruce Fuentes]

Here is my problem with all the music players.

There is no way to play an album the way it was designed. All of these programs sort songs, under album, alphabetically. Why are they not sorted, or the ability to do, by track #. That is how the artist intended the album to be played. Imagine playing songs from Pink Floyd albums alphabetically. The songs would make no sense.

 

[Catholic Tech Geek]

Here is my problem with all the music players.

There is no way to play an album the way it was designed. All of these programs sort songs, under album, alphabetically. Why are they not sorted, or the ability to do, by track #. That is how the artist intended the album to be played. Imagine playing songs from Pink Floyd albums alphabetically. The songs would make no sense.

Bruce, what I can do is have each album's songs sorted by track number (under the album view in both the playlist editor and the main music chooser screen). Does this sound like a good idea to you (to meet your suggestion)?