Xbox Music is pretty terrible on Windows Phone 8.1, but an update is near

Aye i strongly dislike the new "games".  Why must it reload the flipping list every time it opens, even when its restored.  why can i no longer rate and uninstall right there.  My 5 year old is very upset as well.  He doesn't like having the list empty. He gave me what in the world look every time.

Why isn't your 5yo in the Kid's corner?

Lol. My 2 year old can get out of kids corner.
Doesn't really help if they can get out by pressing power button

And why are there " try now" games mixed in with the games I've downloaded???

The try now option will be removed if u install lots of games

Agreed, that is another thing they messed up.

It is called a dev preview for a reason.

It still doesn't sync with Xbox one game achievements or Profile pics.

Just open the Smartglass for Xbox One. Your Gamerscore, friends, game clips, and a bunch of other things are there to view whether you're home or not.

True, but you would expect the game hub to be updated with information already. Maybe it will be fully updated in the official release.

Go to WMPoweruser. They have a link to update the games hub. I couldn't find it searching in the store.

It has updated today automatically to version 2.0.1404.11000
It looks a bit weird, icon is orange and screenshot is green with orange corner.
Here is the link to store: http://www.windowsphone.com/s?appid=50a6aef0-4f35-434b-9308-cb3251303ae4

Nah the music apps on droid are as good as it gets. I hardly listen to music on my phone, but if phone music was my thing then id be droiding it up for sure.

Lol this is worse then spotify, and that's saying something...

I dislike how they took away the toggle switch to sync. Always had it off as it was speedier to load the games hub that way. Now its a pain everytime I load it - always has to update and throws a error if there is no data connection. Compared to 8.0 this is a pretty sub par. Also the xbox sync for videos, music and games was battery hog on 8.0. Without being able to turn off the sync, there is no way of knowing if that is still the case.

Is what's app even there??... Do they know that there is WP 8.1 available.. And they haven't release an update from ages

Facebook purchased WhatsApp. All the devs are at your local Porsche dealer picking out their new cars. No time for coding now I'm afraid. I hear Viber is good.

Good post, pointing out flaws but not bashing while doing so.    Thanks for the complete list, hopefully this will slow down that fourm so people can talk about more constructive things.   People who download a PREVIEW need to understand what a preview is.

Articles on WPCentral have insisted that the Dev Preview is near enough the same as the final public release, so you can't blame them.

What does a music app separate from the OS have to do with a preview of the OS? Those are built by two different teams, so they can't really be held accountable for the same thing.

because it replaced a OS level app that was already not very good, and is even worse... Makes me wish I never complained about XBM in WP8.1... Lol

Because it wouldn't fly if it were Steve Jobs ok'ing the release.  Microsoft is worthy of such focus on user experience. 

What does iOS maps have to do with iOS? When it was released with iOS, people complained!

But the preview is the final release of the OS. It isn't a beta. My biggest beef with the music player is that when I go to skip a track on the drop-down menu, it takes it longer to process the "next" than it takes for the drop-down menu to recede. Ridiculous.

Its always a Beta until its Officially sent to youth phone by the Carriers. Maybe its not supposed to me that way, but this is Microsoft and that's the way it is.

Sure, but lots of functionnalities rely on updatable apps. Xbox Music is one of them and when comes the final release, the updated xbox music app will be there.

Yep finally, I've been waiting for WPC to bring this up. There was outcry when Zune was ditched and replaced with this when WP8 was released and this topic always garners the same response. The situation should be a whole lot better by now. MS have not just dropped the ball here, they've dropped it down a rabbit hole it seems.

It's just awful. Microsoft, it's been 18 months now still no cloud locker or metadata editing features. This is basic stuff that top tier competition has had for years.

Obviously the only thing they really give a fuck about when it comes to music is that it is available to buy from their store. I hate this so much, how hard can it be really.

I don't think it is the complete list. I can't find (or easily find) the setting to only play local and not cloud music.

FM radio has disappeared in 8.1

dig deeper :p

It's a separate app now, it should be listed in your apps list.

Why is there no play button, but only shuffle and search? What the duck is that about. You touch the shuffle icon and your collection starts to play. Weird.

LOL. You clearly haven't read the article about swearing In 8.1!

The play has been replaced by the shuffle button. It works the exact same way. Maybe people didn't understand that the play button shuffled their music.

When you are browsing music it gives you the option to look at All Music, On The Phone, and Streaming. Little green link at the top you can click.

hit the setting button and tell and turn it off (stream cloud collection)

A PREVIEW should also be a mechanism to make sure they don't ship a messed up product.

The preview is in fact an OS that has been RTMed. So yes, people are right to complain. I m not complaining about stuff that will be in an OEM firmware.

+ lots. Fed up of the whining.

Well. The OS code is final, at least in its feature set. There will be bug fixes developed as OEMs and carriers do their testing of their configurations of each device, both brand-new devices like the Lumia 630, 635 and 930, and for upgrades to WP8 devices. I hope that those bug fixes will actually be released as cumulative updates similar to the Windows 8 General Availability Update Rollups, and occur more frequently than we saw with Windows Phone 8. (Assuming that WP8 wasn't silently installing such updates already!)   Because Microsoft know that the general public aren't actually going to get the new OS until at least May, they have a little more time to complete apps that can be updated through the Store, even if they do ship within the initial OS image. With Windows 8, we also saw the 'in box' apps being updated significantly from when the core OS was finalized (1 August 2012) to the actual General Availability date of the OS (26 October 2012). For example, Mail/Calendar/People/Messaging was changed on 9 October: http://winsupersite.com/article/windows8/windows-8-app-update-mail-calendar-people-messaging-144471. Given that apps are automatically downloaded in the background, the first buyers of new phones may not even notice the poor behaviour of the current version.   But you're right: people who have opted into a Preview for Developers programme shouldn't really be complaining when 'system' apps aren't feature-complete, before the official release date of the software. What should matter for developers is that the APIs they're writing code for are feature-complete and reasonably bug-free.

I disagree. Whether they have labeled it as a preview release or not, the fact is that people really have a right to expect something as basic as a fully functioning music player as a working app on a top end smartphone such as the Lumia 930. If it's the final release then it should work properly, period.

I don't understand how it consistently gets worse! I'm not sure what to expect from the update TBH...

Downdates :|

Ive never actually been pleased with any music programs MS has ever developed. I think they need to review there position and future planning and start from the ground up. They could do better.

That was the whole Point of XBOX MUSIC, but all the ZUNERS keep bashing it.

Because it sucks. They eliminated the excellent Zune software and replaced it with the crappy, useless Xbox music software that even still isn't ready. They essentially forced a major downgrade on very happy customers. Stupid move.

"They eliminated the excellent Zune Software"..umm really? it still works for me. The only difference is they didn't add WP8 support. And unless you're an XBOX MUSIC PASS Subscriber from the Zune days, I really see no reason for the Bitching. Just use the WP App for desktop to sync your music and use iTunes, WMP, or Zune to manage it.

Because, the app on the phone sucks as well. Not just the desktop one.

Yea really, why doesn't this guy just use 3-4 programs to get the same functionality that he used to get by only using Zune. Makes perfect sense.

They're only using that to "Sync" their music. That's the only purpose of that App. If you want to continue to use Zune to Manage your Music on WP8, it's the only way to do it. When you connected your WP7, Zune would open. Now, WP App for Desktop opens when you do this. And they both serve the Same exact purpose. To Sync Music from "Zune" or in this case you can even sync it from your iTunes library if you so choose. So, you're getting syncing capabilities with an added feature of syncing from another program that is not Zune. Again, if you're not a Subscriber, don't see you're issue really. It's not Rocket Science. 

When I first left Blackberry a few years back, the Zune media management was what brought me to WP. I wanted an all encompassing media solution which had me thinking Apple, but historically I have not been a fan of them. Zune is why I chose WP over Android. I could easily sync all of my music, videos, and podcasts. With WP8 I lost podcast sync support which was a huge killer for me and it required me to use a stand alone podcast service that frankly wasn't as good as Zune. Xbox Music is much more subscription focused, which I'm also not interested in.

Zune is not just a syncing platform. It is a media purchasing and media playing platform as well as a subscription service which outmatches any current service that MS offers today, save for the period-norm DRM. You never really used Zune did you?

And what was its original use for? Their Zune line, which died in 2009...5 years ago... No, I've never used ZUNE. I don't have a ZUNE HD that I sync to it on a weekly basis, don't use it to download my 10 songs credits either. And whenever I want to download a new song, I don't download them thru Zune...I have no idea what I'm talking about /s

I have always been a big windows phone advocate. The simplicity, the excelent hardware and the fact that my mom can use all the features WITHOUT CALLING ME. Still the reason I even got my good ol samsung focus and titan was because of zune pass. I had a zune 80, 120(my dad still uses and loves it) and an HD. The desktop software was the best combined with zune pass. Easy management and syncing. I still havent figured out how to manage my library in xboxmusic. Its an atrocious mess now. Plus music playback is nowhere near where it was with the HD. No gapless playback on my phone....   Come on microsoft just make the xbox music app for phone and desktop very zuneish. You can keep the new look but I want the simplicity and fuctunality back. This has been a sore point for me for almost four years now.....

I absolutely used Zune (no Zune pass) every day. You may have just read my post wrong.

I AM a Pass subscriber from the Zune days...!

I am also an Xbox music pass subscriber from the Zune days. So there's my bitching credentials.

Me too, I don't think El-Ojo realizes that we are complaining about more than just syncing. The whole damn system is far more limited than it used to be. There was a time when i used to spend all kinds of time curating my music collection and album art, then when i started using Zune i began to see less and less of a point in going through all those hoops just to play my music. Microsoft and Zune were doing a decent job and at $15/mo. and with 10 credits it made financial sense since the value of a CD (which i bought often back then) was dropping. Zune was far from a failure. Zune was the inspiration for WP and further Windows 8. Since then, they have made the device experience more limited and sluggish, taken away the ability to find new music easily by genre in the software, crippled the live tile, removed major navigation methods, and made it more difficult to mangage music on the device through a PC connection. This is hardly just a syncing issue. We hate these changes so much partly because they weren't needed. But mainly, at least imo, because it feels like they have taken us loyal Zune users, who were instrumental in building off of Zune to get to WP7/8 and Win8, and tossed us aside. Where is the love for a loyal Zune fan?

Yep Xbox Music app sucks big time. The zune desktop client is still one of the best Media app out there and I still use it to playback and organize my content. Most of the current music apps from Beats, Spotify are all borrowing ideas from that old 2008 zune desktop client. The media player that was on WP7 was just a updated zune app that actually worked pretty well. We had wifi sync plus file transfer to other zune device way b4 apple. All those features should have made it to WP7 and improved on in 8.0. 2014 it's like they are going back in time. You shoud read these comments on this link below. Most of these people are coming to WP for the first time or coming from WP7. They plug in their phone and it dosen't work out the box, or they download the Xbox Music app and it distroys their collection by addind duplicate files, missng album art and a slew of other crap. MS drop the ball plane and simple.  http://windowsphone.uservoice.com/forums/101801-feature-suggestions/sugg...

my most missed features were the ability to unsync songs automatically if they had a dislike and u could get update playlist when u woke up thanks to its ability to download artists playlist as songs arrived. oh yea all that was done while u were charging wirelessly long before anybody thought of that idea

This! It is the reason I bring my Zune with me instead of just listening to music on my phone, so I can clean up my music collection by disliking songs after downloading discographies of bands. They should have never removed that functionality.

The Xbox Music app is just the glitchy, slow loading, no live tile Xbox Music Beta app that was worse than the standard Music & Video's hub, except now it's the default program and we have no other option. In fact it's glitchier and crappier now that it doesn't say Beta!

I'm generally pretty happy with Microsoft apps but this is pretty bad. I'm still pissed at the removal of podcasts. Now I have to go into a whole other app...that crashes! Just get it together guys. An artist screensaver would be be very nice. Is it really too much to ask? Duck!

Yeah, I really don't see why they had to remove the podcast and make it another app, it should all just be in one place. 

Yep. All media should be in one hub. 

Touché ksmith

I love WP8.1. They've done nothing but improve and hopefully Music will be priority this round. I enjoy Pandora at least :)

They HAVE started from the ground up.  Several times now, in fact.  That's kind of the problem.  That's why the general software model for an "upgrade" is "fix your bugs and add new features," not "throw it away and start over again." (Ask Netscape how good an idea it is to rewrite things from scratch.)

Yeah, I wish I had a chance to experience Zune based on how positively people speak of it. I've considered getting Nokia Music, but with the acquisition, u don't know what would happen to the service or the music I would get.

zune was amazing, both the device and the software, it was the very beginning of microsofts current ui language.. was also very well thought out.. functional prettier... and imho.. the name was way more apealing than "xbox music"

It was very nice. I personally hope they can bring back the old Zune experience but add in the ability to edit playlists (the one new feature of xbox music that was added instead of taken away) and bring in the Nokia Music feature where it lets you know if an artist you like is playing nearby.

Just bring back Zune! Imagine WP music app is the whole Zune experience. One can only imagine.

Ditto. Surely the developers can see what we can see?

Was slow and glitchy at first. Just freezes now. However, pleased to hear confirmation that an update is on its way.

This is great news, I resorted to my old iPod because of how slow the app got at finding my music Facebook/Skype/Twitter updates are always great to hear too :D  

i find it faster to just use cortana she does really well with music

^ THIS! Works so good, especially when connected to my car BT. I just say, "play Judas Priest" and within seconds it starts playing. It's absolutely great.

That is really great, it works very well. Even if you say a song's name incomplete it will play the music.

Also, the shuffle all button (or any playlist generated by selecting a song in the all songs list) creates a playlist of only 100 songs. So if I would want to shuffle-repeat-all, I would have to manually add all of my 1000 songs to a playlist by tapping on them... And the messaging hub is being stripped too! It's only SMS from now on, so instead of the old Windows Phone 'Hubs' mindset, we are migrating to a 'launcher' mindset with some deeplinking functionality (contant binding) instead of conglomerated content. Of course FB messenger support was lacking in the WP8.0 hub, but the hub should have been improved with a better (open?) API instead of this in my opinion. Tip: Also, I was afraid I lost my comma key on the keyboard, but it was just automatically switched off and can be turned on with a special setting in the Settings > keyboard > advanced section

Thanks for the tip on getting the comma back!

I can understand that some people want it back, but I am so relieved it's gone. I was always hitting it instead of the spacebar!

Yeah, FB app takes waaaaay to long to load.

thats fb problem they made all os have seperate messaging apps

If you don't want to hear my longwinded How'd We Go From Zune Desktop To This?! speech, I suggest you remove the article stat!!

The 'skip forward' and 'skip back' on my jaybird blubudxs don't work anymore :(

I hope it is soon.   With every update they have managed to make it worse. I just don't get it.

The French are developing it, IIRC. I guess working 25 hour weeks with 2 months of vacation can impact productivity. 

Why should we be expecting new apps anyway? We are developers right? We should be making our own apps ;)

Key apps need to be from MS; no 3rd party apps can replace them no matter how good they are.  

Actually the music app could come from someone else. Microsoft has given access to Xbox Music for developers so anyone can create an app that works with your music collection.

Exactly right been working on an app using both mixradio and xbox music now that its apis are open hoepfully i can use all three last.fm, mixradio and xbox restfuls to create a unique experience

That would be awesome!!! Right now I hate how the only way to scrobble to last.fm is to download every song before playing it and then scrobble manually with an extra app. I can't wait for an app to scrobble automatically even when a song is streamed.

That's not the right attitude for Microsoft to have, and is most likely the attitude that's crippling the growth of the Windows 8 ecosystem. If the OS's own company can't be bothered making quality apps for the platform, why should we? In fairness though, it's more of a problem on Windows 8. On Windows Phone 8 this is the only MS app thats really disappointing. By contrast, their Podcast app is pretty much flawless.

I agree it sucks, worse than the beta app I was using on 8.0. Kinda pissed that I ponied up the dough for a yearly subscription and it's nearly unusable on my phone. Fix it, MS!!!!!

I'm pretty stoked to see what Twitter will be bringing to the table

Same here

Hopes it comes out real soon I need my music. I guess we can't complain too much this is a developer preview

Its not too bad once it gets all your music indexed, but it does need some work. Good to see the patch coming out soon

If your music collection isn't too big it isn't so bad, but when you have close to a thousand albums it's almost unusable...

I have 737 albums and its not as bad as people make it out to be. And thats that I'm on a Lumia 521.

I started using the Xbox Music app after it was released last year because unlike the built in Xbox Music player adding music to my phone through the new player actually adds it to my library on other devices. I've been a Zune/Xbox music subscriber for a number of years and all I have is cloud music and works well enough. Obviously look forward to updates but agree it's not that bad.

What do you mean once it gets your music indexed? Mine feels it has to grab everything every start. Can't access anything until it does so. I have a small amount of music on the device only for when I am offline. Otherwise the ,cloud can't do its thing.

Weird. Try reinstalling. Mine just indexed once and doesnt do it again unless I add more music via PC or some other device.

Is music + videos gone? Because if Xbox Music is the only option and still requires a pass, I may have issues...

Just use Nokia MixRadio...it does a pretty good job of playing local files - and is obviously v.good at creating entire music mixes

Dont need a xbox music pass anymore.

The hub is gone, but the app does not require a subscription on 8.1

Like Ticomfreak said, no need for a subscription anymore. From what I heard you can even stream music for free without needing a subscription (I haven't tested it since I have a subscription).

Any idea when Spotify is going to get an update? Or Ebay for that matter?

Heard Spotify is coming very soon, and eBay was supposed to be 'this spring'.

Good news. I am waiting for Spotify update as well...

Horrible experience. And its getting worse and worse...

It's a good thing you have a NOKIA. I'm sure it's a WONDERFUL experience in NOKIA MIX

Nokia MixRadio can't be installed in Chile. I desperately need a new music app, or I'll have to rely on last chance, emergency audio file players like Moli.

mmm MPATool not work in this u.u i'll miss the background images

+1

+1520

I'm sure in due time he will release a new version. At least I hope so....

Dammit, they should bring Zune HD player controls and graphics to the Music Player. Still to this day is the best music player out there.

+920

+930

Its kind of funny that they kind of killed the product and software that was the inspiration for Modern UI, and can't create anything as good.

Exactly. Why is it so hard? Why does it keep getting worse? It's bullshit that I am paying for this garbage.

+ZuneHD. Man wish this was true.

ill be happy with Audiosurf Tilt greatest game ever created, what ever happened to the simple porting of zune apps to windows phone they teased us about every six months or so

The New games hub sucks too

Yeah both have to reload all items every time you open it.  I love 8.1, but if we could get old Music hub, old Games hub, and the option to only show Games in the hub, 8.1 would be perfect IMO.  I never had a Zune, so the 8.0 Music experience was fine for me.

Zune player software as well as hardware was top notch. Even WP 7 had better music experience than 8.1

WP7 had a great music experience, and is the second thing that drew me in after design. Shame to see it get progressively worse year by year.

I think people took this PREVIEW thing over the top. It's a preview and dare I speculate not the final version to be released 'in the coming months.'

But the stock WP8 app is poor too, this is supposed to make it better - it doesn't!

Oh Simon, Simon....it will get better. That's all I got.lol But seriously I don't believe Microsoft really plans to leave the music experience this way and not improve it. At least my optimism would lead me to believe that they can't be that dumb.

Haha, I hope you are right, but the evidence for the last 2-3 years says otherwise :(.

And I think people don't understand what the PREVIEW in DEV PREVIEW is supposed to mean. It doesn't mean you're running a beta or preview version of the software. It means you are getting to preview the full RTM version of the software without having to wait for your OEM then carrier to push it to you. 

Good point too.

you may say that, but it is only partially true... while the OS may be a preview of the final code for developer purpose, the apps are actually a differnet situation, since almost all apps are now broken out form the OS itself and can be updated independently... meaning that development on some of those will be ongoing until the first phone running 8.1 is sold....

It might be RTM but it's not final. The previous GDR3 preview had an updated after it was released. I forget whether it was updated via the carrier & firmware release or slightly before.  

It's annoying when I want to pin a list of songs to my Start screen, and it just begins to play the album without any list view at all. I'm going to wait for Spotify Free and just use that. Spotify is cheaper anyways, with a better library.

Rudy tweeted that he is working on one as well, I wonder if he's working with the Microsoft team like he did with the lock screen app?

I would certainly love a 6box Music app!!!   What's his twitter account?

I'd pay $50 for a good music app at this point

I stick to Spotify and Nokia mix radio......

Seriously what is wrong with Microsoft? They destroyed a perfectly good player with the transition to WP8, and now the music player is regressing. Seriously, it's not that hard. It almost seems like they are intentionally trying to sabotage themselves.

I use Nokia MixRadio ;)

It really is pretty bad, glad to know we'll get an update soon. At least I'm happy that after 1 year I'm finally able to get my playlists synced to my phone through the WP metro app on Win8.1. That's something! Baby steps :)

You should add, to the list of complaints that the album and artist art does not always show up. The app is poor at detecting metadata of mp3 files; I have everything taged with MP3tag and all metadata 100% correct yet Xbox music often fails at showing it right. Windows 8.1 fails at this completely as well. The only MS app that detects all of my metadata 100% correct is WMP in Windows 7.  

+925
I don't understand why this is not working...

Game hub in 8.1 is worst than befoure

Lost my Radio too! How do you listen to Radio?

It is a seperate app called radio. Do you not have that? What region are you? Langague?

Now I found it, it's called FM radio... Thanks!

I am surprised how bad the Xbox Music app is in it's current state. Granted, in my opinion, the Music + Video app before it was barely passable as it was (when considering the stock Android and iOS apps). I like XBOX Music and pay for the monthly service. I'd love to not be punished for using a Microsoft service and get a quality music app! So far, in my experience, it seems the Music, Video, and Podcast apps are the low points of the WP 8.1 update. The vast majority of everything else has been rather good.

I've never had a podcast app before...so no frame of reference. But, the music podcasts I've downloaded thus far have played flawlessly..
I just want the new lock screen thing so I can scroll through the podcast from the lock screen. Joe Belfiore tweeted that the custom lock screen would be coming - but presumably wasn't ready for initial release

At least they are away of it.

IE11 also need a update, destop version of some site doesnt work (Facebook, WPcentral).

Some pages on mlb.com render terrible.

Its funny because me and my brother was just speaking a out how much Xbox music app sucks on WP.. I just really need one thing.. And that is the ability to send the music I am playing on my phone to my Xbox one...

you cant use smart glass and search within app while ur music plays or us nokia playto and u can play all local files that way

I hope it comes quickly. I have 28k songs in the cloud, it only indexed half of them, drained the battery like a thirsty hooker while doing it (even though it was plugged in), heated the phone up to boiling, and now just displays a black screen on Artists. The application is total pants.

What exactly is the deal with Xbox Music. Does it match your existing offline music collection...and then create a cloud version? How many songs does it allow us to store (Google Music saves 20,000 personal songs if memory serves...?)

"Does it match your existing offline music collection...and then create a cloud version?" Yes, but only if they have the music available in the store. So, if your music is not available in the store, it won't be in the cloud. "Google Music saves 20,000 personal songs if memory serves...?" This is the only thing they have that I'm jealous off. We Really Really Need a locker for Music Not matched, but to also be integrated with our cloud collection.

Thanks for the reply...that explained it nicely! Having used Google Music, I can't say I'm envious of that service. It was always buggy and sloooow (on an Xperia Arc S, and also to a certain extent on my Note 2 - my last Android device).
I can't remember the last time I delved into my personal music collection - there's about 50GB in there...but I prefer music discovery these days (then saving those discovered songs either in Spotify Free, or caching the music for offline playback in Metrotube).
Hopefully MS will pull their finger out and give us a proper cloud service for our music so I can *forget* about my hard drive copies.

About time! And a Twitter app update? FINALLY!

Not forgetting that: 1) the sync experience is woeful too. If you have lots of music that you already own, this post Zune music experience treats you as a second class citizen. 2) Streaming is not a suitable solution for everybody, and the music matching with the cloud also isn't fit for purpose. 3) why after all this time are there still problems with duplicates and 'unable to play' DRM issues. It's promised to get better with every upcoming release, but these are all sadly just baby steps (especially compared with Zune). It's just such a shame.

And if you delete a song that happens to have a duplicate it delets it from your cloud too.

Nailed it, thank you!

Oh and also, if you download a track to the phone, it still sometimes tries to stream it, what's that all about!? Most other apps give you the choice or at least warn if you're about to use premium data. Not this app, instead it just chews through your data plan, even if the file is available locally. Crazy!

i think thats an error when i would use the beta app to download songs it would show as streaming in the original xbox music hub but when i switched back it would show as local 

Isn't the Facebook app already updated for 8.1? The official app seems to have jumped ahead of beta app. I currently have version 8.1.4.4 installed.

I don't think i'll be updating to WP8.1 until the update to the music app comes. It's probably the app I use the most

Really hope the Skype update means it can be integrated into the messaging hub! PLEASE!!!

I really don't know why they ditched Zune!! It was awesome!

I dont understand why they had the change the app from zune like they coulda just changed the name and not changed everything

Alright! Good to see. I will hold out hope that the FB and Music app make my Lumia 521 more pleasant to use again. I love all the other updates, but these two apps really bring down the whole experience, at least on my phone. In addition to the issues mentioned in the article (especially the lack of history is galling), what used to feel like a snappy phone now feels severely underpowered when running those two apps especially. Can't wait for this update.

I agree with this post 1000%!

+925 we really really need a decent FB app

Really hope they fix the game hub too

The good thing about Xbox Music sucking so much is that I finally gave Nokia MixRadio a chance, and MS will really have to work hard to get me back to Xbox Music now.  

Yeah, it's enough for me to consider dropping my monthly Xbox Music Pass and paying for the premium Nokia Mix Radio, which I turn to more often now.

Is miix radio coming as apart of the deal? Innoscene question. Posted via the WPC App for Android!

Okay, I don't care much about playlists or all the other missing stuff from the previous XBOX Music app (although I don't see a reason why they aren't available now) but I have this major annoying issue: When I play my songs on shuffle, assuming I start with a song that starts with an "A" all the tracks coming are going to start with either an "A" or a "B" that's it. It won't shuffle my entire library. I am guessing this is because I have my music stored on my memory card? But I've had the same music on my memory card with WP8.0 so I don't know what's wrong.

she tell cortana play all, and shuffle it

Awful is an understatement, and it baffles me that they have had so much time to improve the music experience and yet they taketh away. And a huge disappointment for me in this update overall, is the HUBS of People, Photo, Messaging, Music, and Games, Why! I can't upload a picture from my photos to OneDrive anymore, have to open OneDrive to import, I dont get it Microsoft, what was beneficial in doing this, maybe for some people, but definitely not me!

I have no problem with it on 8.0, works great even on my low end 521.

And it drains the battery on my 920 like a bastard.

+8S

Really strange. They had a rather good music player which was a relic from the Zune days. Why not learn from your own experience? I dont get why the Music app has to be this terrible. They know what needs to be done and how to do it. It's a good thing we also have Nokia's music player...

Why is the heart icon a big deal? Didn't you run a story about how it has no purpose anymore?

Touché. Since 8.0 doesn't work with Zune, the heart button doesn't serves a purpose. BUT if there were to create a new music app (not that ducking* Xbox Music) like Zune then it would be a whole different story. Man, can't they just bring back Zune, create a Windows Store app out of it and then just rename it as Xbox Music whatever. COME ON!!!

well originally it influenced songs that were played and you could auto sync your library by discarding songs with broken hearts kinda like many radio apps do now. With that and wireless syncing i had a new refreshing list of songs as well as on deman if i needed. THink more mixradio and xbox music as one app = zune 

Looking forward to the optimized Facebook and Twitter I knew it was a preview and I expected some drawbacks but oh well that's the early adopter price :D either way I love the update

Thanks the Zune gods. I thought I was the only one having issues with the Music App. I thought it may have been because I still have the grandfathered "10 credits" account and this was their way of getting me to switch off. Can't wait for the update. Though telling Cortana "Play Passenger" is really cool!

Any word on a podcast update?

I had it on trial. But prefer deezer.

It is pretty clunky, plus I am frustrated that Cortana will not play my Playlists.. She plays an artist, album, song fine but she won't play my playlists. Which is unfortunate since really all I use are playlists.

She plays the playlists fine....at least mine..

Interesting, do you have to say anything special? I am just saying play "playlist name". Doesn't work for any of the three playlists I have though. Although the same command works for Artists, Albums and Songs just great.

I have found Cortana won't play any music that is in the cloud.

Some tracks are also missing in the playlist.

GRRRRRR this just drives me insane. While I realize this is a beta but....................... Z U N E Which I still use on Windows 8.1 btw, haha. Sometimes I think MSFT forgets what made an iPhone an iPhone.... the iPod and iTunes....

+8X

Gapless music playback. One of those platform issues that iPhone users bring up. And for anyone who listens to dance music you'll want it.

Agree on all the points and feel it's a step back as well, but I get the reason, which is the ability to add features without having to release OS updates. Looking forward to any and all app updates...

It's the same app just on a different channel hence the 8.1 prefix we should get an update soon

Don't get me started on the video app though. It just crashes on launch.:|

How do I fix that, please, I'm trying to watch breaking bad and all of a sudden it crashes and I can't watch anything. Please help!!

Yea the new music app need some serious work.
I want my Artist Backgrounds back ! Since we are talking Media, I'm not particularly fond of Photos app either .... The old one was better.

Even Xbox games is not working after the update..says Xbox service currently unavailable -_-"

It really is terrible, and it's shocking that they pulled that off. Music on WP8 was already considerably worse than WP7.5. What was a strength in mango had become a glaring, barely usable weakness.

I do like the navigation layout. Especially the addition of radio for Xbox music fans. The potential is there just needs to be more stable and have a live tile.

Also the lock screen album art is not working. And I don't see music settings! May be because of live lock screen. May be they plan to run lyrics on top of live lock screen, like a karaoke :)

Add one more complaint: Music is not showing up at all! (bought Xbox cloud music)

I hope it gets better. The music account is one of the main reasons I've been sticking with WP.

I haven't upgraded to the preview version of WP so I'm still on 8, but the music layout is rubbish. SO POOR. I still use google because it is so much easier.  I want ONE list of music across ALL my MS devices ( I use Windows 8.1U1) for all my music. If I buy new music it is available to me. If I want to pin or save music onto my phone then fine. Nothing more to be said. I am loving my WP8 phone but please get the music sorted.

The sluggish loading is driving me nuts. I use my phone as my mp3 player and its just ridiculous how long it takes. The new Games app is just as bad too.

Found an app called 'in reach' last night... Simple swipe app good for night driving... Can't do anything but play random... But will get me by for now

swipe tunes is better good for driving or normal

Not getting live tiles notifications of WP central please help!!!!

If they do add that Android app emulation, the bright side is that we could use the Xbox Music Android app, which isn't nearly as pants (though still not great).

Hopefully the update will be named Zune 2. I'd be very interested if that's the case.

"Let’s hope so, because the Music experience has been steadily declining since the good old Zune days" Had to mention Zune eh? I wonder how many of the people whining even ever owned a Zune. Cause there seems to be a LOT of 'em. I mean, if you're a TRUE ZUNER, you would have a Zune and not be whining all the time about XBOX MUSIC, cause you would be Rockin' that Zune.

I have a Zune, I have the old plan that lets me keep 10 songs per month, and I will say the complaints are COMPLETED justified. Especially given the reality that because Microsoft stopped supporting Zune, the software is steadily becoming buggier and buggier. Soon, the only real choice WILL be the Xbox music app, so out had better be up to par!

Odd, Cause I also have a Zune and the software is pretty stable for me. XM App on the other hand is buggy... So, I only use it to manage my cloud music. I also have the 10 songs. You don't see me Bitching all the time. I understand if you have an issue though, you're a subscriber, but I feel that a lot of these commenters never even had a Zune and probably just use it with WP7 or if they did, they no longer have or are no longer subscribed to XM. So, their issues are not justified as you're still able to use Zune and the WP App for desktop in tandem.

For my part, my experience with Zune these days is that alot of album art no longer syncs, and for some reason some random songs' audio gets overridden with podcast audio, who knows why.

Wait so even if some people didn't own a physical Zune media player, that doesn't give them the right to bitch for a platform they wish just the best for? 'Cause otherwise they wouldn't been bitching in the first place. Whoa.

Exactly! No, you don't understand what I'm saying. What I am saying is that you could still use "ZUNE" to manage your music. The only difference is you would need the WP App for Desktop to "SYNC" your music. Nothing more. I understand the complaints of the ZUNERS, I am one...because of all those Duplicates, DRM, Cloud, etc and etc issues. If you don't have a Pass, I really don't see how you're having a problem using the Zune Software. It's still a Terrific Piece of Software and you're still able to sync your music, playlists, etc. Albeit, now you're just using a "Sync App" to do so.

The Zune music player was built into WP 7 and WP 7.5. People upgraded their phones and are unhappy that their music experience has been severely downgraded. I had a Zune HD but it broke, so I carried on using my HTC HD7 instead, but it was so disappointing to see what had happened after switching to WP8.

I never owned a Zune, but the Zune software + WP7 Music + Video Hub was 10x better a combination than what we have now.

You're experience shouldn't change then, since you can just use the WP Desktop App to sync all those Zune Playlists and Music and whatnot.

Not to a WP8 phone you can't.

Yes, you can. I've done it several times, including right at this moment. He doesn't have an XM pass, so I see no issue. I can see how it would be a problem if you're a subscriber like you or me. Just not for him or anyone else that doesn't have a subscription.

Maybe because they enjoyed Zune on WP7 and want that functionality back? Also, you can't sync your music from desktop Zune to WP8. People are whining for a very good reason.

I just did that RIGHT NOW using the WP App for Desktop. Use Zune to manage your music, if you don't have a pass, then use the Desktop App to Sync. Don't like Zune Software? Use iTunes. If you have a pass, then I don't recommend that.  

So now there's an intermediate between Zune and Windows Phone. Gee, efficiency!

I was speaking about Zune itself; I know you can sync through WP App but it doesn't have the features and fluidity of Zune, which should just be updated and given the Xbox rebrand. It's not much to ask for since many people that moved over to WP wanted it to be kept the same. Works for iPhones.

Still no gapless playback either and I'm not sure a new 'app' is going to fix that.

Hopefully, a new app CAN fix that now.  Probably not from Microsoft (they've made it pretty clear how much they value the music experience), but from a third-party developer.

Thank you for this thread, IMO, since going from Zune to XB music it has been garbage and im not talking anout bugs im talking featureless and piss poor comparitively speaking. There is no fucking way anyone at MS uses this app, no way. And if they do and if they say this app is great then they jave never used Zune software. Yes, I know Zune is dead which is very sad. I realize there was a DRM change but your telling me you couldnt add the features of Zune and rebrand it XBox music? The music features of Zune were the only thing I cared about not changing and thats all they have done(MS). They have made a boring hard to use app that in no way is for music lovers like Zune was....I could go on but who cares or gives a fuck? No one at MS. Listen I have 4 WP phones, 2 tablets and a XBone so I am definatley a consumer of there products but this disregard for the Music app is embarrasing and ignorant. Should i post again about how hard they make it to buy music or how difficult it is to figure out which songs I own or have subscribed to??? If my old 32gb Zune hd had bluetooth I would have never upgraded all my pc's to W8. So sad and pathetic, but I keep holding on hoping someone at MS will get their shit together but its been almost 2 years now or more and still, incomplete music app. Well this is it, the last year for me, if MS doesnt get their shit together by this year im signing up for Beats, and go back to buying cds or use amazon......Can you hear me MS!!!!! For the last time: Screensaver function during music playback and I dont give a fuck if it drains my battery or starts it on fire!! Allow sorting of music by what I own and what i subscribe to, also allow the heart to stay static so if i want to just buy 3 tracks off an album i know which 3!!! As with above allow on the phone/tablet/pc the ability to buy multiple tracks at once or whole playlists!! This is 2014 you know. Please have a New Releases tile as well as sorting new releases by genre, not everyone wants to listen to katy perry what about The Orwells or The cunninglynguists??? What about having a $5 dollar album bin as a tile ???? Amazon does shit like this.... Waiting for your company (MS) to actually LISTEN TO PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY HAVE USED YOUR SERVICES FOR YEARS, WOULD BE A GREAT WAY TO START. Also, until this app is fixed you should have teams of developers working on this night and day til its complete, check my music purchasing history, since i left zune i have purchased less than 20 songs. Check my purchase history before that I loved buying music. God I miss Zune!!! advappliance@live.com

I vote this the comment of the thread. I salute you sir!

Its seems so obvious to us, just rebrand Zune as Xbox music kepp all the features and Walsh terrific music app, maybe the best music app.

Dude, yes to all of that. YES

You sir deserve to be heard! You put all our words into this post.

Thanks and you know, we are all waiting for a proper music app that replaces Zune, I'm just wondering how many years it will take to get it released. MS seems lil they have no direction, please take your Ritalin and fix the music app.

+920 really dont understand, it is like they fired zune (competent) programmers and change them with a bunch of newbie and produce this xbox music p.o.s

Even 2.5 stars is being pretty generous.  

Jesus, it's not THAT bad.

Yes, its that bad LOL

Listen did you read my post? Have you ever used Zune software? I used to spend hours on my laptop hitting the related tab, it made me fall in love with music again that's why its so hard to use the current app. Its a joke.

Dude, yes it is that bad. It is a pretty app with terrible functionality.

Is it the advertising ID?

Only problem I've had is music duplicating and and some weird problems with tracks.

The only thing that disappoints me about the update is Xbox Music...so far.  Communications-check, photos-check, MUSIC-fail...it is a big thing after all.

All of this

Playlists are still capped at 100 songs, too.

Head of Microsoft Joe belfiore, really I thought that was nadalla

This is obviously great news, and it's great news regarding other new apps in WP 8.1 too. For example, the new Games hub/app still doesn't show Xbox One achievements. You would expect this to be fixed by 'General Availability' in the coming weeks. (When the first official 8.1 phones come out.)

You can view Xbox One achievements with the Xbox One Smartglass app.

Yes - the Games Hub still feels quite unfinished (slow to load, refreshes when it does load, XBox One Achievements still not supported, even loss of notifications/etc. that 8.0 had... and of course, games are in the main app list instead of just in the hub, which is irritating to me (at least give people an option to show/hide Games in main app list). Hopefully this - like the Music app - will be getting a lot of cleaning update before the general release of the new OS (which is, overall, fantastic!  But that's why some of these remaining items are so disappointing!).

I don't care about music but i want OneDrive back and zoom-out function (don't know what exactly its called) in reviewing pictures so I can see multiple photos (3). They disabled that thing also

YES! The zooming out on pictures was so convenient, especially when looking through the camera roll via the camera app.

Thx WPCentral for being honest. The Xbox app really really sucks, unfortunately... Well, at least it's not integrated in the OS anymore so it shouldn't take that long for the Xbox team to fix that crap, I hope.

Still befuddled how they screw this thing up so much.....

Features we want to be added: 1.) AssistiveTouch, negative colors, and camera flash for missed notifications OF CHOICE on Ease of Access. 2.) Be able to scroll through quick settings on Action Center like Android. 3.) Better conversations on Cortana and support to open URL's. 4.) Optional to include games on app list. 5.) Double tap to turn off screen on lock screen. 6.) USB notifications of non-adequate power and more 7.) Support for LED indicator, IR transmitter, and sensors on Galaxy S5. 8.) Fix typos on Phone Update and Game Hub by removing space from the last word and ellipses. 9.) More locking options of lock screen such as voice command, face recognition, CAPCHA code, pattern, colors, and password. 10.) Turn on Cortana by saying "Hi Cortana" or any specified saying. 11.) Smart Stay and Scroll so screen doesn't turn off when you're looking at it. 12.) Option to type numerical amount of time for screen to turn off and lock such as "125 seconds" or "after 20 times." Not a drop down list with like 5 options. 13.) Set default messaging app 14.) Allow cut and define along with copy and paste 15.) Allow custom keyboard colors 16.) Fix screen rotation bug on About. You lock it and it still rotates.

A lot of what you're asking for a) needs new hardware, b) is redundant and gimmicky, and c) just adds to the vast list of unnecessary first world problems we have today. Windows Phone 8.1 is an incredible update in itself and from the looks of it, it sounds like Android is more suited to what you're looking for.

Oh, don't even start. I am totally biased towards Windows Phones. And yes, I know it requires new hardware, and that's why I said SUPPORT, not availability. Some also are unnecessary like the typo thing, but it would be nice if they were fixed. But to be above the competing phones, we need to include every feature they have. And some are redundant. I know they said they would add it in 8.1 but they didn't.

True!

Writing what you want to a comment section achieves nothing. If you really want those features, go to Uservoice and create an entry there. Let people decide.

One thing I really like about the new music app is that is it way easier to create playlists. You can actually edit playlists in the new app too. Creating playlists on WP8.0 (and WP7) is complicated as fudge.

Awful, awful app! I hate it when the word music is written all over the now playing screen. I liked more the old one Music+Video. It was much more pretty. Now I miss the recently played and new tabs. Also this new music app does not work with MPAtool and I don't have artist pictures as backgrounds anymore... Also, the splashscreen with headphones... Why not removing the splashscreen?! Totally unnecessary.

Well since Windows Phone 8.1 is a dev build and not the final product everyone should have expected that Microsoft would still be working on apps/updates that would be released when the os update is released for everyone. Expecting updates before hand is just stupid.

How fucking long does it take to add all features of Zune and hit submit?

Spoken by someone who never wrote code for a living.

Do you know what a preview is? Besides, why would Microsoft then hand out a dev preview to OEMs when Nokia just announced their new Windows Phone 8.1 phones already? They're coming out this April, so those will run dev builds too?

A dev preview is for testing with devices and apps. What makes you think OEM's have been handed a dev preview? there is no proof of this and Microsoft have never confirmed how they handle os releases to OEM's and OEM's have never confirmed what they get from Microsoft. It's also likely that Nokia gets preferencial treatment from Microsoft since they have an agreement in place which involved Nokia ditching Symbian for Windows Phone so this will explain why Nokia have an advanced release schedule.

Yes but I have been using a crappy music app for over 2 years. So when will the music app be out of preview??

Thats up to MS when the new app is released but that's likely to be when Windows Phone 8.1 is released to the general public.

About the Facebook app, should we abandon the beta and download the app 8.1 keeps pushing for in the top of the people hub?

I'm using Extreme Music to play my music until they get it fixed. Hope they don't take too long.

I'm so glad someone else noticed this. I find the new app impossible to navigate, its slow, extremely buggy, and without recent artists I feel completely lost. I'm hoping this gets fixed quickly.

The dismantling of the hubs is tragic. The people, music, game and photo hubs were one of the things that most impressed non windows phone users as well as be convenient and effective. They will be missed ☹

"Windows Phone 8.1 is subpar, and it has become worse since 8.0." Shouldn't this be the other way around, with 8.0 being subpar and 8.1 even worse?
On that note, I agree completely that the Xbox Music app is absolutely terrible. I really hope this update comes soon because it's embarrassing showing off a beautiful new OS with a less than incredible music experience.

Why can't we have Zune (WP7) and desktop Zune (syncing) back? Update and rename them with the Xbox brand. Keep the features from WP7.

Yes!!!!; Why???

Good post, though I love everything in WP8.1 I'd go back to WP8 only for what they did to the Xbox Music App. Hope they let us choose the background picture again, and a option to no edit the information of the MP3s.

Well they can't make it much worse, can they? Only uphill from here! That service just is the worst when you have a large local collection. Matching is terrible. Spent years and years getting my ID3 tags the way i want them -- then Xbox music comes along and shit on them all.

How sure are you that they can't make it worse?  After all, the current app will usually (eventually) play a song or two that you want to hear.  So there's still room for de-improvement :-)

Games Hub could use some refreshing too..very slow loading and laggy scrolling..also was better in 8.0; besides Music and Games app updating there isn't much else to complain about in 8.1 (typed using Word Flow) :P

Exactly, and the app list should only be there, not amongst the other apps. Unbelievable how someone decided that mess was acceptable.

My main concern here is that Xbox Music is essentially unusable in its current state. There needs to be an update REALLY quickly for me to be able to tolerate it. I can't play my local library in the app apparently, which is stupid beyond reason.

It won't be enough. They never paid much attention to Xbox anything on the phone.

It couldn't have been said better. It's incredible how lackluster this app experience is when it comes to the music app. And the worst part is that we can't find anything better in the app store.

You also cannot play music from Kid's Corner which is dependent on the Xbox Music app.  When you try to play a pinned album or playlist Xbox Music starts and then gives the following error. "Sorry, this app doesn't currently support Kid's Corner."

I so miss Zune...

Thanks for this article, and it's good to know I'm not the one who misses the swipe to change track and the live tile. Especially the swipe feature as it's handy for driving when I don't have to search for a button on screen.

Ditto. I remember the swipe to change back from my Gen 2 Zune days with the "squircle" touch pad. Very natural way of transitioning tracks, especially when not looking at the screen. I still get some "hey that's cool" comments when other people see me swipe between tracks.

I downloaded an album directly to my phone today and it look half a day to show up in my PHONE collection...

Also noticed that Bluetooth will not resume paused music or podcast after initial connect. Have to unpause manually on phone the first time. Using a flexsmart BT device

I can chill my self for a little while.    BUT. I'm concerned that this app will linger even after new devices start to trickle out and the official release makes its way to consumer devices.    I can't conceive of why they did this. That beta app had been out there for a while, and I suppose they decided to rebuilt it from scratch to begin implementing 8.1 features.....but there were so many things that wouldnt' seem that difficult to have included by now. Yes, Recent Plays, New Items..... I used to listen to an artist, and click their artist name in the now playing to bounce to a different album. I also have trouble with the app only playing one song at a time and then stopping until I hit the skip button.  It's befuddling, but I just hope it's fixed within a month or two (obviously sooner, but I'll give leeway for the consumer experience.)

Thousands of tunes must sync every time I start the app? I can't choose artist or album until all that is done. I was very impressed with the app when it first came out, but sorry, subpar is mincing words. I recently went back to the old Music and video hub. I do have faith it will be fixed, but considering it was never good it is long over due.

Anyone please help me!!! I cant even install it on my phone :(. I have updated to 8.1 but i didn't get this app. And everytime i download it on Store, it always failed. :( please anyone. Help me:(

Lets get Rudy to say he's working on a Xbox app to see if we light a fire under Microsofts ass.

I want the old music+ videos back at least until they fix the app.

Yeah, its sooooo sooooo bad. I hate it, i alsomst went back to 8.0 just because of it. Im back to using my ZuneHD witch I love but it dose not have Bluetooth like my 925. They need to fix it or just go back to Zune, Xbox music has been a mess from day one. 

Exactly, if my Zune had bt I would still be rocking it

What happen to the radio?

I asked the same thing. Its in your apps under FM Radio.

i dont want update i want my old music+video tile which was the best media studio in all OSs and also the old photos app not this stupid new app with stupid design and no Facebook integration....it is really a big step to the back....at least give us the choice to choose which design we want

I need a Whatsapp 8.1 update to fix my battery drain on my 920!

Well, to be fair it's pretty much sucks on Windows 8.1 too...

What's up with the game hub Daniel? Why did they decide to move apps into the list?
Yeah I hijacked this thread....

OMG I didn't realize the sexy animated live tile is gone! Noooooooooooo!!!! Bring it back! :-(

Still don't get why everyone hates Xbox music. I rarely ever have problems with it. Am I just lucky, is do we just miss Zune?

I am so happy to see this.

@el-ojo I have a 4GB 30GB and a 120GB zune. If I still wanted to carry two devices in my pocket then I would pay 20$ a month for a feature phone. nuff said.  

It should come with lock screen integration.Which includes the same effects of the live tile scrolling text across your lockscreen when the the music is playing also the artist background.This feature has been missing for a long time now.

Exactly. It should look like the screensaver in the app Artist Info. Simple yet incredibly beautiful.

This really sucks. I'd rather have the old music hub back. It was better...

Well all of the MS apps, more specifically Bing apps on Windows 8 were better than the WP versions. Now the desktop and phone apps basically mirror each other so if they can bring the Windows 8.1 Xbox Music experience to the phone I'll be happy.

Thank fuck cause I agree its a bit shit the tile doesn't change like it use to and it changed all my art for when music is playing not good I say hope its real soon

It can't be said enough times...Xbox music has flat put sucked on WP and Windows since minute one. Almost everyone is on board with this statement. We want Zune back and we want it now. Its been almost three years and Xbox still offers half of what Zune did. This is ridiculous. We cant manage our personal libraries for a crap. Smartplaylists are still missing. Zune handle videos nicely. This brings into play the Xbox Video also sucks. Give it up already. Zune was great and you can ed it because Apple slappies made fun of it. Big mistake. Acknowledge it and just bring it back.

I don't understand. Xbox Music is not built in, but you can't uninstall it?

Guys any good aap to listen to your music on your phone? And can I listen to the songs I downloaded with Xbox music pass and have it on my phone?

I miss Zune.

The new Music and Video apps are both pretty bad. I hope the updated apps come soon.

    100% right ! Other than Music player, i also find Video player dumb ! My L1520 is not capable of playing a 4k video ! But a android Nexsus5 can ! seriously video player lacks a lot too ! Apart from music n video player ! Games like subway surfers which worked smoothly in WP8 ! doesn't function smoothly now ! Apps like whatsapp lags a lot now ! FB messenger shows a blank screen and i've to close n reopen 1s a while ! and many apps siezed to function ! and many did crash close itself ! huh ! i heared every WP8 apps wer completely compactible with WP8.1 ! i guess thats not soo right !!!
Since its dev prev. version of sftwre i'm not complaining much ! Hope the final version to be a better 1 ...with a integrated fully functional File Manager ! and many other functions enabled..! Btwn Cortana s fun.. ;) !
The best thing in WP8.1 ! followed by action center ! :)

Like everyone has said, the Zune player interface was good-don't understand why they just didn't carry it over to WP8. I have 11,000 mp3s and the new 8.1 app is horribly slow, which was not the case with the built in music app with 8.0.

Have a problem with the same songs playing when skipping through. Chooses to play only about 20 different tracks unless i manually select something different. Won't play at all without data connection and there's such a big gap between tracks most of the time.  It's a joke quite frankly. Spotify do nothing with their app but it still works better than Xbox Music and doesn't constantly lose tracks which then can't be played. Sick of it.

I begrudgingly left Xbox music for beats music. The family plan is tough to pass on, but with Xbox music not getting better I couldn't justify staying.

Yeah... I have no idea how, but this is worse than the Music Pass-exclusive stop available for download on WP8, despite the WP8 version being a precursor to the WP8.1 version. Point is, music and games are fucked up on 8.1...

It's like you didnt even read the article... the music and games apps are basically betas and will be updated soon. So relax

Yeah, but the fact that they had something that was already better, with more features and that users loved, it sense kinda silly that we're now suffering through a beta, to get less features... :/ I love my Windows Phone, and Music Pass is convenient, but unless things improve, I'll likely switch to Beats music once my current subscription ends. :/

They had to start the app from scratch because previously it was built into the os and now it's not. This way they can be upgraded much faster, I doubt it will be j long before the app is as good as before

I understand their reasons, but I was more particularly referring to Microsoft's situation with music as a whole. It's been going down hill since Zune was replaced by Xbox Music.

I do miss having my list of third party apps listed in the music hub as well as the recently played list displaying what was played from these apps. It was convenient to junp right into a song i want to listed to from AudioCloud and rather than go into the app and hunt for the track, especially when i really want to play that one track, versus the whole playlist. I hope the next update addresses this issue. Lastly, it would be nice if they put the FM radio "app" back into the Xbox Music "Hub" so if i use the radio i dont have to find it in my applist. I was used to having it in the music hub. I dont necessarily care if the music and video hubs were separated but it would be nice to bring back these small conveniences. Also i would say the same for the video hub, mirroring the music hub.   So far, some of the conveniences like quick access to Bing Vision is minor annoyance, but other than that this update is great. I hope they can fine tune the bluetooth experience in collaboration with Cortana. I find there's a delay and lag between when my car recognizes the phone's voice commmands/listening mode and when i try to give a command; the device is a second or two ahead, thus not getting my voice bc of the bluetooth from my car. I know new updates and firmware updates should remedy this part at least.

What I don't understand is how a product that was as good as the Zune music experience could disintegrate into the mess that is now XBox Music. Did they fire, kill, and bury the Zune team then delete the code so they could start over entirely with XBox Music? I just don't understand how they ended up here at this point because it is horrid in it's current state.

This

The xbox music apo works just fine on my phone, no lag, no bugs. Lumia 820

Spotify is king, anyways. Here in Denmark XBox music is useless.

Its useless here as well in America.

At least we can now say Samsung ativ does not have radio. Once and for all.
But hey, say what you like about Samsung - they've just updated their Folders app to support 8.1.
But why is xbox music green when pc is orange. The biggest bug is games hub.
The xbox games were never listed in app list before. Hope they fix that

Because this is Windows, nothing is consistent.

+928

Lol

That makes me take a breath of fresh air, especially that updates are coming to both Xbox Music, Twitter, AND Skype. The joys of beta software: Being able to see what gets better!! ;-)

I'm really disappointed in the new games hub.

You know, the fucked up thing is these posts are real concerns for WP users. Don't they understand music is one of the most and maybe for some like me THE most important app on my phone? What I really wanna know is who made the decision to fuck this music app up, who is responsible??

I hate game in the App list. It looks very dirty

8.1 feels business like, games on app list spoils the party

I agree. There should be a way to hide them from main list. Having them in the games hub is enough.

Just bring back Zune!

Actually the only version of the music app that's even useable is on the Xbox one and that's because of the SS which I nice.

Joe Belfiore need to see these comments, as well as the original ones on the 'master list of issues' in the MS support forum and also the uservoice thread. The message is clear and unanimous, despite many updates, the music experience has actually got worse and we are unhappy. We need another U-turn here. Just bring back the Zune apps - we've all been patient enough now. I hope somebody starts listening to our feedback here. We've had too many broken promises on this and little progress.

I'm using L920 and my room mate has L625 we both suffering from headphone issue. if you take a call when music is playing there's just 1 earphone is working. left or right, it changes. mostly left. rebooting is only solution for me now. am I the only one?

Tell them to fix the photo hub too

I don't understand how it can change so drastically. Do they change developers with each windows update? Its ridiculous.

They've "fixed" a lot of things that didn't need fixing. Where's the FM radio BTW?

Separate app, check under F in your app list.

Artist picture on the lock screen is gone too

Thanks for posting this. Should calm the forums down. A little.

Im stuck on xbox music for at least 3 more years, i bought 3 of them for like $30 for a yearwhen they had the deal.  great catologue, crappy app.  oh well, for that cheap price for the next three years, i can handle the crappy app.     

I would like the new app to allow remote control of XBMusic on the PC a la Apple's remote app and iTunes.

Someone(s) need to be fired at the Xbox Music team. Since 8.0 we have been dealing with these issues. I pay $10 a month for this service and expect better after almost two years.

Whenever I try to delete a certain playlist, it just crashed. Also, syn with the windows phone app for desktop always duplicates playlists. These problems are really annoying!!

iTunes on Windows Phone. How about that..

We don't need another crappy music app just fix this one.

Yeah, it really sucks infected bodily fluids.

Please add clearing / stopping music as a bug. This is so stupid that I have to download an app to do this simple task.

I'm a long time Windows phone user and I'm gonna say what I truly feel about wp. It took too long to get so litle progress since windows phone launched. I don't care anymore that it feels snappy when using it, android and ios also does on most devices now. It gets stale and boring and the continuous lack of apps or rather poor quality of the ones already there make it a deal breaker to me. I stopped believing in this since it seems that Microsoft does not care and has too much planning instead of faster development. I don't care anymore about windows phone and I don't have to. I WILL get a freaking iPhone when the new one launches and I AM NOT A FANBOY! I simply believe that it does not have to be this frustrating when using your phone, knowing that you paid and deserved premium. Btw, my HTC8X 'S price has gone so low that I just see it as garbage. It went from 600 USD to like 150 in my country, at least and I can't even resell it so it will end up in a bin somewhere. Goodbye to all of this and good luck to all of you die hard fans. Also. One more thing to say, SYNCINC simply sucks on this device and the app on windows is also sub par. Wooow, we are going to have some notifications, finally... And some toggles ... To hell with that. Goodbye windows phone!I am too busy to keep being frustrated by something that was supposed to make my day to day life easier.

I understand! It's ridiculous. When my contract is up, I'm getting the iPhone or a nexus 5 or 6 if its out by then. I've been with WP since it came out, 2010 I think. Time to move on

Can I transfer my x box music to Nokia music I have over 5000 songs in the cloud but no way to transfer to other services I went back to x box. Music video because the new Xbox music app is terrible I have a 920.

uau people stop getting your panties in a twist, It does not matter how final you think 8.1 is, this is still a developer preview months away from release to the general public, so a couple of apps that need updating is hardly the end of the world, especially when its clear that the updating will be done sooner rather than latter. I am willing to bet that the music and games apps will be updated in the next few weeks.

The music app shituation has been going on for over 2 years, nothing to do with the preview.

They fuck the Games Hub. All the games are with all apps making terrible to navigate now. :(

Other things I want fixed:
*In 8.1 show artist on lock screen is broken
*scrolling song/artist/album titles so you can actually see the damn things
*In 8.1 songs should show up in the regular store instead of just in app because the new search doesnt show album thumbnails on the side (or add album thumbnails)
*add a place to view downloads
*add a draggable bar thing (whatever they are called) to get to a point in a song easier
*fix auto download to Windows 8.1 (never worked for me)
Damn I miss Zune.

What about the Music STORE? They removed New Releases. There's no way to see new releases in a music store?? What the what??

I think we all need to keep in mind that we are running a developers preview of the OS. Bugs and subpar apps and glitches are a given. Once the final code is ready for general release these little nuances will be ironed out.

Heck i can't even open my Xbox music app it crash's and goes straight to start screen it was fine at first loaded all my music off my SD card just fine but now it won't load tried with SD card out to doesn't matter tried soft reset nothing i play music all day from my phone so its killing me the only way I can play my music now is to ask Cortana to play a band or album i might have to pull out my trusty old Zune

Just bring back the live tile and the lockscreen artist features before I get completely mad of the Music feature decline.

I'm specifically holding off on the update to 8.1 because of this nonsense. Zune and my Zune HD are what brought me to WP, so it's super depressing to see the music experience steadily getting worse.

Album art does not work!!

There's a lot not to like about Xbox Music after growing to enjoy Zune for years. It's unfortunate that they didn't simply carry the core of the old app into the new Xbox Music brand since there was such a solid base. Anyway, water under the shaky bridge... I look forward to seeing what's in store for the update and hope that it's more than just minor fixes.

I still have a Lumia 900 and use Zune to wireless sync auto playlists (all my new music automatically is added to my phone). This experience is keeping me on 7.8! Figure it out Microsoft!

I don't see it that bad

Scanning through 1 hour live sets or Podcasts gets really annoying without the scrubber, YES I need a scrubber and YES it is important.

Honestly all the XBOX apps are awful: Video, Music, & Games. Video is buggy and wont always display personal videos, and it's player controls interface is a disaster; Music is stripped of much functionality and takes forever to load your music library; Games refuses to sync your avatar and is missing hey features. Honestly, if I could uninstall these, I would.

I changed my hpne from a Lumia 710 to a Lumia 720 a month ago and I really had nothing to point out in Zune, Perfect Music Player, got a LOT disapointed when I played with Music+Video on WP8 once, really worse than WP7's Zune.

Need ability to scrub music playback.

All very good news, currently the fastest most reliable way for me to get my music is asking Cortana to load it. Right now launching the app brings up just a black screen 9 times out of 10. On a sad side note I had my first hard reset of the new OS today on my Lumia 920. Just a friendly reminder and a heads up for our new friends without battery removal options to hold down the power and volume down buttons.

Ruby announced he'll to change it.

Very glad WPC finally posted something about this. I've asked them to talk about this a long time ago and have been vocal on the forums, but it always seemed like WPC just ignored how horrible XBM is. This article hits all the key points about it, including that facepalm-worthy black screen shortcut. How does that even get through testing? I would love to rattle off all my complaints, but everything has been said in the article or the comments above. This was honestly the one thing I really wanted to see improve in 8.1. Everything else has been welcome, but this was one of the biggest weaknesses of WP8 already and instead of getting better, it got much worse. 

The game hub is broken as well. All my games are listed in the application menu now and the game hub does nothing.

The app lists ALL of my music I have stored on my home computer. But I can't listen to any if it because I don't have the Xbox music subscription. But I have purchased music. But I can't filter anything out, other than to turn off streaming all together. Sucks, sucks, sucks. I don't want the subscription service. Just want the songs I purchase to be available to me. What can I do?? The old music hub did what I wanted.

I can't believe it's just THAT horrible.  I spent 15 hours on the road this weekend with xbox music, finally happy that it was working correctly and today I had a 30 minute drive and it drove me insane!  Also gone are shuffle, WTFBBQSAUCE.  Now I do know from Build that they are rewriting the entire app using typescript, but seriously, feature parity, someone has to have a document or microsoft project file with all of the current Music features, and that they just decided to half bake force update us is almost incredibly crazy.  
  For all the pain that I have gone through with Xbox Music, they ought to give me a year free, especially since I've been a customer for almost 6 years straight. If there was one team I would run like a champion at Microsoft it would be this team, they have sat on a huge potential revenue stream and continued to dissapoint in an experience that is core to the human experience.

Zune was great. I don't understand why MS have so much trouble getting WP os up to par. Beta this beta that, smh.. I'm frustrated because I really like WP, but years r going by and they r still so far behind the top dogs, and it seems the smart thing to do is to get a Droid, or iPhone. Even the low end Droid operated phones can do more than a high end WP. And I'm not even talking about apps.

Thank you for this article I thought I was the only one who was upset about Xbox music. No live tile, worse interface, laggy & cumbersome. It's sad to say that Zune was the best music player on Windows phone& they kept going downhill from there

Be twitter better be an overhaul. I mean this one is pretty good but it's not even close to IOS's app

I pray that Microsoft fixes this with the official release (or the firmware fixes in the Nokia Cyan update help). Right now I'm using Cortana to play my music... the 8.1 Xbox Music app is slow, buggy, a battery drain, and bereft of all of the conveniences of the 8.0 Music+Video hub. This is beyond bad, it is embarassing and borderline unusable. I put a ton of effort into supporting and evangelizing the WP ecosystem, and then Microsoft pulls these moves and makes me wonder why I was so certain about rejecting iOS and Android.  Get. This. RIGHT.

WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Zune is the reason I didn't jump ship to apple or google. I am an original Zune 30 user, when it was just a reskined version of WMP. I'm done typing about this shit app. You guys summed up the issues already.

The Xbox music app was already terrible to begin with actually. Like the previous app was a step back from the Zune, which was apparently the best music app on windows phone, this one is a step forward in terms of functionality but a step back in stability (which is bound to improve) and to me in aesthetics as well. On the previous the panoramic artist background on the specific artists was just beautiful! Moreover I can't use the custom artist images that I assigned using the MPA tool app, more specifically for some Japanese artists that I listen to... So yea...

Does no one from Microsoft read these forums? We have made out clear what we wanted. All you had to do was make Zune touch friendly. Instead you have tried to reinvent the wheel ten times over. It's not happening. Bring back Zune with touch capability before you lose your most loyal supporters.

PS. We pay 10 bux a month!

If only there was a place that you could've requested features and bug fixes ;
windowsphone.uservoice.com

Doesn't show new downloaded music

Cortana, show me a train wreck...
"okay, launching Xbox Music"

LOL

Top Song is Gangnam Style..... Really?

Glad that Twitter is getting an update! Long overdue!!

Anyone else getting a "you don't have the rights to play this" error on non DRM music with this app?

Nevermind, I turned off show streaming music and the error is no more...

Customers who purchased the music pass should be offered the next year for free. I have not gotten the value for my money...not even close. I am disgusted with myself for having purchased that sub par experience.

I have to say that now I'm using much more the Nokia's music app

Even the games hub as become slower. It takes 3-4s to fully load

The app doesn't sort albums by year anymore either... It's insanely frustrating.

How hard is it for MS to add a alphabet choser for the playlists?

What case is that on the 1520?

Its not too bad, i was finally able to sync some music that I wasn't able to play before....

I'm not even going to try using it anymore until it is updated. I came from android looking for a better phone experience and phone one, but some of the things that are missing are just inexcusable from MS. The music app is horrible, the gamer hub just went south. I'm hoping they get it together before it gets worse!

Game hub is now also a separate app, so the potential is high.

Bad experience on the Moto G also. Posted via the WPC App for Android!

Need fb first, missing the fb integration

The biggest disappointment for me in 8.1 is without a doubt the music hub ...

The game hub is even worse.. With yesterdays update, it is essentially totally broken.

I'm not sure how the missing heart icon is a downside, considering it doesn't do anything any more anyway.

When listening songs in headphone, there is a previous track's lag can be easily heard when next song is going to play, timing between two tracks.sorry i dont know the actual word,to call it

music player is not good need touch bar for fast fw or rev like video player or any other OS music player like Belle,Android,iOS,Window media player for pc.

I tried to use Nokia Mix Radio instead. There is an option to play local music. But loading local songs list takes ETERNITY on wp8.1.

Agree that WP8.1 has been well thought out...probably the light didnt burn enough in the music dept though...god knows what MS is thinking or not...they had a world class product in zune in terms of hardware software integration..just look at WP7.8.. they must go back to the drawing board with Zune printed out boldly...pronto..

omg more updates and again the wait!!! life with WP is all about waiting for centuries for tiny updates!!

Ok, so if I choose the Music app, it freezes on start up. If I assign the Music & Video app to a NFC tag using NFC Writer and swipe it (now with no pesky pop up) it opens just fine. WTF?

On a plus side, the app shall see an update, they are not leaving it like this, and hopefully soon. On the downside, how could the OS team RTM the thing without bundling a more recent version of a very important core app!

There's still no Xbox music, Bing and some other Microsoft services outside several countries. That sucks.

In my experience since the start of the windows phone platorm, microsoft always seems to be struggling with media service apps. Zune in my experience was subpar and only useful for up- or downloading personal media, but I never actually used their music or video library because the experience was too fidgety, complex and too inflexible when it came to payment. On top of that the desktop app was extremely buggy and non-US customer unfriendly. It took over 1-2 years to get a bug fixed for non-US users to actually make a working login! Then there was xbox music and video on windows 8. From the start it was not smooth sailing either. the featureset and flexibility of offline/online listening and filemanagement was subpar and yet again there were flexibility issue from the start with regard to payments, certainly from the non-US side of things. Many countries are used to credit cards. But there are also many communities globally that simply use a banking card or internet banking. This is a serious issue which limits the its use in a global market. And credit card payments has its flaws and security issues. Luckily many have been fixed over time, but I'm noticing a disturbing trend when it comes to microsofts streaming media. It often seems to fall behind, badly! Luckily its a service, so there's probably a far better choice out there, and microsoft probably knows it. It's a pity though that they treat their ownn services this way, because when I look a the first flaws, it's not all bad. But microsoft does need a kick in their behind if they want to get customer satisfaction and traction on their xbox music, video and games in the right direction. Currently, in my honest opinion, their creating an attitude of taking the easy road.

Bring back Zuneeeeeeeee!!!!

I used to pin my fav albums to start screen, now you can do it aswell but the images of the previous pinned albums will change to the last one you pin. This app is really bad

I'm sad that my 4 yr old Zune HD is still my best portable music player experience. How can you ruin an amazing music experience?

Remember folks, this is a Dev Preview. Such anger about a broken app in Beta.

why not ditch this nonsense altogether and help bring foobar2000 aboard as the defacto player?!?!~ http://mobile.foobar2000.com/

Just get the fb chat and the messenger back into the SMS thread.... Don't take the crowns of this OS and dissolve it

Is it truly that awful? I DWNLD 8.1 today, but disabled Wi-Fi + auto update due to tone of this blurb. Anyone subbing Spotify, Pandora, etc to fill the void?

I'm using the mix radio from Nokia, the layout could be improved but at least it doesn't refresh my music each time I open it.

The podcast app is awful too. I can't go trough the store and what podcasts are available. I can't see below the downloaded episodes of my subscribed podcasts other episodes from the store. I can only see the collection and search for more. I don't like that.

It's true

Interesting comments on XBox Music, Daniel. By the way, also always remember to also post your suggestions for XBox Music and other things on THE EXCELLENT FEATURE SUGGESTIONS FEEDBACK WEB SITE FOR THE WINDOWS PHONE 8.X OS AT http://windowsphone.uservoice.com/forums/101801-feature-suggestions/cate...   Thanks. Windows Phone 8.1 is the beginning of the Windows Phone era I believe in the sense that I strongly believe Windows Phone smartphones will very quickly start selling in much bigger numbers than before.

This situation has reached the point (for me) that I'm pricing and looking at reviews for stand-alone MP3 players (after not having a separate one since I used a Blackberry 3 phones ago).  For years, I carried iRivers & Cowons everywhere, and never really thought of my phone as a music device. That all changed with my Palm Pre and then previous Windows phone.  With WP7 Zune software I thought I'd found the holy grail of being able to curate and play my music from my phone.  Since moving to WP8 it's just been a disaster. I have a large music collection and lots of playlists.  The inability to work with my own music and the way Microsoft seems to want me to just stream and play from the store doesn't seem to be accidental.  If this is the way it's going to be, I will probably carry two devices again -- just because my (otherwise awesome) Windows Phone can't handle music properly.   Sad!  

Terrible experience so far! So slow...lags a lot..Artist pictures no longer show on the hub and the lock screen. No more DJ mix. It is seriously bad. Please we need an update asap!!!!

I agree on the artist backgrounds - most of them just suck. I wish you could turn them off, and that you just get a black background.

Also no more live tile. WTF!!! Why???

Htx 8X no background artist images......why?

My Xbox music app isn't even opening. It crashes even before starting. I am able to see the music icon when I start it and then it crashes. Can someone please help me out with issue.

All they need to do is polish Zune for wp7. And hey he mentioned Zune not me.

With a majority of people having the same sentiment about the new Xbox music app vs Zune I think we need a Million Zune march on Microsoft...  :-D

That would be a good idea, if there were a million Zunes.  (:-))

Does anybody miss the built in facebook chat??I just hate installing an app for it.It was one of the unique features of wp.And talking abt xbox music some sense must be knockeded into developers.The best ui of music was that of symbian phones like n series.Loved it on my N73 and N95.Wish they made the same with better optimizations for touch.And another glitch in Xbox which i don't want to tell but have to-I am silver member and now i can send messages to other xbox friends.But after this update i can't find the xbox or any games in my games hub.

Microsoft is improving the app, wish I could add music to my playlist from the listen to music area.

What about using mix radio? That plays music of your phone?

I have problem with fb app too. its not syncing plus contacts pics are not loading in peple's hub. also in kids corner no longer i can customize wallpaper of kids corner...  

I really agree to it ..

NOKIA MUSIC...

This is the only bad part of the 8.1 upgrade, and it is absolutely terrible. Ever since the update, the app 'reloads' my entire collection every time it opens, and over half the time, it fails to display anything in the Streaming Category, even though I have over 16,000 tracks there. Whoever is responsible for product management on the Xbox Music app should be replaced immediately.

Excellent news.

It is pretty raunchy. The slowness it terrible! One thing I also wish they would do is at least make it see through!

All I want in Windows Phone is GAPLESS PLAYBACK SUPPORT how many years will continue to pass before they give it to us??

Fix hearts!

What they have done is nuts and they should rethingk this. Check this user voice item: http://xboxmusic.uservoice.com/forums/209733-xbox-music-suggestion-box/suggestions/5226183-xbox-music-should-not-be-a-seperate-application

Can someone just explain Xbox Music to me in the first place? I am so confused by the service and what I do and don't have access to. I don't have a subscription/pass, but I have a Surface 2 & XB1 so I know I get some perk from that right? Why is it called Xbox Music on my phone but just Music on my Surface/Windows 8 in general? Maybe its because I grew up using iTunes to manage my music, but I generally feel like all of Microsoft's music services are confusing and lack some features (but they're pretty!). Also, did anyone else notice that prior to the 8.1 update, the headphone icons were different on the WP8 and W8 apps? Looks like they've fixed that now.

My Xbox music app isn't even opening. It crashes even before starting. I am able to see the music icon when I start it and then it crashes. Can someone please help me out with issue.

The facebook integration is shitty too. Old one was better.

Its more terrible than it already is? Well knock me down with a feather duster!

A few for the list:
All of my bonus tracks from the original European CDs are omitted and now I have only the album tracks with no bonuses. All of the original artworks were replaced with the American covers. How is that even possible!?!?
Half of my music is not playable while riding the subway to work...for some reasons cannot play the music without LTE.
Very, very strange. Where are my bonus tracks and original artworks Microsoft!?!?!
I love Cortana, but I used it once today. I spend three hours listen music. Basically, please take Cortana back and fix the music app...

Sad, I thought the stock Xbox music+video app that came with windows phone 8 was perfect for what I wanted. Installed the new Xbox music app and was unimpressed. Upgraded to 8.1 developer preview, seems just like the standalone version for 8.0, but crappier. They should just revert back to the old music+video but incorporate tweaks and not UI changes.

@Daniel, maybe this is a late response, but I think the sound quality has improved. No hiss with low volume anymore and the old Music+Videos app would get a loud hiss randomly when you play a few songs in succession. You needed to switch tracks to remove this loud hiss. So in terms of audio quality, there has been improvement. I do find the interface better as well, it's easier to get from a playing track back to the full collection. Not all bad things. An update is definitely needed, but there is improvement already as well.

My Xbox Music app just won't open!

Live tile enthusiast which the music+videos hub on wp8 had? Fire your votes here! :) http://xboxmusic.uservoice.com/forums/209733-xbox-music-suggestion-box/s...

For the love of all that's good and holy - why do we have to continually lose 10 features for every 1 we gain?  The Zune hub did everything - music, music videos, tv shows, movies, podcasts, audiobooks.  Now, we have a music app, a video app, a podcast app, no audiobook support, and maybe music video support, a separate synch app, and no desktop app purchasing app.  What are they thinking?  Do you honestly believe that any iPhone user using just one program - iTunes (on the phone and the desktop) would look at this and say "I like having 5 programs on the desktop and 4 on the phone to do what my one single program iTunes does" ?  Really? Short Version: SCRAP X-Box Music, X-Box Video, Podcasts (on phone and desktop/Metro), and the Windows Phone synch program.  Restore Zune Hub and Zune Desktop, and create Zune Metro.  Restore Zune Social. Make Zune the one program on the phone for music, video, podcast, audiobooks, FM Radio.  Make Zune the one program on the desktop for synch, music, video, podcast, audiobook organization and purchase, and phone app purchases.  That's what we started with! Please vote on User Voice http://wp.me/p1fLW2-8L and at the xboxmusic/xboxvideo user voice sites to make our voices heard!

Smart DJ for local music! The last time this worked was in WP 7.x with Zune. With 8.1 we have a radio button that's only available for subscribers, so I have no idea if it is smart DJ with a new name or not.

Anyone having a problem using the artist radio function? It only ever plays 29 seconds of a track? what up with that and I have an xbox music pass!!!!! So what's the point of creating an artist station only to listen to samples of tracks!!!!!! So disappointed!

Give back the old music app, that's all I want.i hate this new aap.

OK, to everybody who's voting "put all the old Zune functionality into Xbox Music?"   I totally agree with the sentiment, but that's not going to happen, and it's not something the team will do anything about (if in fact they're reading that list and basing anything on it).   It's the equivalent of "make it better!"  It feels good to yell it (and it's totally justifiable, because they've REPEATEDLY made it worse), but it's not going to translate into a project plan.   NON-SPECIFIC requests will never, ever be granted.  I have no idea whether SPECIFIC requests will be granted, but I know for sure that NON-SPECIFIC requests won't be.   "Give me Zune back" is exactly the same as posting "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!" and will get the same results.   The fact that we're supposed to VOTE to get bugs and glaring omissions fixed is already appalling - but let's at least do this appalling thing sensibly.

you forgot the mention the #1 problem in the music app: It removes or even worst - changes the info on your songs! Changing artists, albums, ignoring the file meta data and overriding it with what their store believe is the correct info. If you own music that is on a different langauge, or if you ripped your classic old records into MP3 - good luck getting them into your phone! you will never find them, they will most likely be hiding under a wrong album and artist name.

Yep. My biggest problem is, besides the slowly as hell app start, that playlists always loosing songs, to the point of even have 0 songs (after +400) on it. It is so annoying. Greetings.

I would like to know why I can stream my music playlist for free on Windows 8.1 but on phone I must purchase a Music Pass. Can anyone answer this for me?