Yesterday, I wrote the post below, detailing my annoyance at the inability to delete playlists from Xbox Music Windows 8x Metro app, and excoriating Microsoft for that inability.
I was wrong.
My #1 Son (chronologically counting) showed me my error as narrated below.
Crapware: apps and applications of ambiguous or little value preinstalled by either software or hardware OEMs with their product.
The music app for Windows 8.1, while simple titled Music, is in reality the Metro interface Xbox Music app, for which there is a browser-delivered version, and inexplicably, no native Windows desktop version.
I have used it since it was the default application for music. However, I have not been enamored of it mainly because the user interface, while heavy on graphics, was not as friendly and intuitive as it could be.
Earlier today while getting ready to initiate a call, I decided to listen to three versions of that beautiful song, “Santa Lucia” as sung by Andrea Bocelli, Dean Martin, and Enrico Caruso using the Xbox Music Metro app.
It was then I noticed multiple copies of playlists and a few defunct playlists on my account.
I tried to delete them, to no avail. So I went online to search for a solution.
What I found was this: deleting a playlist on Xbox Music requires users to do so from their Xbox 360 gaming console.
That is effing incredible!
I swore to myself that that nonsense could not quite possibly be true.
I then went back to the app, and tried again. Several right-clicks in, the app gave up the ghost and froze.
Restart, re-try, and it does the same.
The severity of the issue then really hit me: the app is useless, and shows a lack of understanding of consumers.
For goodness sakes, the developers of the app figured that it was okay to require users to own an Xbox console in order to perform basic housekeeping functions!
That is beyond stupid
Moreover, you can be sure it is not the way to world domination.
I have uninstalled the Xbox Music app from all desktops I work from.
I will also avoid it until sanity returns to Microsoft, or they acquire consumer smarts, and improve the entire user experience.
For goodness sakes, the late, and for me, lamented Zune, wasn’t this addled!
This entire nonsense reminds me of the default setting in Windows Media Player that physically deletes your media files from your computer when you remove them from your Windows Media Player library.
I will wait while you settle down from that little bit of madness. And remember, that has been the default setting over several generations of Windows and Windows Media Player!
UPDATE June 25, 2014: I was wrong.
Completely wrong.
As part of his rudimentary programming training with his Windows Phone Developer Account and Windows Phone AppStudio on his Nokia Lumia 928, #1 Son created an app that pulls RSS feeds from some of his favorite sites. One of them happens to be this blog.
Upon reading my post yesterday, he emailed me – from about 15’ away! – to let me know that he was sure I was wrong, and he could delete Xbox Music playlists on his HP Envy 15t Touch.
Really? I called him into my office and told him he was wrong.
He offered to show me, and earlier today, he did.
This is the screen I had looked at, while right-clicking on the playlist name in the left-hand column, as is the convention in Windows, in order to bring up a context menu. Which wasn’t there. So it didn’t work.
What #1 Son did was different: he looked at the description in the main column, saw the icon with the horizontally-centered ellipsis, and determined that it contained more options. Which it does, as clicking on it brings up more options.
Which must be a Windows 8x Metro convention.
Anyways, he was right. I was wrong.
You can delete playlists from the Xbox Music apps.
My compliments to Carmen C. and Brandon L. from Microsoft who both insisted that my assertion couldn’t be true. They were right, as well.
© 2002 – 2014, John Obeto for Blackground Media Unlimited
Follow @johnobeto