- Nov 8, 2012
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Hi all,
I'd like to introduce you to my new WP8 app, What's Playing. This is designed for people who listen to a lot of music in Xbox Music, and often wonder exactly what the current track is but would prefer to avoid pulling their phone out. It's designed to give you a nice dashboard display in the car or on your charging stand, and also be helpful when it's out of your sight using voice commands.
Above is the dashboard view. I find this really nice to have on the charging stand on my desk while working; I get a nice cover art display at all times, and if there's ever a song I don't remember the name of it's easy to see it. Just like Nokia's accessories apps, it animates once a minute to help avoid burn on AMOLED screens. I also add it to the NFC action for easy launching.
The other side of What's Playing is voice control. As you probably know, third-party voice commands need to be prefixed with the app's name when using the global voice control, so having the app's name as part of the question really makes the commands feel like they're part of the OS. Just hold down voice and say "what's playing now" or "what's playing next" (among others) and the information will be read to you through your earphones. This is great if you're exercising or walking and don't want to get the phone out of your pocket. There are commands to skip tracks as well.
There's also your token sharing functionality so you can let everyone know how cool the music you listen to is. You can access it from the controls menu or via voice command.
The only caveat I have to state is that it only works for Xbox Music (as far as I'm aware). This is Windows Phone thing; you're sandboxed from seeing what third-party music players are playing.
You can download What's Playing here. It's is 99c if you're in the US (minimum price in all countries), and there's a fully-functional 7-days-of-use free trial - that means it only counts days that the app is opened. On the way soon is a better light theme and some more voice options, and I'm always looking for feature suggestions.
I'm also on the hunt for volunteer translators so I can enable this nice voice command experience for all languages that have voice control. I can't offer much in return, but I can extend the fully-functional trial indefinitely for the people that help me out, so you get a free app out of it.
Let me know what you think! Constructive feedback and suggestions are always welcome.
Nik
I'd like to introduce you to my new WP8 app, What's Playing. This is designed for people who listen to a lot of music in Xbox Music, and often wonder exactly what the current track is but would prefer to avoid pulling their phone out. It's designed to give you a nice dashboard display in the car or on your charging stand, and also be helpful when it's out of your sight using voice commands.
Above is the dashboard view. I find this really nice to have on the charging stand on my desk while working; I get a nice cover art display at all times, and if there's ever a song I don't remember the name of it's easy to see it. Just like Nokia's accessories apps, it animates once a minute to help avoid burn on AMOLED screens. I also add it to the NFC action for easy launching.
The other side of What's Playing is voice control. As you probably know, third-party voice commands need to be prefixed with the app's name when using the global voice control, so having the app's name as part of the question really makes the commands feel like they're part of the OS. Just hold down voice and say "what's playing now" or "what's playing next" (among others) and the information will be read to you through your earphones. This is great if you're exercising or walking and don't want to get the phone out of your pocket. There are commands to skip tracks as well.
There's also your token sharing functionality so you can let everyone know how cool the music you listen to is. You can access it from the controls menu or via voice command.
The only caveat I have to state is that it only works for Xbox Music (as far as I'm aware). This is Windows Phone thing; you're sandboxed from seeing what third-party music players are playing.
You can download What's Playing here. It's is 99c if you're in the US (minimum price in all countries), and there's a fully-functional 7-days-of-use free trial - that means it only counts days that the app is opened. On the way soon is a better light theme and some more voice options, and I'm always looking for feature suggestions.
I'm also on the hunt for volunteer translators so I can enable this nice voice command experience for all languages that have voice control. I can't offer much in return, but I can extend the fully-functional trial indefinitely for the people that help me out, so you get a free app out of it.
Let me know what you think! Constructive feedback and suggestions are always welcome.
Nik
Last edited:
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