A WAY Better Music app than Xbox Music

[Start-Automating]

Like many people, I found Xbox Music a little lacking. I decided to do something about it, and it turned out far cooler than I could have ever possibly imagined:

It's called Gruvity. It handles my 31,000+ song music collection. And my 20,000 photos. And my 2000 videos. And it does it beautifully.

It looks up lyrics.
It has a karaoke mode (double tap lyrics to go full screen)
It rains down random songs from my collection
It lets be mix and time-stretch my songs
It syncs playlists across machines
And so, so, so much more


Here's a screenshot of the Now Playing page. See more @ the Gruvity gallery





I'm open to suggestions for more features and any other feedback. I'm personally pleased as peach to have escaped Xbox Music, and hope this can help you do the same. Please, download this app and save yourself from Xbox Music.

Read the story about why I made Gruvity


Hope this Helps,
James Brundage - Founder, Start-Automating

 

[riggi]

It doesn't work for me.
I get a black screen with the 9 menu items at the top, but touching them does nothing.

If I go to "Settings" from the Chamr bar it says "Can't get settings for this app right now. Then closes the app.

I tried rebooting
Using Surface Pro.

 

[tonyz3]

same issues for me- unistalled it, i will try again another time.

 

[Start-Automating]

There should be a big button in the center that says "Import Collection". Once you click this, it will load everything from your music, videos, and pictures folder and let you start to play.

The charm bar issue sounds genuinely weird, and doesn't repro for me.

Please help me identify anything unique about your machines that might be causing these situations .

Hope this helps,

James

 

[J515OP]

There is a button in the middle of the screen on first start that says "Your folder is empty - Import Collection". After that the screen is blank for about 30 seconds and looks like it isn't doing anything but then an import bar pops up at the bottom and shows the music that is being found. Seems to be working so far... and then it crashes after about 1 minute of trying to find music, returning to the Start screen.

Update: Now after the third or fourth restart it appears to be locating my music. It is actually pretty cool it has the album covers "raining" down from the top or the screen. Occasionally I see like a fruit ninja swipe mark also appear across the screen.

 

[tonyz3]

I will give it a try again

 

[J515OP]

Still only seems to get only so far then crashes back to the Start screen. Import progress seems to be lost once you get back in and it gets going again from scratch. In about an hour I can't get past about "14 Songs found in 12 Albums by 11 Artists, 0 Photos, 0 Videos".

 

[riggi]

OK. I just tried again and it imported all of my music this time.
It seems to be working OK.

The layout looks quite nice.

When I select "Artists" it would be good to then be able to select individual alums, not just have a list of all songs.
I know I can go to the "Albums" main heading, but often I can't remember the name of an album, I just know I want to listen a particular artist.

It would be good if there was a tool to find album art.

I like the lyrics.

When you tap a falling song, it would be good if it added it to the end of the current queue, instead of inserting it as the next song to be played. Or, maybe have this option as a toggle as some people probably prefer the song they tap to be the next one played...

Not sure what the photos, video and vj sections are for... It would be good to be able to hide menu items you don't need.

Thanks for a cool app.

 

[J515OP]

After a lot of messing around I finally got the import done after a long steady run. Now to play with the app some.

 

[ArnoldC]

I gave it a try and I will be brutally honest with you-

1. BAD UI, really BAD. Does not conform to the UX guidelines for developing on Windows 8. Failed snapped, filled views. AppBar is "lost."
2. Why import?
3. Super slow import.
4. Very slow after import. What is it doing? I did not check my disk capacity before and after.
5. The experience is not pleasing at all. Again, failure in implementing UX guidelines.
6. Photos failure. Didn't see a single one. And why put in this "feature" at all?
7. Video is BAD. Again, failure to follow UX guidelines.
8. Screen elements are inconsistent.
9. It ain't pretty.
10. It definitely is *NOT* better than xbox music.

Sorry.

Uninstalled.

 

[tonyz3]

Lol yep brutally honest..you were. mg: