SoundByte gives SoundCloud the Fluent Design treatment

By Sean Endicott
published

Music and audio content from SoundCloud sound great but now it looks great as well with SoundByte, the Fluent-designed SoundCloud client.

The Fluent Design System support extends to multiple Microsoft platforms as SoundByte is available for free on Windows 10, Xbox One, and Windows Holographic.

See SoundByte in the Windows Store (opens in new tab)

Design

SoundByte has pretty much every Fluent Design feature that we've seen leading up to the Fall Creators Update. It utilizes transparent backgrounds, hover over effects, and a transparent title bar.

Embracing these makes SoundByte a beautiful app on Windows 10 that looks natural on multiple form factors. In addition to having a fluent design, the app also has other Windows 10 features such as Live Tile support. By themselves, most of these aren't a big deal but when you have an app that brings them all together it fits very well into the Windows 10 ecosystem.

Features

It's a relatively simple app but that isn't a bad thing. It does what it's supposed to and does it well.

You can login as you normally would to SoundCloud. In addition to SoundCloud it also has Fanburst support, though that's in Alpha at the moment.

You can see charts as well as your personal stream of content you subscribe to and search for anything you'd like to find.

Continuing the app's trend of embracing Windows 10 design and features, SoundByte has a mini music player on PCs that you can click and drag around and use to control content. It's a very nice touch that makes it that much easier to use.

Limitations

SoundByte is a well featured SoundCloud client but being a third party SoundCloud app, it does come with some limitations. The developers admit this and while for most people they may not be deal breakers they're worth pointing out.

Some tracks won't appear within the app and some users will have issues logging in with their Google accounts. The app also doesn't support downloading tracks but they explain that this "respects the SoundCloud Developer API" so it isn't surprising.

Summing things up

SoundByte is a solid SoundCloud client available on multiple devices running Windows 10. It's feature set and design make it feel right at home in your library of Windows apps.

See SoundByte in the Windows Store (opens in new tab)

Sean Endicott
Sean Endicott
News Writer and apps editor

Sean Endicott brings nearly a decade of experience covering Microsoft and Windows news to Windows Central. He joined our team in 2017 as an app reviewer and now heads up our day-to-day news coverage. If you have a news tip or an app to review, hit him up at sean.endicott@futurenet.com (opens in new tab).

5 Comments
  • Acrylic title bar merging into acrylic sidebar smoothly while content is elevated thanks to shadow looks so great in white theme.
  • Holy S**T. They did it finally. This design language is similar to what MS shown off in that fluent design video. This is the first time I'm seeing shadow and this is dope.
  • This is what a windows app should look like. Really love it.
  • donated when fist got the earlier this month :)
  • Stunning! MS should make a way for web designers to make the Edge browser background transparent to see the desktop behind it on those special pages.