Microsoft recently announced their new Your Groove service for Groove Music. The curated playlists are based off your current collection on OneDrive and, if you have a Groove Music Pass, there as well.
The first people to get their ears on Your Groove will be those on the Insider Fast Ring and while an update to Groove Music was supposed to go out yesterday, it evidently got stuck in the Store a bit. Luckily, you can get it now.
Build 3.6.2244.0 is now live for Windows 10 Mobile and Windows 10 PC for those on the latest Redstone Insider release. Besides adding Your Groove, this update also brings a few other improvements and fixes, including:
- Files opened in Groove from other applications (e.g. email) now continue playing in the background.
- The app now skips queuing up unplayable tracks when playing album/artist so your now playing queue is clean and tidy.
- We fixed the keyboard shortcut to support ESC to exit full screen now playing.
- We addressed a perf issue when playing a large playlist.
- We now attempt to recover from situations where playback appears "stuck".
- We added even more telemetry around playback as we continue to improve quality.
- We made some changes to improve the playback reliability for Groove Music Pass content in offline scenarios.
I just used Your Groove at the gym and so far, I'm impressed. The service could use a like/dislike binary feedback system, but I did like the recommended music it presented. I even bought a year Groove Music Pass with the hope Your Groove will continue to grow and improve, possibly replacing Pandora and definitely making up for Songza going to Google.
Since many people are still having separate Store update issues e.g. Check for Updates does not work, your best bet is to use either a direct link to Groove or just find it in the Store, you should see an Update button when you land on the app.
Let us know what you think of Groove and don't forget to give Microsoft feedback on what you want next. Remember, only those on the Fast Ring can get this update now, but it should be rolling out to other Insider rings in the coming weeks.
