With a new update for Xbox Music on Windows Phone 8.1 Microsoft has finally delivered on its promise to improve the music listening experience for users of its smartphone operating system.
Announced late Friday, the latest update for Xbox Music on Windows Phone adds a ton of small fixes that add up to a better experience. A new Recently Played area now sits just to the left of the Now Playing area. Users can finally add individual albums and tracks to Windows Phone’s Kids Corner area too — that was something they could do with the old Xbox Music app that came with Windows Phone 8. Microsoft says it’s also done a lot to address Xbox Music on Windows Phone’s bugs, reliability and playlist shuffling. We should note that song scrubbing is now included in Xbox Music too.
All in all, it’s a very decent update. No, none of these feature additions are revolutionary in any way, but with as bad as the Xbox Music on Windows Phone app had become, we’ll take any and all improvements we can get.
If your running Windows Phone 8.1, your Xbox Music app will automatically update itself the next time you’re connected to a Wi-Fi network. You can also download it directly from the Windows Phone Store. Windows Phone 8 users will need to have the Windows Phone 8.1 update before they’re able to download the new Xbox Music app. It’s still rolling out on most carriers.
It is certainly a much welcomed update, but we still have a long way to go. Otherwise, I’m glad we now have a “usable”, as Thurrot puts it, Xbox Music app.