Zune Music and the disaster that is WP8
Let me give some background. I worked for Microsoft for 17 years, so I am really a fan. Over the years I have jumped head first into all Microsoft technologies. I have a Windows Home server that hosts all of my music and pictures. I am a huge Zune fan that has a library of over 10,000 songs. Most of them are MP3's. I use playlists to manage what I want on my phone.
Naturally as soon as WP8 came out, I went and got one. I first started out with a 920 and felt it was just too big. I traded it in for an 820. I am fairly happy with most things on the phone, except how it handles music. It can only be described as a disaster. I have tried to go about this two ways and neither work at all.
First, I have a Windows 7 machine that I installed the sync software. I have a playlist that has 300 songs, all of them are MP3's or Windows Media Files with no DRM. After the sync exactly 29 songs on the playlist made it to my phone. There is no pattern as to why these 29 songs made it and the other 280 did not. I have tried this multiple time with the same result.
I then heard that Windows Phone 8 works great with Windows 8. So I have a windows 8 machine and mapped the Music folder to my Home server drive, and the Xbox music sees about 10% of the music on my server.
The net of this, is that I have not found a way to get the music and playlist that I listen to on my new Windows phone 8. I know that Microsoft changed the DRM so that Zune music downloaded but not purchased will not work with Xbox music. That in itself is just plain stupid, they want to get into the music business, and have pissed off the few fans they had. If there were an I-tunes app for my Windows phone, I would download it, and switch all of my music immediately. You know that Apple is not going to switch formats. I am almost 100% positive that in 3 years Microsoft will change formats again, because that is what they do.
If anyone has found a solution I would love to hear it. Right now here are my options:
1. Carry 2 Windows phones with me. One that is WP8 that I use for everything but music, and carry my old WP7 for music (This is what I am doing now). Hope that something comes out and they fix the crappy Xbox music.
2. Return my WP8 and go back to WP7. But who knows if the windows phone 7.8 is going to do the same thing with music?
3. Say screw it and go to an I-Phone.
I will say, if you are considering purchasing a Windows phone 8 and you use your phone for music, and have a large library, you should hold off buying a phone until they fix this mess.