Windows Phone Thoughts: Listenin' to the Music!--PocketMusic 3.0 Reviewed

Feature Sets
Pocket Music has come a long way from what we saw last year, and a lot of features have been added to the freeware version. The basic version of PocketMusic now includes:

• A new skinnable interface (portrait and landscape!) with big controls;
  
• Winamp 2.x support;
  
• Skin selection dialog with preview;
  
• Equalizer presets;
  
• Multi-lingual interface (German, French, Italian, Spanish or English).

With the bundle you add:

• MP1, MP2, OGG, and WMA file types support for audio;
  
• M3U, ASF, ASX, and PLS format support for playlists;
  
• WSZ and WAL formats for Winamp skin files ;
  
• HTTP Streaming audio for MPS and OGG Internet radio broadcasts;
  
• Audible audio books support (through AA and FLC file formats).

Look and Feel stuff (Interface)
With PocketMusic 3, the overall colour scheme of the default skin has been softened and makes use of more pastel shades. The ‘big button’ version is shown at the top of this review. Here’s the Winamp version, which is similar to the original interface from earlier versions.


Figure 3:The new default Winamp skin for PocketMusic 3.0

If you want to access the menu system associated with PocketMusic (with the Configuration Options) on the Winamp skin, you need to tap on an ‘inactive’ part of the screen, where there aren’t any other buttons or controls. I usually use the middle top left of the screen – just to the left of the Previous Track button.

I was glad to see they’ve reduced the size of the spectrum analyzer display and changed its colour to monochrome. In fact, you might not know it’s even there from this screenshot, but it’s located in the top left, just under the run time. I don’t believe it really works anyway, since I’ve noticed that there are bass notes being shown when the music is definitely playing high-range flutes and clarinets.

Some of the controls on the default skin are still way too small for my liking – as in the window controls in the top right. But they’ve done a good job of addressing this in the ‘big button’ versions and in the Today screen plug in. Sorry, I don’t have access to a VGA-screen unit, so I can’t tell you if PocketMusic’s new interface supports that resolution.

The Winamp skins provided on the PocketMind Web site are the same as before, although they do state that there are thousands to be found on the Internet. A quick Google search on “winamp skins” produced about a million hits, so you shouldn’t have too much trouble finding one that suits your mood. (Wouldn’t it be cool to be able to have the skins cycle like we do our Today Themes???)

The same pastel colour scheme for the Landscape Mode version of the interface.


Figure 4:Default Landscape Mode interface.

They’ve even added an Alarm Clock and Sleep Timer to this version, so you can get the same functionality as PtravelAlarm to have music lull you to sleep and/or wake you in the morning(but I like PtravelAlarm’s time display better ;-)


Figure 5: Sleep Timer and Alarm Clock screens.