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Hi Guys,
I am new to the world of Windows Mobile having got my TP2 on Saturday which is my first Windows Mobile phone. Prior to this I had an iPhone 3G. I am trying to find a media player which has similar functionality to the "smart playlists" available in iTunes. I would like to be able to create some playlists based on ratings (e.g All Tracks with 4 stars).
So far I have found Pocket Player 4 which has some of these playlists built in but I have been unable to find a way to create my own ones. I know I can hack the existing ones but I was looking for something a bit cleaner. Do any media players for WinMo exist with this kind of functionality? I have tried some of the free ones (Kinoma Free Play, Nitrogen etc) but I have been unable to find what I'm looking for. Does anyone know if any of the pay ones have this available? If not I guess I will just stick with Pocket Player but I don't want to buy it yet incase something better exists.
Other than this minor issue I am loving my new toy .
have you tried creating a smart playlist with windows media player on your computer...then sync it (using windows media player) to your phone?
Yeah, but as soon as you copy the playlist to the device it just becomes a static dumb playlist. I was looking for proper smart playlist support on the device itself where they playlist would update on the device without the need for syncing.
I'm thinking I will just settle on Pocket Player and hack the files to suit my needs. I am quite surprised that such a feature is not in more of the WinMo media players though.
groovebiscuit said:
Yeah, but as soon as you copy the playlist to the device it just becomes a static dumb playlist. I was looking for proper smart playlist support on the device itself where they playlist would update on the device without the need for syncing.
I'm thinking I will just settle on Pocket Player and hack the files to suit my needs. I am quite surprised that such a feature is not in more of the WinMo media players though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
so you're saying you add a song to a certain playlist then you want the mp3 to automatically download to the phone when in a data connection? thats a nice feature but alot of people wouldn't want there phone to use that much data at once, i believe if i'm already at a computer adding to my playlist i might as well have my phone synced because it will be charging and adding the songs the much much faster. But i do see how it could be useful, for instance if you're not at your home computer and want to add 1 or 2 songs to a playlist. But i guess the would only work if I actually PURCHASED all my music,
p-slim said:
so you're saying you add a song to a certain playlist then you want the mp3 to automatically download to the phone when in a data connection? thats a nice feature but alot of people wouldn't want there phone to use that much data at once, i believe if i'm already at a computer adding to my playlist i might as well have my phone synced because it will be charging and adding the songs the much much faster. But i do see how it could be useful, for instance if you're not at your home computer and want to add 1 or 2 songs to a playlist. But i guess the would only work if I actually PURCHASED all my music,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, no; that's not what I mean at all. I've probably just not explained it very well.
In Windows Media Player on the PC you can create an auto playlist. So for example I create a playlist called "All Songs With 5 Star Rating" and set it to play all songs that are rated 5 stars, it would then list all the tracks in my Library that have 5 stars. Then if I play a couple of tracks from my Library that are not rated and I rate them with 5 stars they would then automatically appear in my "All Songs With 5 Star Rating" auto-playlist; I would not need to add them to it manually.
I would like to be able to emulate this functionality on the device. As it stands at the moment if I create such a playlist in Windows Media Player and sync it to the device it will only sync the songs currently in the playlist. I cannot then give tracks on the device a 5 star rating and have them automatically added to the playlist on the device UNTIL I do a sync with the PC.
I hope I've explained it a bit better.
I'm thinking I will either just live with the Windows Media Player route for now and pick up Pocket Player at some point in the future.
Thanks for the input though guys, much appreciated.
groovebiscuit said:
No, no; that's not what I mean at all. I've probably just not explained it very well.
In Windows Media Player on the PC you can create an auto playlist. So for example I create a playlist called "All Songs With 5 Star Rating" and set it to play all songs that are rated 5 stars, it would then list all the tracks in my Library that have 5 stars. Then if I play a couple of tracks from my Library that are not rated and I rate them with 5 stars they would then automatically appear in my "All Songs With 5 Star Rating" auto-playlist; I would not need to add them to it manually.
I would like to be able to emulate this functionality on the device. As it stands at the moment if I create such a playlist in Windows Media Player and sync it to the device it will only sync the songs currently in the playlist. I cannot then give tracks on the device a 5 star rating and have them automatically added to the playlist on the device UNTIL I do a sync with the PC.
I hope I've explained it a bit better.
edit: nevermind i fully understand now, you want the phone itself to create the autoplaylist. windows mobile media player sucks and isn't that advanced but i defintely would agree with what you want. hopefully they are able to port the zune hd music player to their phones.
I'm thinking I will either just live with the Windows Media Player route for now and pick up Pocket Player at some point in the future.
Thanks for the input though guys, much appreciated.
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Click to collapse
oh ok i understand. I do have mine set up like that. if you try to use the auto playlist that populates by windows media player then it will not work, but if you create your own auto playlist that picks up every song lets say abover 4 stars, you can then sync that playlist to your phone. i have mine set up that way. on my desktop its called favorites and everytime i rate a song it will show up in favorites if its rated above 4 stars, and when i sync it will then be synced to my phones playlist. Basically what you want i do all the time.
p-slim said:
oh ok i understand. I do have mine set up like that. if you try to use the auto playlist that populates by windows media player then it will not work, but if you create your own auto playlist that picks up every song lets say abover 4 stars, you can then sync that playlist to your phone. i have mine set up that way. on my desktop its called favorites and everytime i rate a song it will show up in favorites if its rated above 4 stars, and when i sync it will then be synced to my phones playlist. Basically what you want i do all the time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, but I want to be able to rate a song already on the device itself and have it added to the auto playlist on the device without the need for a PC. Does that make sense?
Just did a search on the forum and noticed that no one had mentioned iTunes Agent (http://ita.sourceforge.net/).
"iTunes Agent is a tiny application which rests in your system tray, constantly looking for devices being connected to your system. If a device it recognizes is connected it enables you to manage it via a playlist in iTunes. You may even associate your player with a Smart Playlist, such as "Party Shuffle", and always have a new collection of tracks on your player!
When you are done modifying the list of tracks for your player you can synchronize it with two small mouse-clicks!"
I thought it was good to mention as i have a itunes server service which i use for music and also a ipod touch and keeping them all in sync inc HD2 and any other device is very handy.
http://www.binaryfortress.com/itunes-sync/
This does a similar sort of thing, doesnt need to start with windows and hide in your tray though!
itunes and HTC HD2
Can itunes be downloaded and purchase the songs, games, and music on the
windows os? Are the games scaled to work on the HTC HD2? If so, how do you do this?
nuke1201 said:
Can itunes be downloaded and purchase the songs, games, and music on the
windows os? Are the games scaled to work on the HTC HD2? If so, how do you do this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
music will work videos might work and games defiantly wont work at all.
itunes sync
Found a very good free app (doubletwist) that syncronizes itunes / iphoto/ video libraries between the Mac and any storage device. I have been using it on the HTC HD2 for a week and it syncs all the playlists from itunes and even photos and videos. it is linked to amazon music store and content can be downloaded directly. The interface is just like itunes and seems very very easy to use...just select your device from the panel, select playlists and click sync....all the playlists created get recognised by the HTC sense media player.. google doubletwist and download ...and you are all set.....
doubletwist
doesn't work for me. my hd2 is running windows mobile 6.5 and while the app recognizes my device after it's plugged into my computer and also sees the itunes files and playlists, nothing shows up after the supposed sync takes place.
Interested in such an app for my HD2 on WM 6.5
Tried Itunes agent, not really user friendly and didnt manage to add my HD2 on it.
Ive got loads on myusic on itunes, would like to put one of my playlist songs (around 500 mbs of music) on my HD2.. is there a simple way? Copying items from itunes doesnt seem to work.. and there is a mix of MP3 files and AAC files... will they read allright on HD2?
If they where bought from the iTunes store..and no explicitly DRM free, then no, they will not work no matter how you copy them to your device.
A week ago I posted about the TuneLink car adapter that allowed me to use Bluetooth to Aux in in my car. With this app in place my phone is now my sole source of media outside of my house.
The problem I have is there is no native desktop software for Android music. Zune doesn't sync with android and recently switched to a zpl playlist format that adds too many steps to move files from Zune-> Windows Media-> To my Evo.
Doubletwist just isn't a finished product. The desktop application is lackluster and slow. Moreover I hate their media player, I prefer MIUI's player or the stock Droid player.
My answer was to give Itunes a try. We all know it manages music well and adds and adds artwork but I never tried a 3rd party sync platform.
My answer was Tunesync. It's an expensive $5 app that manages and syncs playlists wirelessly between my EVO and Itunes. Works well and doesn't eat up much battery life. For me this is perfect because I only have the 8gb stock memory card and I don't need my entire library on my phone, just my favorite playlists.
Finally, I used Windows Live Mesh to sync the "My Music" folders between my laptop and my desktop just in case I want to update my phone from the road or on vacation. I recommend this setup for anyone looking to manage their music.
Doubletwist airsync works well too..its just slow.
The Doubletwist desktop software is garbage. I need something more polished like Winamp, Zune, Itunes.
I use itunes for my desktop music. I just use doubletwist to transfer my music. Can't wait for google to finish up google music with the native sync service.
I agree that Doubletwist is not usable. For starters, they claim that they cannot sync smart playlists from iTunes. You can sync them to start, but if your playlist is updated, doubletwist won't pick up on the update. I mean, the main reason I want to sync with itunes is because of the smart playlists in itunes, which I LOVE. Doubletwist staff claims that it is due to iTunes' locked down system. That is bogus, because other apps do it fine.
Instead of tunesync, I suggest isyncr:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.jrtstudio.iSyncr
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.jrtstudio.iSyncr.WiFi
The UI isn't flashy, but all I need is something to sync my itunes playlists to my phone. It just works. The wifi addon is excellent. It recently got a feature called "live playlists" which is just like itunes' smart playlists, so you can create your own playlists on your phone from the music you sync to your device. The developer is really on top of things - he responds quickly to emails and is always adding features. He recently added the ability to upsync your photos and video, as well as the amazon mp3s you buy on your phone. I love it.
iTunes is the worst media manager for Windows IMHO. I'm surprised nobody mentioned MediaMonkey... it puts all others to shame.
For wireless sync with Android, WinAMP is definitely the way to go. I just can't give up PowerAMP on my Android, so I can live without wi-sync.
itunes is horrible on windows. I love it on my mac though. (I don't mean feature wise)
Anyone who says iTunes is good is using a Mac. That **** is like a virus on Windows.
I agree with a previous poster...Media Monkey.
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.
This is a MAJOR problem and if they want to avoid people returning their phones within 30 days, this needs to be fixed. If someone is coming from iPhone, they will be totally lost on how to get music to their phone. In reality, it would be via XBOX Music but the entire experience is horrid and let me explain:
No Real Way To Sync - Yes, you can use Windows Media Player but it will not sync ZunePass/XBOX Music Pass songs.
Album Art - Spotty at best if you use the Windows Phone app to transfer music. If you download straight your phone, it seems to be OK
XBOX Music Cloud - What a mess! What is this info anyway? It isn't like Google Music and all of our music. It seems to be metadata from the main PC or Zune Software. I'd love to sync playlists and music between my devices but this thing is an absolute mess. Right now, I have this turned off on my devices.
Playlist Creation - Not only can't we sync our playlists from our PC (Zune Playlists) but you can't create one on the phone. And I once tried to create a playlist (streaming) so it would sync between my devices and it never showed up. Just the aforementioned mess in the music cloud shows up.
Delete Music Off Of Phone - Is it me or is there no way to remove music off the phone from the phone itself?
This is not a gripe session but legimtate broken things that need to get fixed. At the VERY least, get a fix for Windows Media Player so it can sync ZunePass songs!
Are you using windows 8? Its flawless on Windows 8
Sent from my RM-820_nam_att_100 using Board Express
robstunner said:
Are you using windows 8? Its flawless on Windows 8
Sent from my RM-820_nam_att_100 using Board Express
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just discovered the DESKTOP version of the phone software...not perfect but MILES better...
I don't want to throw this thread off track, but I have GB upon GB of music in flac and mp4 music. Stuff not purchased on Xbox or other, by and large it's ripped from my disk collection. Does all that sync if I put it on my Win8 desktop AND play properly? Oh, I have some ogg stuff too... was deciding on what format to store my music in
Thanks!
garak0410 said:
I just discovered the DESKTOP version of the phone software...not perfect but MILES better...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What desktop version? Is this the full Zune replacement available online?
charlatan01 said:
I don't want to throw this thread off track, but I have GB upon GB of music in flac and mp4 music. Stuff not purchased on Xbox or other, by and large it's ripped from my disk collection. Does all that sync if I put it on my Win8 desktop AND play properly? Oh, I have some ogg stuff too... was deciding on what format to store my music in
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can add mp3 files from any location and they will play properly. You can also search for he album art but I do agree that the new metro software is nothing on Zune. Zune was the best media software ever!
garak0410 said:
I just discovered the DESKTOP version of the phone software...not perfect but MILES better...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you explain this a bit please? Are you referring to Windows 8, or Windows Phone 8?
Thanks!
There is also a glitch. You cannot download music to your phone when it is already in your "Cloud collection". So I'm stuck with streaming everything for now....
XATAGuy said:
Can you explain this a bit please? Are you referring to Windows 8, or Windows Phone 8?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
He means this...http://www.windowsphone.com/en-GH/how-to/wp8/windows-phone-app-for-desktop
tonyfreak215 said:
There is also a glitch. You cannot download music to your phone when it is already in your "Cloud collection". So I'm stuck with streaming everything for now....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you can download cloud music, longpress on it and select download, also when you are in a song list, there is the first option for multiselect at the bottom, you can then check whatever you want and download it all at once.
garak0410 said:
This is a MAJOR problem and if they want to avoid people returning their phones within 30 days, this needs to be fixed. If someone is coming from iPhone, they will be totally lost on how to get music to their phone. In reality, it would be via XBOX Music but the entire experience is horrid and let me explain:
No Real Way To Sync - Yes, you can use Windows Media Player but it will not sync ZunePass/XBOX Music Pass songs.
Album Art - Spotty at best if you use the Windows Phone app to transfer music. If you download straight your phone, it seems to be OK
XBOX Music Cloud - What a mess! What is this info anyway? It isn't like Google Music and all of our music. It seems to be metadata from the main PC or Zune Software. I'd love to sync playlists and music between my devices but this thing is an absolute mess. Right now, I have this turned off on my devices.
Playlist Creation - Not only can't we sync our playlists from our PC (Zune Playlists) but you can't create one on the phone. And I once tried to create a playlist (streaming) so it would sync between my devices and it never showed up. Just the aforementioned mess in the music cloud shows up.
Delete Music Off Of Phone - Is it me or is there no way to remove music off the phone from the phone itself?
This is not a gripe session but legimtate broken things that need to get fixed. At the VERY least, get a fix for Windows Media Player so it can sync ZunePass songs!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
to delete music off the phone longpress the song (or use the multiselect button and check songs, keep in mind, the multiselect icon only shows up in song view) and then choose delete or the trash can.
i agree the software needs to improve a lot, i'm quite surprised that it was released in a state that isn't even at parity with the zune software. it does seem like they are trying to push people away from using sync software and more into using cloud services to do it all though, but they need to work on UX a bit more before that is going to be simple for new users.
Since I have two laptops and a surface with the same music. Each day i am seeing music show up on phone. Since I don't have either one up for very long I think it will take awhile. I may just have to turn off standby this weekend and let it sync.
I got the lumia 920, and I love it. However, the music sync is SO bad I am considering bringing it back and using my lumia 900 agian. Its absolutely awful. There is no way to rate music, no auto playlists, and about 97% of the time I try to sync music using the godawful windows phone desktop application it hangs trying to remove music. The only way to keep the process going properly is keeping my phone screen awake, awesome.
I am a long time zune user, which I beleive to be the best music device and desktop software made, and I cannot believe that instead of just changing the name of the zune software they ditched it altogether, and all functionality with it.
loudog3114 said:
I got the lumia 920, and I love it. However, the music sync is SO bad I am considering bringing it back and using my lumia 900 agian. Its absolutely awful. There is no way to rate music, no auto playlists, and about 97% of the time I try to sync music using the godawful windows phone desktop application it hangs trying to remove music. The only way to keep the process going properly is keeping my phone screen awake, awesome.
I am a long time zune user, which I beleive to be the best music device and desktop software made, and I cannot believe that instead of just changing the name of the zune software they ditched it altogether, and all functionality with it.
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cannot agree more with you. Let's hope they change it for the better.
The Windows Phone 8 desktop app does NOT work at all on my HP laptop running Windows 7 x64. Every time I plug my phone in, an error message pops up on my laptop screen saying, "Windows Phone has stopped working". It gives me the option to, "Check online for a solution and close the program" - that does NOTHING! If I click on that, it seems to be searching for a bit, then just goes away by itself, never offering me a solution to the problem.
The only way I can put music on my phone is to drag-and-drop through Windows Explorer, and THAT'S a disaster, too! Let's say I have 2 CD's/albums from The Airborne Toxic Event; 1 shows up on the phone listed (under Artists) as "The Airborne Toxic Event". The other shows up as "Airborne Toxic Event, The", EVEN THOUGH THE ID TAG INFO IS ALL CORRECT!! I'd say 80% of the artists I added to my phone last night (about 50 total) refuse to download any artist background image; the background is just gray. Also, even though I added album art for EACH album as I put them on the phone, some refuse to display album art. Others show it O.K. One track, that is playing fine tonight, the phone told me last night, "Windows Phone cannot play this file type (the file is in WMA format)!!!!
This is a COMPLETE DISASTER, and I'm probably taking my Lumia 920 back to AT&T this weekend for a refund.
Oh, yeah, my previous phone, which I still have, is a Samsung Galaxy S III Android phone, and NONE of the music playing software on that phone had any problem playing the EXACT SAME music files I tranferred to my WP8 handset, and My Samsung Focus & Focus S WP7.5 hansets also had NO problem with these same music files!
Rename the Zune software and bring it back so we can use it with WP8 handsets, PLEASE!!!
What an EPIC fail!!!
Dennis
The windows phone application for windows works the first time it syncs, then it hangs on every subsequent sync unless I remove all the music from the device and start over. It hangs while trying to delete music. Awful.
loudog3114 said:
The windows phone application for windows works the first time it syncs, then it hangs on every subsequent sync unless I remove all the music from the device and start over. It hangs while trying to delete music. Awful.
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Use Windows Media Player. It has been working flawless for me, and until MS beef up there current solution for WP8 users, I will not be using it.
morpheus1982 said:
Use Windows Media Player. It has been working flawless for me, and until MS beef up there current solution for WP8 users, I will not be using it.
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Windows Media Player may work fine for getting music on the phone (drag-and-drop works just as well, too), but it's what the Xbox music service does to the songs AFTER they're on the phone that causes the bigger problems, at least for me. It removes metadata (tag info) and replaces it with what it thinks is correct, causing some of my albums/CD's to be split into two separate albums/CD's. For example, I put (4) tracks from Beyonce's "B'day [Deluxe Edition] [Disc 1]" on my phone. Xbox music service split (2) of those tracks into a separate CD titled "B'day [Deluxe Edition] Disc 1", that shows NO album art! It did the same to "Yourself or Someone Like You", by Mathchbox Twenty - it split (1) track off into a separate "Yourself or Someone Like You" CD by Matchbox 20 (it changed the artist from Matchbox Twenty to Matchbox 20 for just this one track)! I have a CD by Ned's Atomic Dustbin for the single of "Not Sleeping Around"; I verify that, after I copy it over to the phone, it is displaying album art - within 15 minutes, the album art disappears! I've tried setting the music files to "read-only" before copying, but that somehow gets changed when being copied over to the phone, and the "read-only" option, when viewing the file properties on the phone, is grayed out.
I also frequently get an error message when trying to play songs on the phone that says, "Sorry, we can't play this type of file on your phone", even though the file is either in .mp3 or .wma format & it STARTS PLAYING BY ITSELF!!
WTF?!! Why did Microsoft scew this up SO bad?!! WP7/7.5 handled all this flawlessly! I'm seriously considering returning my Nokia Lumia 920 to AT&T over this specific issue!
Dennis
morpheus1982 said:
Use Windows Media Player. It has been working flawless for me, and until MS beef up there current solution for WP8 users, I will not be using it.
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I can't get WMP11 recognize my 920 as a device to sync.
But the Windows Phone Software works fine on Windows 7.
I think i am going up to Windows 8 Pro right after i got my SSD. Because the SDK doesn't work on Windows 7 either.
BTW: yep, sync music on Windows 7 for the WP8 is a little bit troublesome. There are far more less convenient than the Zune Software.
I dont know how it works on Windows 8 yet.
I too am amazed at how bad the software for PC actually is, I have no need for cloud storage so that isn't an issue but album art has been replaced on most songs by Xbox music and the desktop client which I am sure is a Beta is next to useless, I am using Win7x64 so maybe an upgrade to win8 will help?
I managed to finally drag & drop my music to the device which did do the trick, And am kind of happy that option was available, I preferred the Zune client to be honest for stability and ease of use and hope they can soon sort things out so they are a bit more stable.,
I guess the lesson to be learnt here is not to rush out and buy on first release, Looking back on WP7 when you compare the first release to Mango that should have been warning enough, No doubt there are nerds somewhere in MS working their asses off to fix this :laugh: Yeah right.......
AndyFZ1S said:
album art has been replaced on most songs by Xbox music and the desktop client which I am sure is a Beta is next to useless
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This.
...and there's no way to edit the metadata manually like in the Zune software. Really pissing me off.