Xbox Music Debacle: Why?

[Jas00555]

So the minority in your post was referring to cloud users? If so, I apologize for misreading your words

I was talking about how in the future, people who do their music listening locally will be the minority. Microsoft, Google, and Apple don't want you to own your music, they want you to rent their music from them. I personally don't care if it makes it cheaper for me to listen to music, but the people who will want to own thousands of songs locally will be the minority. The upcoming locker feature is just a way for people to transfer to the cloud. I realize that currently there are more people that buy music as opposed to streaming, but with the rise of things such as Pandora, Spotify, and Netflix, its very obvious that people are willing to sacrifice owning something for convenience and price.

 

[Jas00555]

Its more in response to the tone of your post. It comes off as if anyone critiquing the app is in some way off base.

I'm not saying the app isn't bad. I definitely think they need to make it faster, but I was referring to the OP where he was asking why they separated the app from the OS and to people claiming that they were ok with the service lagging behind in features if it worked.

 

[hotphil]

Streaming has some attractive features. But there are large parts of the world outside the US. And in those markets, cellular and/or WiFi coverage (if and where available) might be prohibitively expensive. A combination of local storage and streaming is going to be around for at least another couple of decades. That is, for the companies interested in letting customers give them money.

 

[Jas00555]

Just to clarify, when I say "the cloud" I don't necessarily mean streaming. When I say "locally" I mean, people actually owning the music, like CDs and stuff. I, myself, embrace the cloud, but I don't have the data to stream everything. I do, however, download the DRM'd music from the cloud and play that, and all of those purchases are saved in the cloud. That's still utilizing the cloud. I'm still renting those songs. I'm not saying that most people will move to streaming, but they will move to the cloud.

 

[fardream]

The fact is if 'in the end' means 2 years, I will wait.

2 years means $198 music pass before tax - it looks absolutely outrageous to ask people for $200 dollars to use a terrible app.

 

[fardream]

And those people are the minority. Xbox music/Google music/iTunes, they'll all be cloud focused in future. It's the way that everything is going. If you're not a fan of it, you can use another music service. Actually, you can do that now. There are a few music apps that just play your own music and don't use the cloud.

The problem with Xbox music app is not whether the cloud is the future or not - the problem is that the app is buggy and slow. Clicking "Buy from xbox music" in Pandora leads to a black screen; Opening an album takes 5 seconds and probable black screen; Meta data is changed to whatever it thinks; Wrong songs are matched; Not to mention the stupid 100 song limitation; saying the interface of the app is sluggish is a compliment. The app itself is a total disaster, not the cloud, never the cloud.

 

[Jas00555]

The problem with Xbox music app is not whether the cloud is the future or not - the problem is that the app is buggy and slow. Clicking "Buy from xbox music" in Pandora leads to a black screen; Opening an album takes 5 seconds and probable black screen; Meta data is changed to whatever it thinks; Wrong songs are matched; Not to mention the stupid 100 song limitation; saying the interface of the app is sluggish is a compliment. The app itself is a total disaster, not the cloud, never the cloud.

But that wasn't what I was saying. I was referring to people talking about how it should be integrated with the OS. I've already agreed that the app is slow. What more do you want me to say?

 

[fardream]

But that wasn't what I was saying. I was referring to people talking about how it should be integrated with the OS. I've already agreed that the app is slow. What more do you want me to say?

It's not ONLY slow, sir - if slow is the only problem, I guess many people would not be so vocal. Matching wrong songs, changing meta data, black screens, DRM errors, the list goes on and on. The cloud doesn't matter if the app is a disaster - especially so for those who paid $99 a year (or $10 per month) pre-tax for the music pass, the cloud future of the thing.

Also, these people have a point - iTunes match is integrated into the OS and is cloud, that works quite well and costs only $29.

 

[Jas00555]

It's not ONLY slow, sir - if slow is the only problem, I guess many people would not be so vocal. Matching wrong songs, changing meta data, black screens, DRM errors, the list goes on and on. The cloud doesn't matter if the app is a disaster - especially so for those who paid $99 a year (or $10 per month) pre-tax for the music pass, the cloud future of the thing.

Also, these people have a point - iTunes match is integrated into the OS and is cloud, that works quite well and costs only $29.

Fine, there are more problems than it being slow. I've never disagreed with that. I've said multiple times that the app needs fixed from a UX standpoint, you keep literally preaching to the choir. All of the things I've been saying have been a completely different than what you're saying. I've never disagreed that the app isn't great.

Also, Apple has a few advantages (or I suppose disadvantages in the latter case) compared to Microsoft.

For one, they've always had control when their app updates. They can build it into the OS because no one can stop them. Microsoft has to wait for carrier approval. Two, they're definitely not as cross-platform as Microsoft. Microsoft has apps on all 3 platforms while Apple only has iTunes on one. They have no one to theoretically lag behind in features because there is no one to lag behind. It's just iOS.

 

[drlacus]

This app has so much problems. I'm getting "Can't sign in. Please try again later.", thus I can't listen to any of my music from my cloud collection on my phone. It works great on my PC. I have a music pass, I see my playlists under "radio", so I'm definitely signed in. It even updates "radio" immediately after adding a new artist. I have already did a hard reset. I have deleted my browser history and resynced my microsoft account. My regional settings are correct. What can I do with this thing? Is there a way to solve this problem?

 

[Noahma]

Fine, there are more problems than it being slow. I've never disagreed with that. I've said multiple times that the app needs fixed from a UX standpoint, you keep literally preaching to the choir. All of the things I've been saying have been a completely different than what you're saying. I've never disagreed that the app isn't great.

Also, Apple has a few advantages (or I suppose disadvantages in the latter case) compared to Microsoft.

For one, they've always had control when their app updates. They can build it into the OS because no one can stop them. Microsoft has to wait for carrier approval. Two, they're definitely not as cross-platform as Microsoft. Microsoft has apps on all 3 platforms while Apple only has iTunes on one. They have no one to theoretically lag behind in features because there is no one to lag behind. It's just iOS.

You sould also add, that ITunes on the desktop is one program, and the music player on the phone is one program, and iTunes in IOS is yet a third app...... Xbox music is ONE APP, it has the store built in, it is a universal app and shares code between the desktop and the phone. It is not "just a music player" like the previous version. It is a much more complicated app than it is being made out to be.

I am not happy with the way the app is currently functioning, but U get less angry once I think about how complicated everything with it is.

I only listen to my locally owned music, I do not have an xbox music pass, nor stream any of my music and the app is functional with frustration, but it does work (not optimally)

 

[Andrew Martin4]

For now, try 'Find My Music Too' its a free app and works great, very fast, nice Modern UI too

 

[kamikaze80]

Almost all the "features" that people complain are missing/broken in the current iteration of Xbox Music were already in Zune in WP7. That was almost 4 yrs ago. I understand they had to rewrite it for WP8, but this is basic stuff. It shouldn't be taking this long, and if they were even half-competent, they could've coded, debugged and implemented many of the most desired additional features into a native version of Xbox Music in WP8.1 with the time and resources that they instead chose to devote to re-doing the music app for the 2nd time in 18 months!

The fact that they've started over 2 times in 18 months speaks to the incompetence and poor judgment that has plagued WP since its inception. Why does Xbox Music need to be updatable? A music player is a basic, fundamental feature of a phone, and 4 years on, it should be basically perfect and not require any urgent updates to begin with.

 

[Vitor Salvatore Pierce]

Why Xbox Music (and Calendar, Skype, Video and the other apps from Microsoft), isn't Universal App? WHY?
Apps from Windows 8 is so good.

 

[hoovermac]

Well here is something that NEVER used to work with the old XBM that worked flawlessly last night. Driving home from a meeting, I told Cortana to play a playlist. That playlist was created on my work computer (God knows how long ago), and it played perfectly through BT in the car on the way home. Some of the songs are on the device, some were cloud synced - and it JUST WORKED! Yeah, I am missing some album art, and it's easy to get frustrated, but just think about the amount of programming that has to be done in order to get something like that to work! I picked my son up after he was finished work a little later and demoed that for him! He was quite impressed!

 

[colinkiama]

Why Xbox Music (and Calendar, Skype, Video and the other apps from Microsoft), isn't Universal App? WHY?
Apps from Windows 8 is so good.

because the microsoft teams couldn't share code or work together until a few months ago.

 

[BB10fanatic]

Xbox-Music...so little in common, such an artificial splice. Oh they're both entertainment...too many old people at MSFT I think sometimes, they just seem clueless about youth driven market development.

 

[jomarr]

I understand your feelings, which are the same as loads of other users.

Myself, I do not have all the problems others do with the XBM app. It misses album art from time to time, but I can live without a 'picture' as it plays the tunes fine. If you are trying to sync thousands of tracks, you are going to get problems.

The thing that really annoys me the most, is the continual complaining and views of 'experts' on these forums who are quite keen to point out the shortcomings with no coherent advice except. "Other apps do it better or why can't it be like Zune or the old Music Hub"... These are not helpful at all. The XBM team have 'fessed up' to the problems with the app, and have tried to apologise and reassure people. But this still isn't good enough for a lot of people.

If any of you can do better, then write the code and let's see it. A few have tried, and failed.. A few apps are close, but everyone insists on the 'native' app. I really don't understand that point of view at all.

The fact is if 'in the end' means 2 years, I will wait. If it takes 20 versions to get it perfect or a close as possible, then great, I can be patient.
If the current app was totally unusable, then people would have a point. But... it does work. It plays music. Maybe it isn't currently up to standard that certain people demand. Then again these people would not be happy if it was perfect. It has 'Microsoft' on the label, so that means it is open to ridicule or abuse. As I said earlier, there are alternatives, so quit whining and use those apps if they are so superior.

There is a saying: "Flogging a dead horse". The continued criticism and lack of patience, is like digging up the dead horse and flogging the corpse as well.
It is very tiresome.
I would say to those people: F**k off to Android or iOS, we really don't need all the negative karma, it's boring. Like a three year throwing a tantrum because mummy won't buy you any sweets...

We should all be helping WP to get better not complaining like 'spoilt brats'... By the way, complaining is NOT helping. It is counterproductive.
I would hate to be on WP teams having to read all the hate and childish "You are s**t" comments. I wouldn't be surprised if MS thought 'Screw this', and threw in the towel.

In the end it may be the users that kill off WP, not market share or perceived 'lack of features'....

I don't want to be the anti here but the Xbox Music app is truly disappointing. I've been all but praises with Windows Phone except for this HUGE problem. I like that WP is growing so much for the past year but I've noticed that playing music on this phone has been backwards.

I don't care about the album art and artist backgrounds.. Actually I do but as long as music plays I'm fine.

There are actually two huge issues I am facing right now with Xbox Music:

1. The song titles and albums are messed up. Sure you probably don't mind this but me, as someone who tracks its plays to last.fm to update charts on websites, this is very important to me. I tried everything like changing the tags on WMP and iTunes but the tags are still the same. The ID3 Tag editor available on WP8 doesn't work on 8.1. This bugs me a lot especially when I want to listen to a full album but there are some songs separating from the album. On songs, instead of the title showing it shows "04 Here Comes the Sun" sure I'm fine with that IF I'm not tracking my plays.

Please don't comment about how negligible this problem is because all of us have different preferences and I think we should all respect each other's sentiments.

2. The most IRRITATING thing about Xbox Music is that it randomly STOPS playing music and whatever restart you do with the app, it doesn't play unless you restart the whole phone. This is VERY time consuming and a huge annoyance especially when I'm at the gym as I really have no time changing songs/restarting etc. Time is important to me and I'm very disappointed with this fact that it keeps on crashing on me.

I would really be happy if there were alternatives, GOOD alternatives to Xbox Music but there isn't.

Complaints are healthy as long as they're constructive and objective.. There is nothing wrong with complaining if done the right way. If people do not complain, we wont see any progress. The users are the voice of this operating system and by our complaints, Microsoft gets to address these issues one by one. A complaint goes wrong when all they say are pieces of crap that doesn't contribute to the issue being resolved.

Exhibit A: "It sucks! Go f--- urself MSoft"
Exhibit B: "Moving to Android and save myself from this foolishness!"

Complaints that are done right:

Exhibit A: "Xbox Music disappoints me. It stops playing randomly and tags are incorrect. I hope Microsoft and its team are doing something about this dilemma"

Exhibit B: "While playing music, at the very end of the song, it stutters and repeats a split second of it. Sure I can get used to it but it still bothers me a lot. Could you guys look into this issue?"


Sure complaints are obviously negative but they open issues to Microsoft that they may have overlooked upon releasing the OS.

 

[D M C]

I think their are bunch of fools devs are sitting in WP team.

That is why Xbox apps are soo horrible.

We simply want a music player which can play music that's all. Nothing drastic.
If they wanted to add features then they should launch app separately until it become usable or atleast avg quality.and then they can launched with any GDR update.
But No WP team want users to experience TERRIBLE, SLOW LAGGY Xbox apps experience.

Surly some strong MS supporter will try defend with some excuses but the truth is MS and WP team done a biggest mistake with XBOX apps.

 

[Warren_S]

My native Google Play Music app on my Moto G has stopped playing half of my "local" library. Re-Install didn't work. I began searching for an 3rd party app to be, first of all, simple and to play my local library. To find one I was completely frustrated searching through hundreds of apps, reading the reviews, installing them and then realize they are usually way too over-complex and all have their own quirks. I'm sick of searching and searching to find a replacement for something that was already working on my Android phone. It's mainly the ridiculously over-complex music player apps with tiny menu buttons, this goes for the Android Podcast player apps as well, so many ridiculous tiny menus and un-needed customizations.

So my point is it isn't always greener on the other side. I also just bought a Lumia 630 and love the simplicity of the Xbox Music player. It has the playlist bugs, ugh. But to me, it makes so much more sense to simply organize and play the music in an easier way than those Android players. The Xbox Music player just needs to actually work without all the bugs and then too me, it will be superior. The Windows podcast player is way better for my usage too. I hope it gets sorted out.