14 DAY TRIAL // The Music and Video applications for Windows Phone are still under development after many months in which Microsoft has tried to make them usable enough for those who want to take advantage of their features on a daily basis.
Unfortunately, no matter how many updates these two apps have received in the last year, there are still things that need to be ironed out.
That will probably never happen as Microsoft is slowing down the wave of updates that are supposed to fix or/and add new features in both Music and Video apps for Windows Phone 8.1.
Although Microsoft previously confirmed Music and Video apps would receive updates twice per month, beginning this month there will be some changes regarding the delivery of new versions.
Along with the announcement of the latest update for Music for Windows Phone 8.1, Microsoft also confirmed that the rollout of new versions of the application will be less frequent starting December due to the fact that the Xbox Music Team is now focusing on the Windows 10 application.
Proof that Microsoft will offer less frequent updates for Music for Windows Phone 8.1 is also the fact that the latest one has arrived more than two weeks after the previous version was released.
There are no new features in the update, but lots of bug fixes
That being said, let’s see what’s new in the latest version of Music for Windows Phone 8.1 and how Microsoft is tackling the issues affecting those who are still using the application on their devices.
First of all, there’s a long list of issues that Microsoft claims it has addressed in version 2.6.414.0, such as the 13 of their top unexpected app exits, including playback during sync, changing filter with selected songs and others.
There are lots of album and artist art issues that have been fixed as well, such as the fact that some local tracks will not show album art in Now Playing, as well as the album art flashing while shuffling large collections.
The background artist art flashing issue has been addressed as well, along with the inconsistent display of album art when offline and the local or sideloaded albums not showing album art in Recent Plays.
Another problem regarding content sync interruptions causing all future syncs to fail has been corrected as well. The update’s changelog also mentions the issue when deleted songs don’t always get removed from collection and the bug that was preventing users to playback albums in certain circumstances have also been fixed.
Last but not least, inconsistent sorting of songs that start with an article (“A”) issue should be solved in the latest update. No new features have been included in the latest version of Music.
You can now download Xbox Music for Windows Phone 8.1 for free via Windows Phone Store. The application should be fully compatible with all devices powered by Windows Phone 8.1 and up.
