What Music Player Are You Using (For WP/W10M)?

[Ariel Takom]

Core (and Slacker Radio).

Amazing that MS still can't figure out artwork.

Slacker Radio? Is that like MixRadio, where you can play your local files?

And yeah. I am disappointed that I cant see my album artwork on Groove.

 

[Ariel Takom]

I've used Perfect Music but am now using Aki Music Player.

I've used it until a week ago when I started using MusicLocker. Much better than Aki at the moment, simply because all the promised features in Aki is already present in MusicLocker.

 

[bobbely]

I've tried out your app, and while the app is really really fast (job well done on that!), I just didn't really like the UI I dislike the UI simply because it didn't really match W10M's design language (the fonts, the buttons, they all remind me of WP8.1, and after using W10M, I've simply grown to dislike WP8.1's design language).

First of all, thanks for trying the app and for your feedback, any review is good to take!

Also, I'm not sure if it's just me, but I guess your app doesn't have a 'Now Playing' feature, isit? Because when I play a song while in the app, the current song playing is only shown at the bottom part of my screen, and tapping it doesn't take me anywhere. So basically, since I'm a fan of album artwork, I really found it surprising that there weren't any proper "Now Playing" screen, but I guess you'd have to omit some features to get that blazing fast performance, right?

There is a 'Now Playing' view, you can access it by the side menu (you should saw it if you were on the 'Options' view). But I'm aware that it's not the simplest way, I'm looking for a good idea to improve it.

Also, the ability to play FLAC is a really good addition, so good job dev!

Thanks, it was not easy to support FLAC and I hope it can be an asset to stand out.

All in all, I liked your app for it's outstanding performance and the simplicity of it, but tbh, your current app is just not for me (at least not yet), simply because of what I've said above. But since the official update to W10M is just around the corner, I really do hope that you would try to update the app, and add extra features. My suggestion is (based entirely on MY preference):

1) Provide a proper 'Now Playing' screen, that displays the album art, and also a properly-sized toggle to drag the song's current time position, or whatever you call that thing, because in your current app, the slider is really small, and I accidentally pressed the pause button a few times before I manage to skip parts of the song.

2) Provide more interface customization! I really like how you allow the user to choose the theme colour, but as it is in W10M, there are waaaay more accent colour option that in WP8.1, so I guess you can add more? Also, allow the users the option to use our phone's accent colour , and also maybe provide some different themes for the music player (like what Loco Music provides).

3) Automatic/Manual Editing of Metadata Tags! Well, this feature is provided in Extreme Music, and that app was good in WP8.1 (not so in W10M). I guarantee that people would love this feature on their music player.

4) Additional features? Okay this is just me being greedy, but yeah. Maybe you can try to implement some neat features like Last.FM scrobbling, auto album art downloads, artist background etc.

Good to know that you enjoyed the fast navigation and performances, it was the main goal of this project so I'm glad to hear.

1) So the feature is here but I'm aware it can be better, will working on it asap.

2) You're so right! Honestly I'm more a dev than a designer (it's my job, dev WP) and I thought that was enough, but I can totally add more colors and an option to use the user's accent color.

3/4) Yeah, I have this feature in my mind for a moment, like others stuffs as a search bar (currently working on it), a management of covers (to DL and set covers on albums), an equalizer (if W10M can handle it), etc.
So yes, there is a great potential to improve musi.k, and I hope that I would get to do whatever I want!

Thanks again for your feedback.

 

[Ariel Takom]

First of all, thanks for trying the app and for your feedback, any review is good to take!



There is a 'Now Playing' view, you can access it by the side menu (you should saw it if you were on the 'Options' view). But I'm aware that it's not the simplest way, I'm looking for a good idea to improve it.



Thanks, it was not easy to support FLAC and I hope it can be an asset to stand out.



Good to know that you enjoyed the fast navigation and performances, it was the main goal of this project so I'm glad to hear.

1) So the feature is here but I'm aware it can be better, will working on it asap.

2) You're so right! Honestly I'm more a dev than a designer (it's my job, dev WP) and I thought that was enough, but I can totally add more colors and an option to use the user's accent color.

3/4) Yeah, I have this feature in my mind for a moment, like others stuffs as a search bar (currently working on it), a management of covers (to DL and set covers on albums), an equalizer (if W10M can handle it), etc.
So yes, there is a great potential to improve musi.k, and I hope that I would get to do whatever I want!

Thanks again for your feedback.

Hey no prob! And I'm sorry again if any of my feedback were offensive in any way. I hope you'll be able to make your app better in the future, and for that I wish you all the best.

 

[Greg Wenzler]

Same here bro! It's really irritating. Hopefully Groove team would fix this issue soon though

I wouldn't hold your breath. Microsoft has NEVER gotten album art right, not even on the desktop.

 

[Ariel Takom]

I wouldn't hold your breath. Microsoft has NEVER gotten album art right, not even on the desktop.

Yeah I know. Even WMP was bad at album arts *sigh*. But still, I'm sure one day soon, it will be fixed. Soon. 100 years later.

 

[Bittah Pupil]

I've used it until a week ago when I started using MusicLocker. Much better than Aki at the moment, simply because all the promised features in Aki is already present in MusicLocker.

Thanks for the tip, I'm checking it out right now. So far it's pretty cool with the interface and options.

 

[SeptynAde]

Random stuff happens in weird places bro.Trust me, i'm an engineer. soon.

oh yeah, and in the windows 10 version I got one really weird error, I played an album from Alex Turner, one song played but then it continue to play other song while the image on the corner left shows Alex Turner -___-"

 

[sheldon cohn]

VLC has a player for Windows 10, that plays items that other players have problems. You can download
the player from the store, be careful of downloading extras that listed with the download.

 

[Akellian]

Hello.

Groove player works same way Windows Media Player does on PC - it caches all externally downloaded stuff. If you open your phone from PC you will see hidden folders containing cache. Deleting them will force Groove to rescan library.

Personally I hate both players since they don't play the way I want - they do not have the winamp like library which is fabulous. But on W10M groove is not too bad. It is tolerable (for me). Performance wise - no issues.

 

[Ariel Takom]

oh yeah, and in the windows 10 version I got one really weird error, I played an album from Alex Turner, one song played but then it continue to play other song while the image on the corner left shows Alex Turner -___-"

Like I said: Random stuff happens in weird places.

 

[Ariel Takom]

VLC has a player for Windows 10, that plays items that other players have problems. You can download
the player from the store, be careful of downloading extras that listed with the download.

Are you talking about Windows 10 for Desktop or Windows 10 for Mobile?

If you're talking about the Desktop version, I don't really know since I'm still on Windows 8 (too lazy to update since I'll need to back-up all my files, and since I'm a student, I don't really have the time).

But on W10M, I've tried the VLC app which was meant for WP8.1. The app was great when I first run it, but soon after. It lags, crashes, freezes, and does everything that annoys you. In the end, the app was unusable for me (at least for playing songs), and I had to uninstall it. The last time I re-downloaded the app and tried it again was last Wednesday, and the experience is still the same. I liked their interface though, and I really hope VLC could fix this in a future update.

 

[Ariel Takom]

Hello.

Groove player works same way Windows Media Player does on PC - it caches all externally downloaded stuff. If you open your phone from PC you will see hidden folders containing cache. Deleting them will force Groove to rescan library.

Personally I hate both players since they don't play the way I want - they do not have the winamp like library which is fabulous. But on W10M groove is not too bad. It is tolerable (for me). Performance wise - no issues.

I see. Well, after the recent .63 update for W10M, Groove started fresh for me, and re-scanned my whole library. Still the same problem though; bad album artwork detection. I gave up on it for now in favour of MusicLocker, but I do miss the new interface of Groove. It almost had everything right, at least for me, but the poor album art detection became a huge deal-breaker for me ;(

Here's hoping MSFT will fix them soon.