Microsoft details upcoming Xbox Music fixes, aims to make everything right again

On the Xbox Music User Voice site the Xbox Music Team have detailed the update currently rolling out, and also what they expect to to achieve over the coming weeks and months.

The just released version, version 2.5.2842 features:

• Numerous stability fixes, including many of the reported black screens
• Full Cortana integration including playing Playlists by name
• UI Polish to improve animations and transitions between UI views
• Improved messaging for encountered errors, such as unplayable content in collections

Having installed the update I am not particularly impressed, but the Xbox Music Team are promising even more, including:

• Continued focus on Stability and Performance improvements
• Background initial sync of local and cloud content (Note:  This had been targeted for the last store update, but we pushed it out one more release to do some additional testing)
• Fast Forward/Rewind by sliding progress bar in a song
• UX layouts on buttons and metadata in now playing to better utilize space and make for better interaction
• Support for large play queue(including playlist) greater than 100 songs
• Improved load times for long lists through better list virtualization
• Swipe Gesture to Advance on Now Playing
• Live Tile and Transparent Tile support
• Design & Layout improvements to get you to your content faster
• Kids Corner support
• UX improvements (Search result grouping, creating new Radio Stations, improved Network status messages, Blue UI language alignment, and more)

With a live tile, user interface improvements, including Swipe to Advance, better stability and performance, improved load times and more, hopefully in a year we can get to the point where Xbox Music is actually better than the app it replaces.

Add your own suggestions at Microsoft’s User Voice page here.