Most everything is geared towards music. I don't tend to listen to music, I like listening to my podcasts and audio magazines.
Currently I'm using RSS Hub with TCPMP which allows me to jump forward/back 10 seconds if I missed what they said or need to skip forward thru commercials. It works ok, but not great.
I'd really like to find software that stops when I get a call and restarts when the call is completed, has bigger on screen buttons, has the ability to automatically add the newer podcasts to a playlist (might be dreaming...). If I could control it with a Jabra 8010 BT headset that'd be even better!
Any suggestions? I tried MortPlayer but had some issues with it glitching, also that it went full screen - I need to see signal strength, other running programs, battery power, etc...
I'm not sure these would meet all of your specs
but I've used Pocket Player for podcasts with good results, I remember it would pause playback for a call. I like Kinoma for audiobooks, as it remembers where you left off in the file. For a free audio podcast app, you could try the new version of Viigo, it seemed much improved from the last time I had used it.
Good Luck
MortPlayer works great for audiobooks and podcasts.
PocketPlayer. Pauses on calls and has a bookmarking facility. I use it for Audiobooks and podcasts using AllwaySync to sync the podcasts from iTunes on my network to the external card on my Touch HD
Regards
Pocket Tunes can automatically save where you were when you exit the app. It also does manual bookmarking. My only complaint is that it often reverted to the last auto bookmark when there was "activity" like a phone call or text message.
Pocket Player also does manual bookmarking.
I've used those two, and I like the Pocket Tunes interface better.
PocketPlayer doesn't appear to be able to download podcasts automatically as they're available, nor on demand - only when you select the podcast to play it (unless I'm missing something). I have HSDPA at home, but not typically while I'm driving...
Pocket Tunes has a nifty feature that allows for automatic delete of a podcast once listened to, but I can't find any other information about it. It also doesn't appear to be able to skip forward or back 10 seconds instead of next/previous track.
Any comments?
I currently use Mortplayer. You can choose a skin which leaves the topbar uncovered. You can even have a skin which superimposes a narrow bar on whatever screen is underneath. Bookmarks work reliably and fast on audiobooks and podcasts. I use AEButton to map the down volume to play/pause (MPpause.lnk - included with Mortplayer) which works even with the screen off. Pause/Resume on phone calls works well. It cannot download podcasts. I use RSShub or MediaMonkey (on the desktop) for this.
Kinoma has a great interface (with it's own topbar, it is full screen) and bookmarks. The free version can stream podcasts, the paid version can also download them. It can also download and play audible.com content, and lots of other sources. Well worth checking out. I found the book marks less robust than Mortplayer, if you didn't exit the player properly it lost them. Also to exit you had to click back about 6 screens to get to the home screen.
Both seem to use a lot of CPU cycles and hence battery. I would like to use TCPMP which seems to use less but can't find a resume/bookmark addon for it. There is an addon for WMP on this forum (search "WMP resume") but it didn't work for me on a Touch HD.
Hope this helps.
Requirements:
1) Has the ability to use the "Album Artist" tag to organize its library and not just the "Artist" tag. For those many who do not understand the importance of this let me say it makes a huge difference with CD's such as movie soundtracks, classical music CD's and other compilations that have one or more guest artists contributing on a particular track.
For example, take the soundtrack for "O Brother, Where Art Thou". There are 19 tracks and nearly every one by a different artist. If that one CD was the only CD on your TP2 and you opened the library of one of the current mobile media players and selected the "Artist" view you would see 19 different artists listed each owning the CD "O Brother, Where Art Thou". If instead the media player was able to organize its library by the "Album Artist" tag there would only be a single entry for "Various Artists" or "Original Soundtrack".
On a 16 GB SD card with several hundred ripped CD's this can be the difference between a managable artist list 200 long versus one that is 1000+ long and totally unmanagable.
2) Proper alphabetization; Ignores the words "A" and "The" if they begin an artist name. For example, "The Black Crowes" should be in the B's not the T's. It's OK that "Bob Dylan" be listed in the B's since there is no way to distinguish first and last names. I don't know of any media player on any platform that does this.
3) Uses a library Db created from tags and not just a folder/file structure. Can open a detailed properties view that gives extended info culled from tags and file data. (Genre, Audio format, etc.)
4) Has a "Finger-friendly" GUI and ideally can replace the HTC media player on the TF3D music tab.
Apps tested (so far)
1) HTC Media Player:
It's big plus is that it has a tab in TF3D so it is well integrated and easy to get to. It is also finger friendly. Unfortunately it does not utilize the "Album Artist" tag for organizing it's library (even though it does read the tag and display it when you view a music files properties). It also does not ignore "A" and "The" and places "The Black Crowes" under the T's. In addition I have found a bug that causes it to play tracks out of order. On most of the albums I've put on my SD card tracks 1 and 6 are switched (i.e. it shows and plays the tracks in the following order 6,2,3,4,5,1,7,8,9. On some albums the track order is even more random.
2) Windows Mobile Media Player:
"The Black Crowes" is properly listed in the B's but it also does not organize its library by the "Album Artist" tag (even though the full PC version of WMP does). Its default GUI is not very finger friendly, the buttons are a bit small and the library text is too small to be selected accurately with fingers. It is skinnable so I'm looking for one that fits the TP2's TF3D style and better suited to fingers versus a stylus. I'm also trying to put it on the TF3D music tab instead of the HTC media player.
3) Nitrogen:
Does not seem to utilize tags at all and instead relies on the folder structure and file names to organize music. It does have nice big buttons and is very finger friendly and the skin fits well in TF3D even though it is black text/buttons on a white background instead of TF3D's white on a black background.
4) S2P (Slide to Play):
Like Nitrogen it does not utilize tags at all and relies on the folder structure and file names to organize music. It is designed to be finger friendly and has an interesting GUI that makes good use of finger swipes and sliding panels.
5) ? Suggestions:
Most important is the album artist tag issue followed by the proper alphabetization. So far I prefer to use Windows Media Player but am still looking.
I've heard that Microsoft will be incorporating its Zune interface for the Windows mobile media player. I've never seen the Zune interface up close but I'm hoping it addresses the above shortcomings and, if so, bacomes avaiable to the TP2 soon.
S
Reserved for future media player reviews.
S
+1 !!!!
I have exactly the same problem !
I past 3 hours to manage my music PC library of WMP to finaly have a very poor result on my phone :'(
The Music Player integrate on the touchflow looks pretty, but it miss a lot of utilities, WMP looks more complet, but uggly and too small :'(
Both of theme have the problem of the "listing tag"
I'm also seeking for a complet music player with a good listin and if it's possible a "cover flow".
(Sorry for my poor english).
You have tested the core player 1.3.5 or 1.3.6?
I have a nice skin for this player...
mike2nl said:
You have tested the core player 1.3.5 or 1.3.6?
I have a nice skin for this player...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have not but I want to. Unfortunately, it does not look like it has a trial edition so it will cost me $30 to find out if it has what I need. Can you tell me if it can make use of the "Album Artist" tag for library organization and/or if it properly alphabetizes "The Band" under the B's not the T's?
S
I'm currently using S2P.
It's the most feature complete of all the players I've tried. It's almost perfect.
I'd recommend giving S2P a try.
http://s2p.ac-s2.com/
Maverick777 said:
I'm currently using S2P.
It's the most feature complete of all the players I've tried. It's almost perfect.
I'd recommend giving S2P a try.
http://s2p.ac-s2.com/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I updated my OP with S2P info.
After using both Nitrogen and S2P I had 2nd thoughts on the tag vs. file/folder structure to organize a music library. As long as the artist folders are named correctly both the "Album Artist" and the alphabetization issues are solved.
Unfortunately that requires a lot of manual labor and also means there is no extended info available. I have put an enormous amount of work into properly tagging my music library on my media server at home and I would like to benefit from that work on my TP2 as well as any other playback devices I might use.
S
I asked CorePlayer support about the "Album Artist" tag and alpha issue last Saturday. Today I got an email saying that I haven't responded in 72 hrs and could they close the case. They never even tried to answer me. Simply ignored me for nearly a week and then asked if the issue was resolved and could they close the case!
I still don't know if CP will meet my needs but their support sure looks like crap.
S
I might as well chime in here, I'm looking for other media players like tcpmp that resume where you left off even after you close it fully. I listen to a lot of audio books and it's a pain to find your place again. Tcpmp is the only one I've seen but it's a bit unwieldy to use with fingers.
CorePlayer's support is TERRIBLE, they also promise frequent updates an seldom provide. A huge thumbs down to the company and product in general. They banned my office IP without explanation from their forums after I asked why no one had responded to my emails, support tickets, and phone calls, about a bug I found in their forum software that makes it unable to e-mail me at the .ws domain, preventing me from being unable to activate my account on their forum. Unfortunately it is also one of the better players out there in general. Though it is very UN finger friendly.
oldpueblo said:
I might as well chime in here, I'm looking for other media players like tcpmp that resume where you left off even after you close it fully. I listen to a lot of audio books and it's a pain to find your place again. Tcpmp is the only one I've seen but it's a bit unwieldy to use with fingers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try S2P links in posts above. It will do exactally what you need, I listen to alot of Podcasts in small portions and it does the trick. Its finger friendly too
It's a shame that S2P doesn't support gapless playback (I listen to primarily DJ compilations (mostly that I've ripped myself... kinda a stickler for quality)
Conduit's Pocket Player is also good, it supports streaming podcasts album art and gapless playback/cross-fading (you gotta set the cross-fade to "0" for gapless). It cost about $20 but if you can't afford that it can be obtained via other means as well.
Forgot to mention that sometimes pocket player will disable my hardware buttons >_<, this has only happened on my TP2 though, sucks none-the-less.
sleonard said:
I asked CorePlayer support about the "Album Artist" tag and alpha issue last Saturday. Today I got an email saying that I haven't responded in 72 hrs and could they close the case. They never even tried to answer me. Simply ignored me for nearly a week and then asked if the issue was resolved and could they close the case!
I still don't know if CP will meet my needs but their support sure looks like crap.
S
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Protonus said:
CorePlayer's support is TERRIBLE, they also promise frequent updates an seldom provide. A huge thumbs down to the company and product in general. They banned my office IP without explanation from their forums after I asked why no one had responded to my emails, support tickets, and phone calls, about a bug I found in their forum software that makes it unable to e-mail me at the .ws domain, preventing me from being unable to activate my account on their forum. Unfortunately it is also one of the better players out there in general. Though it is very UN finger friendly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow. Their support is so bad it's almost comical. Almost.
After going a few rounds of them ignoring my questions and closing the ticket because there was no response and me re-opening the ticket in an apparently vain attempt to get my questions answered I joined their user forum and asked if I could get some help because official support was ignoring me. The next morning I had been permanently banned.
Absolutely amazing.
Needless to say I will not become a paying customer and I cannot review the product here as a result.
S
sleonard said:
Needless to say I will not become a paying customer and I cannot review the product here as a result.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can get the player through a less legal way:X Read this info and try it, it will stick with you
I'm having the same problems, I'm looking for the exact same things. Here my reviews:
Touch Flow 3D Player:
Pro's:
- Finger friendly
- Looks good
Con's:
- Ordering of songs FAIL ( when no track number is set, the whole list goes crazy )
- Slow ( It will need 2 secs to start-up a song )
- When you go back to the list you selected your current playing song from, it will go back to the top. Which is extremely enoying when your browsing 80+ albums or 2000+ songs, anyway, you get my point
Media Player:
con's
- Not finger friendly + Looks suck => Dropped it right away
S2P:
Pro's
- Best looking of all players
- Finger Friendly
con's
- SLOW
- No library => Dropped it right away
CorePlayer:
pro's:
- Best Library of all players
- Has an Alphabetic Vertical Scroll, when you press the 'B' it will go to all songs / albums ( depending on what your browsing ) that start with B. Extremely handy
- Browsing works well with fingers.
- After picking a good theme, the whole thing becomes more finger friendly and will look better ( for example my own theme: http://reb3lzrr.com/forum/viewthread.php?forum_id=9&thread_id=27&pid=122#post_122 )
- BEST when it comes down to options / custimization
con's:
- Default theme is NOT finger friendly and looks terrible, but that can be fixed
when your looking for a player that;
- orders your music in a way you want it,
- has a lot of tweaks / customizations
- handles like a charm
go for CorePlayer!
Gz reb3lzrr
?
reb3lzrr, Is your skin for Pocket player or Core player? If it is able to work in Core player, how do you change the skin in core player
have you tried kinoma media player? Finger friend and very intuitive interface.
I just installed a 30-day trial of Pocket Media Player and reb3lzrr's skin.
Good news is that it understands the "Album Artist" tag as well as the "Contributing Artist" tag and many others as well. Very good sign.
Bad news is that it sorts "The Beatles" incorrectly under T instead of B I did see a setting in the options that might help with that. /crosses fingers
There is a ton of options that will take me some time to sort thru so it will be a good week or so playing around with it.
After this I'll take a look at Kinoma.
S
sleonard said:
I updated my OP with S2P info.
After using both Nitrogen and S2P I had 2nd thoughts on the tag vs. file/folder structure to organize a music library. As long as the artist folders are named correctly both the "Album Artist" and the alphabetization issues are solved.
Unfortunately that requires a lot of manual labor and also means there is no extended info available. I have put an enormous amount of work into properly tagging my music library on my media server at home and I would like to benefit from that work on my TP2 as well as any other playback devices I might use.
S
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you sync your music to your phone via windows media player it automatically creates the mp3 files in an artist and album folder structure (completely based off of the info from the mp3s).
Does anyone know how to remove the 499 song limit from your WinMo/Touch Flo player library? I am dying here with my Rhapsody subscription... All the songs are transfered, but only 499 tracks show up in the library...
I have tried S2P: great but doesn't handle compliation albums (soundtracks) well... Pocket Player: same story on compliations... and a few other free ware ones, but seriously, I actually like the WMP with the Skins I have found.
Any ideas on removing it?
japper88 said:
If you sync your music to your phone via windows media player it automatically creates the mp3 files in an artist and album folder structure (completely based off of the info from the mp3s).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do use WMP to sync music to my phone and you're right it does create the proper folder structure and this is why I briefly reconsidered my position on having a library with support for the Album Artist tag but since it doesn't support any tags at all you lose access to all of the metadata.
zcarman said:
Does anyone know how to remove the 499 song limit from your WinMo/Touch Flo player library? I am dying here with my Rhapsody subscription... All the songs are transfered, but only 499 tracks show up in the library...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have not noticed this limit. I have over 2000 songs synced to my phone and they all seem to show up. (I haven't counted but I can't find any missing)
zcarman said:
I have tried S2P: great but doesn't handle compliation albums (soundtracks) well... Pocket Player: same story on compliations... and a few other free ware ones, but seriously, I actually like the WMP with the Skins I have found.
Any ideas on removing it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have found Pocket Player to be the only one to properly handle compilations because it is the only one to support the Album Artist tag. Use WMP on the PC to set the Album Artist to "Various Artists" or "Soundtrack" and Pocket Player will work perfectly. Their support has told me that in the next version they will also support proper alphbetization so the "The Beatles" will be listed in the library under B not T.
I also like WMP a lot and have found a skin that makes it more finger friendly. Now I am thinking about learning how to make my own skins for it.
Currently I am back to using the Music tab of TF3D. Despite it's very annoying bugs and design flaws having a TF3D tab is a BIG advantage. I just wish there was a way to create a tab for a 3rd party player such as Pocket Player.
S
I was trying out some DLNA apps the other day, as I have a DLNA server (Buffalo NAS) with some 9,000 songs and 30,000 photos. All of the computers/laptops use iTunes to access the server.
I was pretty interested that the NAS's DLNA seemed to categorize all the songs in a number of ways, and that the different players seem to handle it well.
Most of the apps seem to be capable of letting you use your phone as a controller to output to another DLNA capable device, e.g., a TV.
Some of the apps are only good for selecting and downloading a file directly to your SD card.
2Player DLNA Music Player was good at playing music files. Can output to another DLNA client. Simple interface, and allows selection of source and output via drop lists. Hit and Miss on iTunes album art, seems to be setup to not get art unless you are playing the song/album. Very quick to play, allows you to build playlists of songs and stays active in background. Only for audio/music files. Simple widget with 'now playing' and start/stop and next track control or just the controls I did get it to hang on a FLAC file. FREE and donate for karma-ware versions
UpnP DLNA Media Downloader: excellent at finding all types of files and only downloads to phone or output client prior to playing. I don't want to do this, I want to play from the server via a cache/buffer. If I want to download or sync (which is one of the functions), I can get WinAmp for Android which syncs, and has a really nice widget to play.
iMediaShare - automatic DLNA client, finds server(s) by self, needs time to populate lists and doesn't seem to cache much stuff in an intellegent manner (such as those lists) on your phone. Great match-up with iTunes album art. So, selecting an album via the Menu/Play All causes it to scan. Asks each time which device to output, recognizes Rockplayer and generic Android Music players. Asks too often and where. Should have a 'Settings' page to store/select these defaults. Doesn't stay active unless on main screen. Didn't find my DLNA photos, but did have a main page with iPod-like media on the web, YouTube, Picassa, TED, etc. I only played with free version.
Winamp Since there is a desktop version that syncs to the itunes or DLNA server, the Android version can hookup to that and sync to that. Stores music on SD card. It's not what I was looking for since to sync it must have an active windows computer and doesn't play directly from server. Winamp also takes over the music functions, and if you have a bluetooth music device that the X10 actually talks to as a controller, it will over ride the Mediascape app to play the music. Has some neat interface functions such as being accessed when the phone is locked. Nice widget for home screen.
There are some others out there, what have you tried?
2Player DLNA Music Player works precisely for wht i wanted
So, I got home with my Lumia 920, plugged it in to my PC, and found it does not sync with Zune. In my Zune library I have about 16k songs, and about 10 auto-playlists based on songs I "like", most played, etc. So, I figured its not the end of the world, and I downloaded the WP8 sync client for Windows 7 from here http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/how-to/wp8/windows-phone-app-for-desktop . This app is an extremely basic sync application that reads your entire music library every time it loads and allows you to select music and playlists to sync. For it to load completely, and go through my entire music collection, took about an hour. BUT, when it was done, I was able to select my artists and auto-playlists to sync, and they synced fine. So, a few hours later, I plugged my phone in again... the app had to reload my library again, and didn't save any auto-sync information... so I cant just plug my phone in and forget about it. This is very, very weak sauce... not so much for artists, but for auto-playlists, which is the primary way I listen to music.
So, then I decided getting all of my music into the XBOX Music cloud is the way to go, as that music automatically shows up on the phone. So, I took an image of my w7 machine, and upgraded to win8. I then opened the xbox music app, and nothing showed up, even though my libraries were configured. Why, you might ask? Well, my music is on a network share that doesnt support indexing, so microsoft has deemed it useless. No video or music from that store will show up in my native microsoft video/music applications. Sigh... ok, fine. So, then I copied 100gb of music to my data drive, and it showed up in the xbox music app fine. Then, in the xbox music app, I went to the playlists tab, and nothing showed up... BUT there was an "import playlists" button. So I went ahead and clicked that, and that imported all of my auto-playlists... which then shortly after showed up on my phone as well in the xbox music app, as they were synced to the cloud. So I figured I had finally gotten it, but I wanted to run one test. So, I opened my zune software, and marked another song as "liked", making my "songs I like" auto playlists go from 269 songs to 270. I then rebooted, and opened xbox music again, and the "songs I like" playlist would not update. So, it seems the import only imports the playlist as static, and not "auto". So, I figured I would try deleting all of them, and importing again. While that would be extremely clunky, I could deal with that. That worked, and the updated "songs I like" playlist showed up... but now they have a (2) after them. As a geek, that drives me crazy, so I wanted to go on and try another, automagic, solution.
So, I opened WMP, and let it import my music collection. No zune auto-playlists showed, so I created them in WMP. However, now WMP wont sync half of the songs on the autoplaylists, because the songs are "not supported by device". These are .wma zunepass songs... however, it will sync SOME .wma zunepass content... just not all of it. I havent figured out what it will and wont, yet.
So, thats where I am at now. WMP is working well enough, for now... definitely not a permanent solution. My biggest issue, now, is that I dont know if song plays on the lumia 920 will register in WMP, and there is no way to rate the songs on the lumia.
Oh, and one more thing, I listen to a podcast that doesnt (and wont) show up in the xbox podcast library, and there is currently no native solution for custom podcasts.
To summarize... Frankly, XBOX Music sucks. Ok, great, now music is in the "cloud" and we no longer have to plug in a cable. With wireless sync, we werent that far off from that anyway, and at least then we still had full zune functionality. Right now, XBOX Music doesn't even begin to compete with the likes of spotify, etc... XBOX Music is a very, very, basic solution for listening to music. For the most part, your only option is searching for an artists and listening to an album of theirs. Playlists are manual, and you cannot rate music, period. For me, that's enough reason to use another service with more functionality.
I didnt create this thread as a flame MS thread. Obviously, I like MS... I went to the ATT store 10 minutes after it opened to get a lumia 920, and I had a lumia 900 before that. I want this software to improve.
I feel your pain. Not as big a collection. Not sure how this works completely with xbox music in cloud. But I did the trick on my surface to show external music on microsd to show in libraries.. I am seeing playlist and some of my music in the cloud.
loudog3114 said:
So, I got home with my Lumia 920, plugged it in to my PC, and found it does not sync with Zune. In my Zune library I have about 16k songs, and about 10 auto-playlists based on songs I "like", most played, etc. So, I figured its not the end of the world, and I downloaded the WP8 sync client for Windows 7 from here http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/how-to/wp8/windows-phone-app-for-desktop . This app is an extremely basic sync application that reads your entire music library every time it loads and allows you to select music and playlists to sync. For it to load completely, and go through my entire music collection, took about an hour. BUT, when it was done, I was able to select my artists and auto-playlists to sync, and they synced fine. So, a few hours later, I plugged my phone in again... the app had to reload my library again, and didn't save any auto-sync information... so I cant just plug my phone in and forget about it. This is very, very weak sauce... not so much for artists, but for auto-playlists, which is the primary way I listen to music.
So, then I decided getting all of my music into the XBOX Music cloud is the way to go, as that music automatically shows up on the phone. So, I took an image of my w7 machine, and upgraded to win8. I then opened the xbox music app, and nothing showed up, even though my libraries were configured. Why, you might ask? Well, my music is on a network share that doesnt support indexing, so microsoft has deemed it useless. No video or music from that store will show up in my native microsoft video/music applications. Sigh... ok, fine. So, then I copied 100gb of music to my data drive, and it showed up in the xbox music app fine. Then, in the xbox music app, I went to the playlists tab, and nothing showed up... BUT there was an "import playlists" button. So I went ahead and clicked that, and that imported all of my auto-playlists... which then shortly after showed up on my phone as well in the xbox music app, as they were synced to the cloud. So I figured I had finally gotten it, but I wanted to run one test. So, I opened my zune software, and marked another song as "liked", making my "songs I like" auto playlists go from 269 songs to 270. I then rebooted, and opened xbox music again, and the "songs I like" playlist would not update. So, it seems the import only imports the playlist as static, and not "auto". So, I figured I would try deleting all of them, and importing again. While that would be extremely clunky, I could deal with that. That worked, and the updated "songs I like" playlist showed up... but now they have a (2) after them. As a geek, that drives me crazy, so I wanted to go on and try another, automagic, solution.
So, I opened WMP, and let it import my music collection. No zune auto-playlists showed, so I created them in WMP. However, now WMP wont sync half of the songs on the autoplaylists, because the songs are "not supported by device". These are .wma zunepass songs... however, it will sync SOME .wma zunepass content... just not all of it. I havent figured out what it will and wont, yet.
So, thats where I am at now. WMP is working well enough, for now... definitely not a permanent solution. My biggest issue, now, is that I dont know if song plays on the lumia 920 will register in WMP, and there is no way to rate the songs on the lumia.
Oh, and one more thing, I listen to a podcast that doesnt (and wont) show up in the xbox podcast library, and there is currently no native solution for custom podcasts.
To summarize... Frankly, XBOX Music sucks. Ok, great, now music is in the "cloud" and we no longer have to plug in a cable. With wireless sync, we werent that far off from that anyway, and at least then we still had full zune functionality. Right now, XBOX Music doesn't even begin to compete with the likes of spotify, etc... XBOX Music is a very, very, basic solution for listening to music. For the most part, your only option is searching for an artists and listening to an album of theirs. Playlists are manual, and you cannot rate music, period. For me, that's enough reason to use another service with more functionality.
I didnt create this thread as a flame MS thread. Obviously, I like MS... I went to the ATT store 10 minutes after it opened to get a lumia 920, and I had a lumia 900 before that. I want this software to improve.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can't help but totally agree with you. This is a major oversight, especially since they didn't ease us off the Zune Player...
Well, after a few days WMP started tanking explorer.exe when trying to sync with my phone. So, I reverted to my win7 image and im using the windows phone app preview to sync music again.
un-fawking-beleivable. My computer kept tanking while trying to sync music, and I found out why. To sync, you have to unlock the phone, which I knew... but, if the phone re-locks while your syncing, the whole process is done for, and explorer will just hang until you remove the phone. SO, if you want to sync to your pc, you basically have to turn off the password lock on the phone.
I have the exact same way of organizing and syncing my music as you have. We're probably not alone and I hope this is somewhere high on the priority list.
Like you, I came from Zune with several smart playlists, most of them including the 'love track' option. It was a step back from iTunes with its 5 star range that let me create even more precise smart playlists, but it worked.
No Spotify in WP8 either, at least not for me. Can't find it in my marketplace. Last year I sidestepped to Spotify, hanging in after a good tryout deal, but Spotify lacks a lot of the songs I have listed in my playlists. So I was ready to move to XBOX Music, same idea, more songs - I had read somewhere. Jumped in with the one year deal, too quickly, too confidently.
Now I'm stuck with renaming formerly smart playlists and some songs that won't play because of some errorcode. No clue how to keep my playlists uptodate with ratings. Mind you, I've only been messing with this for two days. Time to go looking for workarounds while praying for a software update.
Guys, try MusicBee.:good:
This is a sad story, but I guess this is how it's "supposed" to be. I mean, MS kinda started from scratch (again) with their WP8, so they had to create some quick and working apps for basic needs (WP8 client). I think in time everything will get back, hopefully implementing WP8 support in Zune.
I for one I am very happing not having to fire up that Zune app everytime I want to deploy something on the phone, thought the Zune music was fine (especially with that zune pass).
PS: did you try with the Metro-style WP app?
This makes me think I should get another device for music... I have about 15gb of music I carry with me. Using Zune, its not a problem. Using something that needs to index everything at launch and not keep track of things already on the device is a problem.
In an effort to loose the "computer" requirement, they lost some basic features.
Sent from my SGH-i917 using Board Express
You could always use Google music? There's 3 decent apps in the store that work efficiently enough. Google music's uploader is optimized for...shudder...iTunes, but you can manually select folders, playlists should upload too as long as they're in the same folder. Of the three apps, I use CloudMuzik. Back in WP7 it worked BETTER than the google music app for ANDROID. Not sure now, I've only had my phone one day, but that's my suggestion.
Google's song limit is 20,000 songs, and you can have multiple users on the same account. "I really like your music library!" "Oh, really? let me hook my account up!"
Is it me or is Apple the only ecosystem that makes media synching simple across all computing devices? As an Android user, Google music is tolerable, but not great. After reading your experiences I feel like adopting WP8 would be a misstep in this regard at this point in time. Sad how behind and out of touch with the consumer market MS has been. I too hope these weaknesses become a priority with MS, especially with the launch of their next gen console this year.
How hard is it to develop official native apps that allow music (and other media) with playlists to sync seamlessly across pc, tablet, phone, and game console without having to pay the piper for cloud storage? Its 2013 for gosh sakes. Every operating system ecosystem should have this implemented and polished by now. It's not breaking news that media junkies want their data accessible on all their devices in an easy to manage manner.
I'm very tempted to invest in Apple as an ecosystem for simplifying this solution. I really hope by some miracle MS can sway me before my cell phone contract is up later this year. Honestly I want to believe they can do better than the offerings you folks are currently left frustrated with.