The controls at the bottom could be arranged in a more user-friendly way. One page for all my playlists across multiple services is, to me, a game-changer. The carousel in the home page could be better utilized. Overkill.Ĭovers all the basics of playing music quite well. It offers features that its first party alternatives don't, looks fantastic, and is updated regularly. To summarize, I love SoundByte - the problems I have with it are by no means glaring flaws, so much as minor usability shortcomings, and are easily forgivable. I realize that playing local content is not what this app is designed for, but making SoundByte a one-stop-shop for all of my audio consumption needs would make for an excellent experience, personally speaking. Lastly, I wish it had a tab for locally stored music, too. Granted, they're all important functions and shortcuts, but putting them all in one row does make it hard to decipher them at a moment's glance. Here's an oddity - there are currently three separate ways to access the 'Now Playing' window - from the column of tabs, from the artwork of the currently playing track at the bottom, and via a dedicated button along the same row of controls at the bottom - which brings me to the last problem I have - in contrast to its stark simplicity everywhere else, the bar at the bottom has way too many buttons - nine, not including the drop down menu with additional options. For now, that's all there is to having a SoundByte account, though there are plans for extending this functionality in future. There's also an option for you to sync your playlists and preferences with a SoundByte account without needing a separate SoundCloud/Fanburst/YouTube login.
#Baseball broadcast soundbyte windows#
There's a nice mini-player mode that lets you keep a small album-art sized window with basic information and controls floating above all your other windows at all times, which is handy. There's not much to explain about each tab's function beyond its name the album art and track titles within each are all arranged tastefully with slight drop shadows and careful attention to padding that add to a pleasant overall aesthetic. There are three secondary tabs below those as well - one for handling connected accounts, one for settings and a final one for the only monetization path Maas has chosen for now, optional donations. The aforementioned 'Explore' tab for trending tracks across the three currently integrated platforms, a tab for your SoundCloud feed, one for tracks you've played recently, a 'My Collection' tab for custom playlists and tracks you might have 'liked' on each platform, and a 'Now Playing' tab. Leaving aside the search bar at the top, there's a column of tabs along the side. An option to change this to my curated SoundCloud feed would be quite useful. Additionally, the default home page, or the Explore tab, as it's called, shows trending tracks on SoundCloud, Fanburst, and YouTube. That being said, the large carousel at the top of the home page feels a bit overqualified to just show a link to the latest changelog and an option to resume playback. Dennis Bednarz, a reputed developer of apps for jailbroken iOS devices, was involved in designing the interface. It's possibly my favorite implementation of Microsoft's Fluent Design standard, with properly varying font weights and sizes, and judicious use of translucent panes. My first impression of the app is that it's gorgeous. The developer intends to expand the number of services you can stream from in future (more on that later), but for now, I'll stick to sharing my thoughts about the app in its present state.
#Baseball broadcast soundbyte windows 10#
It eventually expanded to Windows 10 on the desktop, and currently supports streaming from SoundCloud, a similar service called Fanburst, and YouTube. This led me to New Zealand-based developer Dominic Maas' UWP project, SoundByte, that was initially made to be a SoundCloud client for Windows Phone. Mind you, I didn't really need an app, but out of curiosity and my preference for natively coded apps, I decided to look for one anyway. A vast majority of my streaming is done from Google Play Music, but often, there's content on platforms like YouTube and SoundCloud that one generally can't find elsewhere.Īfter spending some time on SoundCloud's perfectly adequate website, I decided to look for an app that could better leverage Windows' media controls and give me more flexibility in a natively coded package.
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