I cannot believe how unintuitive Zune software is.
Just try to edit a playlist in any manner. F*cking impossible.
I have an existing playlist on my phone called "workout". I wanted to add some songs to it. Nope. Nothing doing. That is beyond the scope of what's possible with today's technology.
Right clicking does nothing. Oh you can drag the name of the playlist or individual songs around. But you can't drag them to anywhere. Just around the screen I guess for your own amusement before you release the mouse button and the little icon disappears.
So I open the Zune player on my phone (which doesn't recognize the album the songs are from... even though I edited the meta data in Zune software and f*cking told them what the album is), go to the song and select "save to playlist".
It asks me to name it. Uh, ok.
I go to the next song, select save to playlist. Asks me to name it again. Oh I get it, this is like DOS where we just name where we're putting it.
Let's go check on our new playlist shall we?
It's actually two playlists, and they contain the same songs. When you select "save to playlist", it just saves ALL the songs from that artist in a playlist. How f*cking useless is that?? There are ballads from that artist that I don't want coming up when I'm about to bench press my craptacular 10 pounds or whatever.
Is it just... IMPOSSIBLE, to create software that is straightforward and doesn't require a manual??
** - disclaimer - I went right from trying to figure it out to here. Didn't google for help or anything, because, above all, I shouldn't HAVE to. F*cking ridiculous.
I don't see how it gets any easier that selecting songs, hitting right click, and saying add to playlist
Edit: Agreed that playlist editing on Windows Phone is a joke though. It essentially just allows you to save your current Now Playing playlist
That would be great... however as I stated, right click brought no such options. And I right clicked EVERYTHING.
sure haven't said:
That would be great... however as I stated, right click brought no such options. And I right clicked EVERYTHING.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In your collection, you're telling me if you right click (on an artist, album, song, genre, pretty much damn near anything) that you don't get a context menu with some of the following options (and many more)?
Play
Play Smart DJ Mix
Sync with XXXX
Add to Playlist
Add to burnlist
I don't understand the problem. It works just like adding songs to your phone. If you are in the Playlists tab, you can click and drag down to your phone...in the lower left...or right click and add to phone. If you are anywhere else, you can drag songs down to your Playlist...it's right down in the corner next to your phone or burn to CD...or you can right click and add to playlist. You can do this with individual songs or an album or artist.
66stang351 said:
I don't understand the problem. It works just like adding songs to your phone. If you are in the Playlists tab, you can click and drag down to your phone...in the lower left...or right click and add to phone. If you are anywhere else, you can drag songs down to your Playlist...it's right down in the corner next to your phone or burn to CD...or you can right click and add to playlist. You can do this with individual songs or an album or artist.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
my points exactly,I don't understand the difficulty. I never edited a playlist in Zune PC software. I made them entirely on my phone but I saw the playlist option there.
I'll explain what I'm looking at right now, since you people think I'm blind or have selective vision.
I'm in Zune software. In "Phone", "music"... and I don't even see the songs I want to add to the playlist (the new ones I added to the phone yesterday). They're not showing up. HOWEVER I was just out with the dogs, listening to them, so I know they're there.
BUT, just for sh*ts and giggles, let's try this wonderous right-click.
Ok I've selected a song. Here is the context menu:
-copy to my collection
-delete from my phone
I am assuming I have to first copy songs to my PC (as when I click on a song that's on my PC, yes I see the "add to playlist"), then put them into a playlist. Well that's intuitive. Makes perfect sense. Why make it easy? Why make it easy when you can make it plodding and confusing.
None of that matters however since the Zune software doesn't even see the songs that are on my phone. So I can't copy them to my PC even if I wanted to.
And I'm not technically challenged. I've been a somewhat "tech" guy since I was a kid in the early 90's. I have a windows mobile device that I have enjoyed installing Android on (Omnia II), I set up our home network to share videos from PC's to XBox's and back (which is also incredibly "straightforward"). I know my way around the basics.
Zune software is flawed and hard to use. F*cking designers should understand that simplicity is key. Their OS that uses Zune software has incredibly easy folders/tree system. So what do they do? Change all the things! Moronic.
--edit--
And I still haven't even tackled how to edit my current playlist to delete some songs out of it.
The songs should've sync automatically. In "my collection", do you have "recent" selected?
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk
vetvito said:
The songs should've sync automatically. In "my collection", do you have "recent" selected?
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmmm, I'm not sure. I'm in there now... and I don't see a "recent" word anywhere.
Is that an option as in "show recent"?
Or is it just an area that shows recent activity?
Setup a new autoplaylist for recently added songs.
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
---------- Post added at 10:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:27 PM ----------
Also say you bought some songs directly on your phone from Zune then connect your phone to the PC software, the new songs will sync to your local collection automatically. You just go to Collection and sort albums by date added.
The new songs/Albums will be listed first. Also as I mentioned if you create an autoplaylist for your recently added songs, you can find them here.
Editing playlists is best done in the Zune desktop player collection area rather than Phone -> Music. The latter simply shows you what is on the device and gives you the option to delete some freeing up space.
between zune and itunes I dont know what is worse of a bloated POS!
Related
Hi all!
We created a cool new app and hope you will enjoy it too.
The app's name is "Mobile Media Center".
You can use it to listen to music, watch pictures, play videos and keep up with RSS feeds/podcasts/vodcasts, all on your Windows Mobile device.
It can be controlled by the touch of your finger. Actually is was created because we missed a good looking media player that can be used while driving a car.
To get an impression of Mobile Media Center, please take a look at the screenshots below.
More information can be found here: http://mobilemediacenter.oabsoftware.nl
The Start page:
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
The Music page:
The Pictures page:
The video player page:
Oh, did I mention it's available for free?!
Update 07/03/2009:
Today we released version 1.0.2.
It appeared we made an error in the setup package: a file, that is required for bluetooth control of the player (AVRCP support), was not included in the setup...
This error was repaired in version 1.0.2.
Update 07/01/2009:
Today we released version 1.0.1, which includes most of the remarks made so far:
On the RSS page a button "Read all" was added. When this button is pressed, all items in the RSS feed will be marked as "read".
When changing the settings, the keyboard (input panel) will now appear whenever you have to enter text.
The Videos page will now show 3GP and 3G2 files as well.
congrats on your release!
Thanks for this will test when i have the new ROM.
I have only one Question, what file format the Video player play ?
Waseb
Mobile Media Center can play all formats that Windows Media Player can play (it actually uses Windows Media Player for the playback)
it looks and works fantastic! i had to right click on the download. left click did not work. thanks for the app!!!
Does not show .3g2 videos taken by the camera on my Omnia i910. WMP does play these videos.
Some other issues I see.
Small graphics glitch where the timer is. Landscape album cover needs to be moved.
Feature request:
Allow people to create new skins in an easy manner.
great soft
You're not far from perfection
Keep going !
Impressive! Thanks!
great software..
but I think that you should use bigger buttons....IMHO they are too small and too near each other to call this application really finger frindly....
Perhaps you could introduce an option to set a bigger button look ...
On My Omnia (WQVGA) They are too small ... at least They shoul be twice to be used while driving a car
Its definitely a great app, its just the buttons are a little small as stated above and also its a bit choppy.. but regardless, Good Work! keep it up xD
Feed Back
Just installed on my Omnia.
I like it but:
The 2 buttons are a little small.
When trying to add RSS feed, the soft keyboard doesn't pop. Impossible to add anything.
It needs a option to load a OPML file.
Also needs a way to mark a feed as read. I have the same problem with Kinoma. There is no way to mark a whole feed as read so next time you come back, you have no way of knowing if there are new posts. As far as I know that makes it useless as a RSS reader.
My music library is stored in an 'Artist' folder then subfolders for 'Album'. There is a folder.jpg in the album folder but not in the 'Artist' folder. So the main 'My Music' page doesn't show any images until I open the 'Artist' folder and then I can see each albums and their covers. Other players just ignore the 'Artist' folder and show the 'Albums'.
It's a great start for a first release though.
Don't take too long before you release a fix for those problems though. We have short attention spans here.
Jeannette
How do you go about installing the app? I went to the site. http://mobilemediacenter.oabsoftware.nl/
when I click the download link, I get a frame loading with a bunch of code. Am I supposed to save the frame as something.cab?
Wow! Nice work!
The idea is great and the realization is good too!
Of course it need some new implementation and improvements...
I think it's important have more compatibilities with video's standard and more fluidity when scrolling pages (for example album page!), bigger buttons it's a good idea too!
Also I'm sure everybody here are happy for this relase, my compliments
Please so, relase new versions often!
Thanks!
ambrous1 said:
How do you go about installing the app? I went to the site. http://mobilemediacenter.oabsoftware.nl/
when I click the download link, I get a frame loading with a bunch of code. Am I supposed to save the frame as something.cab?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Right-click on the link and "save as" to get it.
ambrous1 said:
How do you go about installing the app? I went to the site. http://mobilemediacenter.oabsoftware.nl/
when I click the download link, I get a frame loading with a bunch of code. Am I supposed to save the frame as something.cab?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Right-click on the link and "save as" to get it.
Excellent!
Looks great! Can't wait to try it out! Thanks for all the hard work and it's free!
I like this alot
Yea im liking this alot
runs good on my fuze with 6.5 chrome rom by jmckeejr
I would like to request the files or where to get them to do some skinning on this I got some ideas for some eye candy
Thank you
i would like to request the vista media center icon for this app for the start menu. thanks if anyone has it or could make it
I just download te program, but when i click on Settings, RSS. I find that I can not type any letter as I can not see the keyboard icon at the botton of the PDA.
Very nice work!! Thank you so much for this app. I also hate the GUI looks of all the mediaplayers i have scene to date, and LOVE that we kind of have a mediacenter style program FINALLY!!!!
I have never seen zune, not yet because I am not living in US.
Can you use zune to play downloaded media files like mp3, flac, divx, xvid ...?
I meant, stuff you have downloaded and stored in sd card.
The Zune HD itself doesn't have an SD card, only internal storage, but yes, it plays lots of various formats.
# Audio support:
* CBR and VBR audio, up to 48 kHz sample rate
o WMA Standard up to 384 kbps (DRM protected files can be played only if purchased from the Zune Marketplace)
o WMA Pro stereo up to 768 kbps
o WMA Lossless stereo up to 768 kbps
o Unprotected AAC-LC (.mp4/.m4a/.m4b) up to 320 kbps
o MP3 up to 320 kbps
# Video support:[9]
* DVD resolution and frame rate, up to 10 Mbps bit rate, CBR or VBR for:
o H.264, Baseline Profile up to Level 3.1 + B-frames support [9]
o WMV Main and Simple Profile, Advanced profile up to Level 2.
Also, there's an update planned for later this spring to support MPEG video including XviD.
can you put downloaded media files into its internal storage and play them?
or you must get the media files from zune marketplace?
gogol said:
can you put downloaded media files into its internal storage and play them?
or you must get the media files from zune marketplace?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, you can put them in internal storage. Also, the zune doesn't play flac...
You can sync your own files via the Zune desktop client, you don't have to buy stuff from them, although there's a service called Zune Pass where you can listen to music and download a certain number of titles per month.
The syncing is not as fascist as on the iPhone where the damned thing renames files, but still isn't as easy as copying files to the device (the way I do it currently with my HD2) - there's no access to ZHD's file system AFAIK. It's an ultimate annoyance I have with my wife's iPhone and I certainly hope this won't happen to WP7.
vangrieg said:
You can sync your own files via the Zune desktop client, you don't have to buy stuff from them, although there's a service called Zune Pass where you can listen to music and download a certain number of titles per month.
The syncing is not as fascist as on the iPhone where the damned thing renames files, but still isn't as easy as copying files to the device (the way I do it currently with my HD2) - there's no access to ZHD's file system AFAIK. It's an ultimate annoyance I have with my wife's iPhone and I certainly hope this won't happen to WP7.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is a reg tweak that can enable File Explorer view of the Zune on the PC. Look it up
Yes, you can put whatever you want on there (as long as it's a supported format). The only way to get it on is to use the Zune desktop software which is Windows only at the moment
vangrieg said:
You can sync your own files via the Zune desktop client, you don't have to buy stuff from them, although there's a service called Zune Pass where you can listen to music and download a certain number of titles per month.
The syncing is not as fascist as on the iPhone where the damned thing renames files, but still isn't as easy as copying files to the device (the way I do it currently with my HD2) - there's no access to ZHD's file system AFAIK. It's an ultimate annoyance I have with my wife's iPhone and I certainly hope this won't happen to WP7.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Zune Pass allows for unlimited downloads per month but they are all DRMed and will cease to work if you cancel the subscription. In addition, you get 10 non-DRMed files per month that you get to keep. This option is $14.99/month. What's really cool is you can download music right from your device over WiFi (and over 3G on WP7). Since it has a built in FM radio, it can use the radio ID tags to download songs you like instantly.
The other option is to pay per track. They use the idiotic Microsoft Points that Xbox Live uses and it's 79 points per song (about $.98).
All of the non-DRM music in the store is regular ol' MP3.
the Zune devices are just like iPods they don't allow external card support. It uses the same exact media formats as iTunes. It supports the following media formats:
mp3
wma
wmv
mp4
m4a
m4b
m4v
mov
jpeg
But Zunes are REALLY good. I've had iPods and I owned a Zune 30GB and 120GB and I think the Zunes are Way better than any mp3 Apple offers excluding the iPod Touch. Where iPods have a click wheel that only operates in one direction, the Zunes have scroll pads like a laptop that has gestures that operate in 4 directions. You should check out a demo on youtube. iTunes does have more content than Zune Marketplace, but the gap is narrowing quickly. The Zune biggest point is the Zune Pass, which allows Unlimited DRM-Music downloads for only $15 a month and gives you 10 free drm-less song free every month. If you don't like that, then you can download individual albums and songs or do what I do. Remove the DRM from the Zune Pass subscription. If you dont' want to buy from Zune, you can still download from Amazon or even Itunes and configure you folders to where ever your music and videos folder are at. That's what I did in the beginning.
Here's comparison pics of the iPod Classic and Zune 120GB.
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
Thanks guys, I got the idea how it works.
I am not a music guy, so I almost never intentionally play music on my phone.
And I don't own any dedicated mp3 player device.
I do own iPod shuffle (got it for free from promotion), but I left it in a drawer (I forgot where it is now) because it was quite confusing to install and I hate iTunes. I was trying to copy my mp3 and could not figure it out.
Most probably I will use the Zune part to play recorded videos from the WP7S phone device. I hope Microsoft would expand its video/audio codec later.
A short delve into the emulator in the developer tools reveals things like navigation that still hasn't officially been confirmed!
Here's what I've found so far:
Zune:
-There's a smart-dj feature
-You can create and save playlists
-There's a "related artists" and bio under the artist tab, great for discovering music
-Podcasts work well
-You can't "heart" songs (at least in the emulator)
-There's still no scrub controls
Bing & Maps
-Bing maps has voice-guided directions as expected
-You can show traffic on maps
-Still no landscape maps
-It's now possible to scroll the mini-map while the text directions are on-screen
-Bing music recognizes music like Shazam and clicking on the result will take you to zune marketplace
-You can now unlock the phone using the search button, apparently
-If you search for something on Bing that has an application equivalent; it will show you a link to the application within Bing.
Keyboard
-Keyboard prediction has been improved a lot:
It previously didn't correct misspellings of many short words like ar -> at, fir-> for and br-> be), now it does
It also now corrects it if you press a letter instead of space between two words e.g. it will suggest "I'm about" if you type imnabout or imnaboit, and will suggest "How are you" if you type "hownarebyou"
The keyboard also corrects common misspellings like Profesional -> Professional
-Keyboard tries to predict next word (as shown at 24th May event), e.g. If you type I, then "tr", it will suggest "tried", whereas in WP7 it will suggest nothing. This seems to work pretty well
IE
- Websites seem to render more accurately
- Websites can use GPS data for location
- Bing suggestions now appear when typing a search in IE as well
- Text still looks garbled when really zoomed out
- Tab animation has changed very subtly
General OS:
- Same colour themes as last time
- It appears you can't "press and hold" the back button in the emulator, meaning possibly we can't do multitasking, even in an unlocked emulator.
Camera
- No changes in general layout. There seems to be a software camera button in the camera app
Can't wait for an unlocked emulator!
Update: If you search for something on Bing that has an application equivalent; it will show you a link to the application within Bing. Picture at the end.
Update 2: Additions to the keyboard section about prediction
Update 3: There seems to be a software camera button in the camera app
Update 4: It appears you can't "press and hold" the back button in the emulator, meaning possibly we can't do multitasking, even in an unlocked emulator.
Update 5: The "my location" icon now has the same colour as the OS theme
Here are some images;
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
fantastic write up
Thanks. Updated with one more thing If anyone else has things to add, I will update the list
Thank you for the infos you provided! I was wondering if there's any chance to explain a bit how does the "smart DJ" option in Zune, work?
Can you move songs around freely and then create the playlist or not? How does it work?
Thank you for your time!
Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work on the emulator. I'll let you know if I can get it working.
EDIT: To expand on that, it says "WE don't have enough info about this artist to generate a Smart DJ playlist"
"Bing music recognizes music like Shazam"
> Shazam inb4 out of business in wp7 lol.
fiinix said:
"Bing music recognizes music like Shazam"
> Shazam inb4 out of business in wp7 lol.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah especially as Shazam now costs money for unlimited tagging!
Robin.B said:
Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work on the emulator. I'll let you know if I can get it working.
EDIT: To expand on that, it says "WE don't have enough info about this artist to generate a Smart DJ playlist"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Who knows what "smart dj" option really is...
Anyway, thanks for your time and efforts!
On the zune player, the smart dj takes the song you are listening to, and creates a playlist of 25 or so songs that are similar to that song.
toza said:
Who knows what "smart dj" option really is...
Anyway, thanks for your time and efforts!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
its kinda like Pandora, auto creates a playlist based on your taste with songs from your library and also marketplace if u have a Zune pass. The Zune desktop software has it and so did the Zune HD I m guessing.
And yeah Bing music looks awesome, maybe thats why Shazam decided to remove their app from the marketplace
Awesome work so far Robin.B! We're writing an article about this post right now.
From the 7.1 Beta Release notes:
"The task-switching user interface that accessed on physical devices by pressing and holding the back button, is not supported on the emulator."
I was looking forward to checking that out, too
One of the main Mango's features: IE now supports HTML5! And with hardware rendering and acceleration! This benchmark http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/performance/fishietank/ gives me about 25-26 fps in emulator. Wow, MS! Real device will render at least 50-60 fps
P.S. Still no Silverlight support in browser :-(
@ jmerrey and cbebop7
Ah, that is the thing I was hoping not to get as an answer... I hope you agree with me, that that is kinda useless.
It would be much better if one could rearange the songs in wished order, and then save that as an playlist (of course, with a possibility of editing that playlist).
Task Switching is accessed by pressing and holding F1 on your keyboard.
I'm running the emulator and was looking forward to trying a few things, but my PC keyboard doesn't work in the emulator. Is this normal?
BlitterTwisted said:
I'm running the emulator and was looking forward to trying a few things, but my PC keyboard doesn't work in the emulator. Is this normal?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hit the page up to access your keyboard
Press "Pause/Break" key to enable PC keyboard.
neo158 said:
Task Switching is accessed by pressing and holding F1 on your keyboard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good Find...
How/where did you get the unlocked image?
I've been a huge Android fan since I ditched iPhone for N1, and the Galaxy Nexus is by far the best phone I've ever owned.
But there's one niggle about Android that drives me nuts and I can't see any possible UI reason why they do it this way. I hoped ICS would fix it to be more consistent, but it hasn't. It's when an app opens a session of a different app within itself.
For example... take a photo.. hit the thumbnail. It doesn't take you to the Gallery, it takes you to a thumbnail within Camera. Fine, I can understand that as a quick preview.
But now, hit that you want to edit it in, for example, PicSay. Or Tweet it. It will open the editor or twitter app. Except it doesn't. It opens it within the Camera. Want to leave an image to the editor, then go back an take another photo? You can't.
More annoying: tweet or email a web page with a comment. The mail or twitter app is brought up inside the browser. Want to check something on the web page to put into the message? You can't. It's impossible to flick back to the browser and look it up, because the message composition app is 'in front' of it. You're not taken out of the browser to the app you wanted so can't switch between the browser and your message composition.
I can't work out why it's done like this, I find it incredibly annoying. And now with the ICS recent apps list, if you hit home halfway through doing something like this the thumbnail for Browser will actually show Gmail, and it's the Browser and not Gmail you need to flick back to.
Why?
!!11oneone said:
But there's one niggle about Android that drives me nuts and I can't see any possible UI reason why they do it this way. I hoped ICS would fix it to be more consistent, but it hasn't. It's when an app opens a session of a different app within itself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Related annoyance. Because each application maintains that "history" (so you can hit back to get all the way out), many apps don't include their own "return to main app" button. You can just hit back, right? Not always.
Take Google Music, for example. Other music apps as well, probably.
Perfectly normal use case:
1). You open it up go to the song listing, pick an album or playlist or song or whatever and start playing.
2). Then you do other things. Email or something, whatever
3). You suddenly decide that want to hear a different song!
4). You go to the notifications tray and click the music icon there (since it's playing music, it's an ongoing app).
5). It opens up the music app to the currently playing song
Music app is open - it should be easy to play a new song, right? Nope. How do you pick a new song? If you had opened the app from a normal music icon, you could hit "back" to go back to the main page - since that progression is saved in the history from when you originally opeend it. But when you clicked it from the notification dropdown, there's no history. When you hit "back", it will just exit back to the Home screen, with the music still playing.
I can't count the number of times I've opened up the music app from the notifications dropdown, hit back, had it exit, and had to re-open music from the normal launcher icon.
Conversely, Twicca (my favourite twitter app) maintains an incredibly detailed 'back' history.
So, hitting back can go Search results > other search results > direct messages > direct messages (because you refreshed) > replies > replies > replies > replies (because the last 4 times you used the app was to check replies) > home
Se7enLC said:
Related annoyance. Because each application maintains that "history" (so you can hit back to get all the way out), many apps don't include their own "return to main app" button. You can just hit back, right? Not always.
Take Google Music, for example. Other music apps as well, probably.
Perfectly normal use case:
1). You open it up go to the song listing, pick an album or playlist or song or whatever and start playing.
2). Then you do other things. Email or something, whatever
3). You suddenly decide that want to hear a different song!
4). You go to the notifications tray and click the music icon there (since it's playing music, it's an ongoing app).
5). It opens up the music app to the currently playing song
Music app is open - it should be easy to play a new song, right? Nope. How do you pick a new song? If you had opened the app from a normal music icon, you could hit "back" to go back to the main page - since that progression is saved in the history from when you originally opeend it. But when you clicked it from the notification dropdown, there's no history. When you hit "back", it will just exit back to the Home screen, with the music still playing.
I can't count the number of times I've opened up the music app from the notifications dropdown, hit back, had it exit, and had to re-open music from the normal launcher icon.
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What's funny is Samsung's Music app handles this situation perfectly! The back button has the expected behavior of taking you back to the album/song list from which you came.
Google does not fully understand UI/UX yet. Take the Market app for instance. Scroll down to your list of purchased but not installed apps and check out the last time say, WidgetLocker, was updated. Check its date, hit the back button and what should it do? It SHOULD take you to the spot in your app list you were at. What does it do? Takes you to the top of your "Installed" apps list. Leaving you to scroll all the way back down to your original position in the list.
Coming from an iPhone 4, I have to say that there are a lot of things that Android needs to fix/improve. UI/UX is one of them. Although ICS is a huge step to the right direction. Having said that, to avoid conflicts, I say that I absolutely love my rooted Galaxy Nexus!
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mentose457 said:
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YESSSSS!!!!
This is how windows phone does it as well.. use the phone for a day and you can push the back button for hours.
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I just switched from an iPhone to a Pixel 2 XL. I do not have a very large data plan, so I took a suggestion from a friend and loaded all of my music into Play Music and then downloaded it onto my phone(put my songs into playlists and downloaded those). Now I have an issue where a lot of my explicit songs have been replaced with edited versions. I searched around and found there is an option "Fix incorrect match" in Play Music but I have already had a handful of songs that were like this and I just started using it today so I know there will be a lot more.
So my question is, if I use Android File Transfer to transfer my songs from my computer to my local device, will I still run into the same issue with songs being replaced with edited version? Should I look for a completely different Music Player and just sync my music to that?
I pay for Google Play Music and get all the explicit music I want. Although, I don't use offline option very much.
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If the track is available locally, i.e. on the device, the local copy should take precedence over the copy in the cloud.
I went ahead and tested some of the songs that were changed to the edited versions. So far, transferring with USB hasn't changed any of the explicit versions to edited versions. It will take awhile for me to transfer everything manually but I suppose it is better than having the edited versions. I am still not a huge fan of Play Music thus far.
Play Music isn't to everyone's taste, but I like having all my music available at a moment's notice. Granted, I could simply drag all 60+ GB of music I have onto my P2XL (128GB version) but I'd much rather use the space for movies.
The big issue people seem to have with Play Music is Google botching matches. For example, I have a copy of the Avril Lavigne single "Girlfriend" from her album "The Best Damn Thing". When I uploaded it Google botched the match and thought I had uploaded the German version of the song. I had to remove it from my collection and re-upload, because "Fix Incorrect Track" didn't work. Even now, it's not totally correct because I have the sanitized version in the Google Music collection. Another example: I have both the English and German versions of "99 Red Balloons" by Nena. Google went and converted the German version into the English release.
I will say however that I uploaded my music years ago, and Google's machine learning has improved since then.
I use an app called iSyncr to wirelessly sync all my music from my iTunes library on my Mac to my 2 XL. I use Pulsar+ music player and it works great.
If you were using Apple Music or something along those lines, then I'm not too sure.
I didn't realize Google Play Music does a matching process with your uploads. Even though I had tons up albums uploaded from my iTunes library, most of my uploads that I play are DJ mix CDs.
My clarifying questions are:
- One, are you're using the offline option on explicit songs that you uploaded but when make them offline, Google gives you the clean version right
- And two, do you have a Google Play Music subscription or are you using the free 50,000 upload capacity?
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@EeZeEpEe: The song matching is how Google can provide 320Kbps MP3s, regardless of the quality of the actual file. Using the Avril Lavigne song as an example, I have it on my HDD at 128Kbps, but the copy on Google Music is 320Kbps. It's also sanitized of course, but having one word in a song muted doesn't bother me.
Strephon Alkhalikoi said:
@EeZeEpEe: The song matching is how Google can provide 320Kbps MP3s, regardless of the quality of the actual file. Using the Avril Lavigne song as an example, I have it on my HDD at 128Kbps, but the copy on Google Music is 320Kbps. It's also sanitized of course, but having one word in a song muted doesn't bother me.
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Okay but for the songs that it can't match (My friends' CDs they made 15+ years ago before online distribution) it's playing the exact quality I uploaded right? Which is fine by me.
And my second question regarding having a subscription, the explicit version of most songs (Like that Avirl Lavigne example) is available as seen in my screenshot. So is this not matching because you don't have a subscription or you do have a subscription but for only for offline use it's still not giving you the explicit version and for streaming you do get it?
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Songs that Google can't match are uploaded to their servers at the quality you ripped them at. I can't answer your question about the subscription because Google hasn't said one way or another. However, I do know I don't have my copy of the song tagged the way yours is. Maybe that has something to do with it?
EeZeEpEe said:
I didn't realize Google Play Music does a matching process with your uploads. Even though I had tons up albums uploaded from my iTunes library, most of my uploads that I play are DJ mix CDs.
My clarifying questions are:
- One, are you're using the offline option on explicit songs that you uploaded but when make them offline, Google gives you the clean version right
- And two, do you have a Google Play Music subscription or are you using the free 50,000 upload capacity?
Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk
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Yeah, I found out that Play Music has some song matching algorithm that matches your song with songs already stored in their Play Music database. This is a good idea but apparently it is flawed as you tend to get mismatched songs like in this case. As far as I know, this happens both with and without a Google Play Music subscription.
Strephon Alkhalikoi said:
@EeZeEpEe: The song matching is how Google can provide 320Kbps MP3s, regardless of the quality of the actual file. Using the Avril Lavigne song as an example, I have it on my HDD at 128Kbps, but the copy on Google Music is 320Kbps. It's also sanitized of course, but having one word in a song muted doesn't bother me.
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It wouldn't necessarily bother me for songs that were edited for one or two words but with some of my songs that were edited had multiple words in the Chorus that were edited. Maybe I just need to start listening to cleaner music
patrkoch said:
Yeah, I found out that Play Music has some song matching algorithm that matches your song with songs already stored in their Play Music database. This is a good idea but apparently it is flawed as you tend to get mismatched songs like in this case. As far as I know, this happens both with and without a Google Play Music subscription.
It wouldn't necessarily bother me for songs that were edited for one or two words but with some of my songs that were edited had multiple words in the Chorus that were edited. Maybe I just need to start listening to cleaner music
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If that's the case, I would remove the clean versions from your library and add the explicit ones, if available, instead.
I actually turned on the "block explicit songs in radio" option because my wife doesn't like them anymore. Sometimes explicit ones still get through so the reverse isn't perfect either. LOL
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