music + videos hub – Windows Phone again has some tricks of its own:
While designing Music app or Entertainment Hub for Windows Phone (that is primarily Zune here), Microsoft Team sure should have thought once that when the world is talking about Cover flow animations mostly, what they could do better with a Text based UI.
One finds the music hub UI a little obvious and natural as per Metro UI guideline. Very minimalistic and “To the point UI” without giving you any room of additional options. Don’t expect Equalizer or even presets here. But its still as beautiful, fresh and functional design as any of the design you would have seen.
Opening music + video hub takes you to zune which is further divided in subcategories such as music, videos, podcasts and radio. While sliding sideways introduces sections like applications, new and history. applications section groups the related apps (Nokia Music, Metrotube, YouTube etc) in way a hub is supposed to do in Windows Phone, new shows up the newly added music or videos and history lists all the videos and music that you would have accessed recently in any of music of video app or might have viewed on Youtube.
As about Zune, then for people coming from iTune, it might be a familiar experience, but from Nokia\Symbian user perspective, it would be a different experience to be bound to Zune only for transferring Music\videos to your device. If you are someone who have a lot of music tracks sitting in his PC with just track no, then believe me, you are screwed. Its time to get organized or learn to use Zune properly.
With Windows Phones, Zune would be your one stop solution for your all entertainment related needs. Whatever you throw over it, it will converts the same into a format playable on the phone itself. While its good to see that it retains the quality of videos while converting but sad to see that this all going to the Apple model rather than being like our open Symbian^3 or Meego that was able to play almost any file you throw on it by even USB Mode (No USB Mode in Lumia 800). Though it is understandable from their part as Symbian\Meego been Open Sourced community based OS while Windows Phone OS is propriety OS, hence subjected to multiple licenses etc for making use of multiple Codecs.
You will find it good to see that any kind of web streaming or YouTube video will direct you to Zune which will keep the music\video playing experience consistent across the platform. Gone those day when we wondered that when will a properly integrated YouTube app will be on a Nokia. Though complaint part will be exclusion of aspect ratio settings here.
The other very interesting part of music and videos hub is Nokia Music, which is just another app kind of trying to replace Zune on Windows Phone. The UI though doesn’t presents History feature like Zune or even favourites/repeat or shuffle like options, but you will find it very exciting to know that what it has in offer for you.
By looking into metadata of the song being played on Lumia, it downloads the picture of the artist itself to set it as background of Nokia Music App screen. The play controls will be extended to Lock Screen as well and the so is the background.
The most exciting part of it is the launch of a Pandora-like service by the name of Mix Radio. Thanks to a partnership with The Echo Nest, Nokia can now offer personalized radio stations, curated to the specific tastes of their users. With Mix Radio, you can enter up to three artists you like, and watch as a brand new radio station is created just for you, with what we can hope are songs you will love and enjoy.
The service can also use the metadata from your existing songs to automatically compile a new music station according to your tastes. The technology used to create these new stations has indexed 20,000 different artists, so there’s a good chance it’ll know the type of music a user is looking for. Up to five of these personal radio stations can be saved in the app. This is very good news for Lumia owners, especially those who are not able to use services like Pandora.
Nokia Music also includes Nokia Gig Finder (currently not available for Indian consumers), which allows users to catch the best live music and compare prices and tickets before they sell out and also share events with friends on Facebook. The Gig Finder learns a user’s music tastes to provide information on the best of events happening near them.
If we have to take cues from this Nokia Music app, then we can really expect that what kind of customization Nokia can offer to Windows Phones that will hopefully remain exclusive to Nokia Windows Phones only.Its just not some apps, but backing of multiple services in background and even if community tries to hack into any of the apps, it would not be that easy to bring all the functionality and services.
Nitish Kumar's Blog 
Holy shit! 24 pages? :-O Sorry man, I give it a pass.. I am too busy, like you 😦
Nice post. How about an option to display the post in one page? May make it simpler to read
You are just awesome dude… how the hell can u review soooooo much!! hats offff! even i own nokia lumia 800!! feels like reading n reading… (now in page 1)
Will consider to put a PDF file for whole post.
One hell of a review Nitish.
Thanks mate. Went out a little early than scheduled but hope I covered most of things
Looks like you can now publish a book on Lumia Review 🙂 Great Review..
Nice review , by the way about OTA , it’s a wp7 limitation and not lumia , soon wp in market currently supports OTA same is true about other few features.
Yup! The review is mostly about Windows Phone as a whole rather than Lumia only
Good post , though I must say I couldn’t read it in one go 🙂
Even though I havent used or tried any WP device for more than half an hour, I just hated UI and how it looks. I don’t think that perception of ugly,over simplified UI will change.
As expected and read all over for me 3 things stand out for WP. These can make it success.
1) People Hub
2) Brilliant Office Suite ( and its FREE)
3) Email
But sadly I feel Nokia is going away from their soul and going Apple way.
This may be good for company(I really doubt) but not good for industry as whole.
Suyog,
I had similar sentiments about WP UI before trying it myself. Even I mentioned once that I felt those uneven fonts as ugly. But trust me, views are bound to change once you allow it grow over you. Not all the praises going around are dummy.
Agree with Nitish, once I got my hands on Lumia 800, I didn’t like UI for few hours or a day and missed home screens. But later, started loving the UI and now I am a fan of UI. 🙂
People hub is exceptional as just like Meego it brings all social activities at one place and like WebOS it brings all the photos (even twitter ones).
So in all, people hub will effectively help people managing their social needs without going behind any apps that is a great thing for n00bs or even people coming from Symbian/Meego.
Second great thing is speed of UI that literally no offers either be Symbian or Android
Suyog, I’ll agree with Nitish.. in just two words…. you will see my views about it changing too… it’s actually a good UI. there are however some features that really were needed but if talking about UI, seriously I think if I was given more time with it I would been liking this UI. and I’ll not say like many out there that “Windows Phone 7.5” is not that good to be used.
But still I’ll say that MeeGo on N9 (for its given time) has been the most *Mature* smartphone OS (in most of the aspects) among all of them.
And Nitish; that really is great post above, I’ll try to read it completely 😛
Review is great for people want to know about the History, comparison , apps functionality , dimensions but drawback is too massive detail..
Very interesting article, Nitish. I’m very exited with Windows phone on Nokia, but lack of BT and file transfer worries me. Nokia has been great among other things because of its flexibility and versatility. Does is support USB on the go, like my N8? What about something small but GREAT in functionality, notification light? Man, I think Nokia should never get rid of this. It helps the user so much to see through a notification light, that you have a missed event.
Quite a thorough article on the Lumia 800(& upcoming 900)windows phone. The most important things for me are:i’m not going to sell a Rolls Royce to ride a better handlind motorcycle-ie,my Nokia E7-00 vs any Lumia! No storage! No tethering! No bluetooth! No sale!
One of the most comprehensive review of Lumia 800 I have read. sheer Brilliant.
Are u still using this device? How is the battery life holding up for you?
Any word on Lumia 900 launch date in india?
Thanks,
-Pankaj
The best review of WP that I have seen , kudos to u Mr. Kumar ! U r right , the Lumia 800 is beautiful ; it should be since it`s a copy of the N9 ! But that same design is also a problem in certain areas of the world ( more about this in a bit . ) .
i`ve always said that WP has potential but it`s still immature ( Takes 3 years to work out enough of the bus and work enough features in , to make the OS useful . ) , seriously late to the party and there r too many other OEMs trying to get a piece of the pie . In all fairness to Nokia , they haven`t had a chance to make an impact on WP yet , maybe WP8 will change this . Nor have the Lumias been out too long , though this is changing . So it`s still a bit early to say for sure .
That said , WP hasn`t exactly taken off yet , marketshare is still single digits . Nor do I like the Metro UI , though my issue with it is more function than form ( but I do think it`s ugly !) . I firmly believe that a homescreen should convey enough info to keep u current at a glance , and the Metro UI doesn`t do this . Even Windows Mobile could do this !
WP`s biggest problem , IMHO , is it`s requirements for a constant connection and Skydrive . Not so much a problem in developed countries , but in emerging markets with their infrastructure issues and the need to watch data usage, it`s a different thing entirely . I don`t think WP will do well in emerging markets ( It seems to not be … ) , though it also doesn`t seem to be doing well in many developed countries either , with the USA , Finland and Russia as notable exceptions .
Nor will do well in countries where the N9 was a success, most notably China , due to the problem that WP is functionally inferior to Meego , and Symbian , for that matter . even the new 311 is better from what I can tell !
For these reasons , I don`t see WP as more than moderately successful , assuming it takes off , of course ! Maybe WP8 will change this , ir really needs too ! cheers !
Mofo awesome! Never believed there existed a greater Lumia 800 fan than me! :p
Hmmm , no replies , can`t say I`m surprised lol !
On second thought , looks like the 10/19/2012 post MIGHT have a reply so I take back the previous remark , t least to an extent lol…
Every thing about Windows Phone OS is covered very well.