Is Xbox Music as mind-numbingly awful on newer Windows Phones?

[fardream]

They've had five years

WP 7 was released in 2010. I have some complaints about windows phone music player since day 1, but the new one is just really really mind blowing bad even after so many updates. Do you know that we use to have background download of music? Now it's gone.

 

[hotphil]

Forget background downloads, I'd settle for it playing locally stored music with no errors. Even without cover art.
It's actually unusable and I'm getting a handset refund if it remains that way when 8.1 is released.

 

[jgbstetson]

I've had 6 WP devices so far and the only thing that has ever brought my phone to its knees is Xbox music. Even with the horsepower of the SD800, my 1520 locked up and it's battery took a huge dump. It wasn't right for several hours afterwards. Also, there are "vampire" songs that I cannot remove from my collection. Imagine the shock of driving home from work in Phoenix in June and a Bing Crosby Christmas song comes on that you deleted three times six months ago. Seriously, what the hell is that all about?

 

[X0LARIUM]

Wait...you run over people? The worst my phone has done was display ...loading.... In an area with a sign that said no loading at any time. I waited with bated breath for the cops to descend. The Xbox music app finally stopped loading and became really fluid just as a pig swooped down and landed on the ground which had suddenly become rather chilly

Hahha..missed the main word... "I have been lucky to NOT run over people"....But you know this app called Music Hub Tile...it basically brings back the old Music player magically and things are all good. I asked the developer how he did it, he said MS had left the old music player in the OS. He just resurrected it...

This is the closest we can get to the old music player:

Music Hub Tile | Windows Phone Apps+Games Store (India)

 

[Ankit Nawlakha]

Bi-weekly updates are not enough. We need weekly updates. Or even ASAP. It's that bad.

We need hourly updates!

 

[Ebuka Allison]

We need hourly updates!

That's silly and impractical. We need thirty minute updates

 

[Ebuka Allison]

On topic, I don't understand. Go music, gets updates everyday. It obviously has less resources than MS, but offers a smoother experience. As do listen, one music, etc. They are all out doing the Xbox dev team. I don't get it. Do these developers have some magical SDK that fails in Redmond or something...

 

[MDMcAtee]

On topic, I don't understand. Go music, gets updates everyday. It obviously has less resources than MS, but offers a smoother experience. As do listen, one music, etc. They are all out doing the Xbox dev team. I don't get it. Do these developers have some magical SDK that fails in Redmond or something...

Microsoft executives are pissedoff because most folks want them to bring back Zune....that's why

 

[Ebuka Allison]

Microsoft executives are pissedoff because most folks want them to bring back Zune....that's why

And so they have decided to make us hate Xbox Music and recoil into fetal positions at hearing the name?

 

[MDMcAtee]

And so they have decided to make us hate Xbox Music and recoil into fetal positions at hearing the name?

Nope...they believe their own hype about it....for those who work there...either they drink the kool aid or get put on the back burner.

I have no doubt they could fix it completely,but they won't.

Truth be told,I look for them to dumb down more WP by removing the SD cards just to make more have to stream everything. If they can make everyone go to a fee based system they will make more money

 

[MDMcAtee]

On topic, I don't understand. Go music, gets updates everyday. It obviously has less resources than MS, but offers a smoother experience. As do listen, one music, etc. They are all out doing the Xbox dev team. I don't get it. Do these developers have some magical SDK that fails in Redmond or something...

I have not found 1 music player that isn't either a resource hog or can load all metadata properly..not 1 and to date there isn't a good movie player app to be had that even gives normal control over it.

It's shameful really....I was hoping for something so much more for a 6" 1080p screen....and I have lost faith in the company that they will ever fully understand how many people actually feel about it.

You would think that a leader in the software world would have a real solution to make their phones the best on the market....and all we hear is wait till the next release or update....

 

[loofmodnar]

On topic, I don't understand. Go music, gets updates everyday. It obviously has less resources than MS, but offers a smoother experience. As do listen, one music, etc. They are all out doing the Xbox dev team. I don't get it. Do these developers have some magical SDK that fails in Redmond or something...

Smaller apps (Listen, OneMusic, etc) have way less testing than Xbox Music. A developer on their own and fix something, run a quick test and submit and update.

MS likely makes a fix, sends it to QA, QA finds another bug so sends it back, MS fixes it again, repeat N times until QA is satisfied. Then do regression testing and do the fix/retest shuffle over again and finally release it as an update. That's for every little feature in a release from changing the text size to swipe to advance.

That's doesn't make the horribly slow pace at which they're resolving the major issues acceptable, more to give some understanding as to why they're not updating every week, day, etc.

 

[fardream]

Nope...they believe their own hype about it....for those who work there...either they drink the kool aid or get put on the back burner.

I have no doubt they could fix it completely,but they won't.

Truth be told,I look for them to dumb down more WP by removing the SD cards just to make more have to stream everything. If they can make everyone go to a fee based system they will make more money

Once Joe Belfiore tweeted his love for windows phone on a galaxy s3.... My guess is the whole windows phone team uses either iPhone or android.

 

[MDMcAtee]

Once Joe Belfiore tweeted his love for windows phone on a galaxy s3.... My guess is the whole windows phone team uses either iPhone or android.

Well....that would explain why most WP apps run better on the other platforms

 

[BataBole]

Well....that would explain why most WP apps run better on the other platforms

I have read somewhere (believe it was Joe Belfiore's AMA) they have said it is much easier to develop an app for Android or IOS than for Windows Phone.

 

[Ebuka Allison]

I have read somewhere (believe it was Joe Belfiore's AMA) they have said it is much easier to develop an app for Android or IOS than for Windows Phone.

You believe wrong. Think whatever you might of the WP team, but do you truly believe that they don't believe in their work? That they aren't people with a sense of pride? That they would so easily dumb down their own product. Its fine to disagree with their direction and pace, but its just dumb to ascribe to them a level of malicious incompetence as described in this thread. Yes Xbox Music is a mess, bit it works. I whine sometimes, but the music app in WP8 wasn't bad the while the 8.1 app is bad, its nice to look at at least and it does its job to some extent(pretty well if you use only cloud music). They have to fix it, and they will. Put yourself in their shoes and think very carefully about all this. General b****hing about changes are annoying. I keep hearing about the Xbox apps being unusable, unless everyone's phones have different apps they really aren't that bad. Xbox games works the same way as the hub except for the live tiles and that it isn't a separate app list anymore. Xbox video works fine and HD video is coming down. It works better than the Xbox video on iOs and Android(none). There may be some fine cases, but there are apps for that and they will be fixed if we keep on giving feedback. Geez lighten up and don't attack the developers personally though it would help if they responded on the forum directly. Shut up and ship isn't very useful at this stage, sharing is a lot better as a pacifier. Maybe even an "accidental" leak or two

 

[MDMcAtee]

Bull hockey.....

Xbox music is a friggin mess and Xbox video is a joke.

I respect the developers,but not the management team.
Do I think they have dumb down their work..absolutely. They are trying to convince people that DVDs are bad...look at that stupid video that was posted this morning

They are purposely forcing people to stream music and video just to have half baked experience with it.

So yes...they are indeed dumbing down the os

 

[Justin276]

I have noticed a lot of people are still trying to defend the current state of XBM and say its not that bad. Well, i hate to break it to you guys but it very much is. I also have a feeling that some of the people that are most angry are the ones that have stuck with MS through the Zune, and one of the main reasons that they made the move to WP was for the music experience, myself included. What we are rewarded with is this sad imitation of what once was an amazing music experience.
So I decided to make of video of a side by side comparison of using the ZuneHD and XBM on my Nokia 810.

I will eventually do a another video that better explains some complaints I had, like how the every single pixel of the Zune UI's 3.5" screen is more useful than the XBM's much larger screen. This video was a spur of the moment thing so I didn't address many issues that I wanted to.
Sadly, I can count on XBM to be under perform in future videos.

 

[Ebuka Allison]

I have noticed a lot of people are still trying to defend the current state of XBM and say its not that bad. Well, i hate to break it to you guys but it very much is. I also have a feeling that some of the people that are most angry are the ones that have stuck with MS through the Zune, and one of the main reasons that they made the move to WP was for the music experience, myself included. What we are rewarded with is this sad imitation of what once was an amazing music experience.
So I decided to make of video of a side by side comparison of using the ZuneHD and XBM on my Nokia 810.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_9LjkwQPOM

I will eventually do a another video that better explains some complaints I had, like how the every single pixel of the Zune UI's 3.5" screen is more useful than the XBM's much larger screen. This video was a spur of the moment thing so I didn't address many issues that I wanted to.
Sadly, I can count on XBM to be under perform in future videos.

Wow that was embarrassing
Everyone of us should share it to Joe Belfiore lol
While the developers may be trying hard and stuff, some one deserves to get executed-not fired-for this

 

[Ebuka Allison]

Oh and I still, on balance, prefer the XBM UI