Review Track 8

I've used 4.3 before I used Track 8. I still have to say that Track 8 has a little more fluidity than Muzik had. That's first and foremost. Secondly, never, blame the user for problems with the app. Let me repeat that, never blame the user for problems with the app. It will get you into really deep stuff (EG the comment about those certain people who don't read App Descriptions).

I will not disagree that they did take your Metro on iOS idea, but at the same time, many others already have. This is just a bigger company that did it. I do still believe that it is an improvement on your idea, here's why.

Most of the reason are actually very nit-picky, but that's what made Apple so special. So I'll start small and work my way up:

• It remembers where you were when scrolling music. When you select a song and play it, you go to the now playing screen. When you go back, you are back at the area you were before (not at the top of the list). The stock music app does this as well. I find this more of a convenience thing over anything. You'd be surprised how many times I actually use this. Select a song, then I want to play a song that is 3/4 songs down. Scrolling down again to it is a bit of a hassle, especially if I have quite a list of songs.
• Reading gestures... They do a much better job with this. With Muzik, scrolling left and right on the menu (to move from songs, to artist, to albums, etc.) was a slight pain in the butt (don't say I can't read, it should work well regardless). Track 8 has much better response with gestures and thusly becomes more smooth.
• Automatic vs Manual: you give users the ability to pin stuff to their "home page". That's a nice add, except it requires manual labor to do. Track 8 has an automatic approach. In today's age, automatic > manual simply because people have grown "lazy" (or don't have enough time on their hands to pin things themselves). The menu of history, new songs, and favorites is one of the selling points with Track 8. When someone goes to their iPod, this is probably the area they will go to first (to play their new tracks, favorites, or songs they have been playing recently). This is an area you can beat out Track 8 with if implemented better than they did it (Track 8 has a poor implementation of the new tracks and favorites that can use some sprucing up). This however, is where Track 8 gets it's potential from (thus making it a little better than Muzik).
• Hang ups/Lags: OK, I'm going to go right up and say this, your app lags a lot when scrolling (iOS 5, jailbroken). I get frame skips among other things. Animations from screen to screen can be choppy at times (at others, a little less responsive). I get the same crashes I do with Track 8 as well. Track 8 does crash, I'll admit that (it's the main bug that I don't like). However, it's a lot smoother, it never hangs up, skips frames, or anything (iOS 5, jailbroken). Testing Environment for Track 8 was the same as the testing environment for Muzik (A notification center addon that kept track of my RAM, scrollingBoard, Zephyr, LockInfo).
• Quick Access to "Now Playing". I don't mean only on the "home page". I mean everywhere. That black bar you see on the bottom will redirect you straight to the now playing screen on any menu. I don't remember seeing anything like this on Muzik. It's very useful, in fact, the stock Music app has one of these in the upper corner.
• OK, this last feature is actually a request, neither app has this. A home button. Get you back to the start screen without the need to traverse backwards through the stacked menus. I find this a useful feature from a users' point of view.

That's really what makes Track 8 have an edge on Muzik. This is not to attack your app or anything, but can lead to large improvements. There are two areas your app is much better than Track 8 though, gesture controls (for music control, next, forward, play/pause, volume up/down) as well as social media.

I hope this clarifies a few things. If you app does have any of the above features, they are not apparent to me or hidden somewhere. Don't tell me the feature is there (I don't want to read a manual, I want it to come naturally), show me by making accessibility a little easier in the app (something Track 8 did splendidly).

Muzik is more stable (EG, doesn't crash as much), but it just isn't as responsive or smooth as Track 8. Somewhere in the code, Track 8 beats it out at efficiency. I will admit that Track 8 will crash more than Muzik, but the smoothness in the animations make it seem more stable when both apps are running. Choppyness and short delays in response can make a great app not so great anymore.

I don't think they stole the app right from Ben. I won't say they took an idea. I will say they took an idea and revamped it. They updated it, beautified it's insides. The graphical ability is about par with Muzik, it's the animations that set it apart for me.

For the note about the new Playing screen, it is a little more cluttered. Controls are still placed far enough though so the clutter doesn't get in the way. Use of space is important, I'll agree with you there.

If I'm not mistaken, Track 8 (along with another handful of apps) uses the iPhones Music APIs to play music. The only app that doesn't (that I'm aware of is EQu since it's "flat" isn't the iPhone's flat). There is a way to make it so Track 8 will pop up instead of the music app when running on the Notification center, Ender Labs needs to implement it though.

Why isn't Track 8 or Muzik in the App Switcher?:

The only reason why Track 8 (and Muzik itself) uses the iPhone's Music APIs is because it really is the only efficient and easy way to pull something like this off. When you're developing such an App, Apple make it inexplicably hard to replicate their own Music Player's functionality perfectly. For a contrast, look at Android. UberMusic, DoubleTwist etc, are BOTH eons better than the default Music app that ships with the OS. Now I haven't used an Android device in about 3 years but I'm switching in the coming months, so that opinion could be wrong.

A music library (like that of Track 8, and Muzik) needs to be able to select multiple songs. For example, when you hit "Judas" on the Born This Way album, it's Track 4. What I do is grab the entire album as a queue, and set the current song playing, so this leaves you able to switch back to Government Hooker, or next to Americano.

Having the application literally "replace" (notice the word replace, and not replicate) Music.app, is a rather difficult task if you're playing with the Music Library. From what I can gather, EQu will grab the current audio stream and allow you to play with it. The method for putting Track 8 or Muzik in the Multitasking Switcher is infinitely more complicated. At the moment, we both use iPodMusicPlayer as our controller for playing Music. That's pretty self-explanatory, but I will say; It grabs a music item that we index, and tells the iPod Engine to play, pause, stop, rewind, skip forward/back etc etc.

There is another method, TinyMan you are correct. It's called using 'applicationMusicPlayer', and that will localise the audio playing and fetching to your application but it cannot, and will not (no matter what you attempt) play music in the background. Not even when you lock your device. Something of an issue. So with that little function, we have to use AVPlayer, which doesn't support adding an Array of songs to the engine. So, somewhere in the code you need to continually have access to the Queue you created, store it (depending on the size this could be a RAM issue), and mathematically determine what you're playing at current and go back and forth manually. Very, difficult. It is possible, however. It's just easier and more efficient device-wise to opt with an iPod-player.

Is Muzik choppy and unresponsive?:

When I read this I did a double take. Literally. On my iPhone 4, Muzik whizzes down the scrolling list like I'm gliding my finger along some glass covered by an oil slick. It's not in the slightest bit laggy, stuttery or slow. I have worked tirelessly since 2009, to make Muzik a better app overall. I wrote the Music Library from scratch, and employ Grand Central Dispatch (Multithreading) extensively throughout it, and the rest of the app to ensure smooth and non floopy scrolling across the board from the iPhone 4 and above. Yes, I don't have an iPad version, yet. I'm in the middle of University Exams and I will be making headway on this in the coming weeks.

I cannot guarantee perfect performance on devices lower than the iPhone 4, as that is my primary development device. Obviously, I can't write the code to work blisteringly quick on an iPhone 3GS or lower-level iPod Touch as I don't have access to these devices. I do however, undergo extensive and sometimes extreme amounts of Beta-testing (and for that mitchell209 and AnthonyVangeli, I am sorry!) before I release a version to the App Store, in a never-ending attempt to make my App as perfect as it can possibly be before the public have access.

Yes, Muzik does have a few usability issues here and there that long-time users know how to avoid or work with/around and therefore it doesn't bother them. My comment about the "app description" was in response to a person writing to me in all caps, using a few choice curse words, personal insults and jibes that thoroughly disappointed and confused me beyond human-comprehensible belief. The App Description is about 10 lines, maximum. A simple outline of features, with extremely to-the-point descriptions on what Muzik does.

Difficulties with the Library:

Am I to understand that you have issues with the Music Library within Muzik, tinyman392? "scrolling left and right on the menu from songs to artists to albums etc" was a pain in the butt? The way I have written that code is to detect even a 100px swipe before the action will take place. The buttons along the top are tappable, which will jump you to the appropriate section without having to perform the swipe.

A lot of people get confused with how I've written the library. I haven't placed 5 table views on the same UIViewController which become the focus after a swipe, during use of Muzik. It refreshes the current table view. Inefficient? Hardly. Depending on the size of the library, it can take a bit to rebuild after a sync, and the refresh menu was added to alleviate the main complaint people had with version 4.2 (that it refreshed every time you opened the Picker). I cache the arrays of songs, artists and albums, playlists and genres that you have on your device. So, once you've been to the categories once, it's near instant switching between them regardless of your devices configuration.

The above has been tested on an iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPad 2, iPad 3 and iPhone 3GS. Jailbroken and Un-jailbroken. I ran Barrel, Fold To Unlock, Infinidock and Infinifolders before I upgraded to iOS 6 b1.

Scrolling Position:

Muzik does remember its scrolling position on the lists. Tapping a song under O (tested as Ode to the Bouncer by Studio Killers) will take you to Now Playing, and returning from it will return you exactly where you were. Under the category O, with hardly a pixels difference in scrolling position from where you were previously.

If you find yourself on the top of the list, in Muzik you can tap a tile and jump down back to where you were in about 2 seconds.

Tapping an Artist under L (tested as Lady Gaga), will take you to Artist View, where you can see all the albums I have by her on my iPhone. Tapping an album under T (tested as The Fame Monster) will take you to the list of songs on that album. Navigating back a level, will show you where you were at scrolling wise in Artist View, and navigating back again will reveal where you are under L in the Artists list.

I really, honestly cannot comprehend why you are experiencing this on your device.

Crashing:

I'm going to be honest. I have experienced a random, unpredictable crash on devices lower than the iPhone 4 with Muzik in the past. It was quite prevalent when I was working on getting the Music Library up to scratch with the performance of Music.app. I use something called ARC in Objective-C which is an acronym for Automatic Reference Counting. It will automatically allocate and deallocate memory objects when it determines it needs or no longer needs them. This crash has not been discovered by me or my Beta Testers since 4.0 (Muzik version, not iOS). A caveat with this feature is that Muzik will close itself in the background (or in the foreground, though this has not been discovered or found on the iPhone 4, 4s, iPad 2, 3 or iPhone 3GS) when the device tells the currently running app that it's low on memory and needs to free up a large chunk to keep running smoothly.

A common culprit to low RAM on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch is MobileSafari. It can use insane amounts of RAM when multiple pages are open and left, and while Safari is "backgrounded" on the App Switcher. Closing this will often increase performance of the device (also Muzik and I'm assuming Track 8) and lead to a better user experience.

This has all been tested on Stock iOS 5,0, 5.1, 5.1.1, iOS 6.0b1. Jailbroken & Un-jailbroken equally.

Quick Access to Now Playing:

I believe that this feature is a drawing point of Track 8 also. Though the way they implemented the iPad UI of their app on the iPhone with minimal changes is very, very detracting. It's exceedingly easy to grab the iPad UI, and shrink it down onto the iPhone with a few graphic changes to suit without changing code all that much.

I can possibly add quick access to Now Playing throughout Muzik but I would probably allow it to show when you change the volume, or the track changes to free up vertical UI space. I honestly prefer the way Muzik is designed over that of Track 8, and that is not because I'm biased. That is just my personality. I'm rather minimalistic when I have constrained space to work with. And overcrowding can be cozy and familiar, but it can also be very annoying and frustrating to the wrong person.

Automatic v. Manual:

I agree with the statement that people prefer Automatic over Manual operations in such applications. I know Windows Phone 7 fetches a recent (or is it "new") list of things added, but at last check (as in last week) it fetches four recent items and saves the rest for Zune Pass. Again, they have direct unobscured access to the Library so it's much easier for this to be done than on iOS in a 3rd party app. Even Apple don't do it in their own App.

I literally grabbed the Windows Phone in this household to improve my Favourite Pin feature, with the way they hold down on the menu and present a list of options. I replicated this in Muzik to better the experience of Pins over its past implementation. In the email from Ender Labs (yes, I emailed them with blistering thinly veiled fury on what they did to usurp my position on the App Store) they stated that Muzik was a much more authentic experience of the WP7/Zune UI on iOS than Track 8. They simply attempted to follow the Metro Design Language, but not the actual implementation on a phone running WP7, for their designs. I agreed with this, as "Track 8 iPhone would be more a port from the iPad to iPhone than a ground-up copy of Muzik" was an understatement. Though the Menu, which they have copied from the M to the O in Music+Video (including my animations when you scroll from left to right and tap things) was a kick in the teeth.

I understand that most people would prefer an automatic update of a 'new' and 'recently played' list within Muzik like that of Track 8. The fact they do not use UIViewControllers (from their email, they perform the animations explicitly on UIViews) makes something like that very difficult for Muzik to replicate or surpass. The "static" lists are probably like that for a reason. They either update after a Sync, or a Relaunch. This would be because the algorithm takes a LONG time to process. Probably no getting around that even with ARC, as the Music Library does not include preset methods for these functions. So you have to write them on your own.

Manual Pinning will stay. If I populated the list with the most played songs, or the 12 of the highest rated songs in the library, odds are they would be incorrect and if I were to remove the ability to remove the Pins and the ability to manually add them I would be bombarded by complaints. I really don't want to deal with those during Uni Exams. I wished to give the user full control over what is presented on the Menu. That is what I achieved. I understand I cannot please everybody, though.

Animations:

I differ in how I use UIViewControllers within Muzik, which is why my animations aren't as flashy as theirs. But I truly despise the flips and slides of Windows Phone (and Track 8), as they distract the user from the lag and delay between showing content with something to keep them visually entertained. A flat UI is eons better, which is why I have opted with fading animations between main areas on my app, and stock iOS transitions in other areas which display live content.

Thanks:

When you mentioned that Social Media is far better in my app than Track 8, I actually smiled for the first time since reading the front page Review yesterday. I know this is true, and in this upcoming update to Muzik you can customise the tweet, or write a custom one just like a tweet client.

Conclusion:

I understand that I cannot please everybody with my application. I accepted that long ago when Muzik was just a Now Playing view with no Menu. But I have evolved it according to what my customers want, and according to what I wish to replicate on iOS from Windows Phone (admittedly with compromises for screen space and HIG). But when I log onto iFans and see a large Review on the front page for a competing application that basically states; "despite the frequent crashes, bugs and annoyances that Track 8 has, it's a Muzik killer and is a whole lot better" is a real kick in the teeth, and is at the same time excruciatingly unfair. Especially when I have worked on Muzik to ensure that it doesn't crash or lag. And I will happily record video footage of the smooth and un-interrupted scrolling if you need. Being told that Muzik does things that it doesn't, and doesn't do things that it does is quite…disappointing. I have worked to make these features very easy to discover. A few of them, I admit (like Last.FM scrobble, and having to sign in on the Menu) are cumbersome to use, and I will improve those according to this review.

I stand by what I said above this novel, I will take things from Track 8 to improve Muzik. Ender Labs took things from me, so I'll play the same game. When I switch to Android, I will attempt to port Muzik to that OS as well.

In the latest update, which is coming to the store in the next week at max, a tutorial will present itself to users which covers some basic things that Muzik can do that people might not know about. Though with the addition of Tiles to Muzik 4, I would've thought it obvious that you could tap them and jump down. That Track 8 has the same Tile feature *cough* and people have had -100% trouble figuring out how to use them to jump down the list in that app over Muzik is quite confusing to me.

This post isn't to attack you, and I'm sorry if you take it that way. I'm simply explaining things in a non-biased way. I'm also defending Track 8 here and there. I truly hope this clears up some of the confusion regarding to features of both Track 8 and Muzik.

Thank-you.
cocotutch

I'm running an iPod Touch 4G. Things will be smooth as butter on any iPhone 4 or later device due to its RAM. I experience this lag in the animations, as well as it not being able to remember where I was in the list of songs. When I tap a song to play, and go back, it takes me to the top of the screen. It's not that I can't get back to the letter in the alphabet, scrolling through 50 songs that starts with "s" can become a pain in the butt still when the song I wanted afterwards was 8 songs songs down from what was playing. Instead, I'm stuck browsing to "s" and scrolling 25+ songs to reach the one I want. It's an inconvenience as I said.

Going to animations, I'm not saying that Track 8 has better animations than you. Theirs are a lot smoother, and run much better than yours do in the app. They are simply smoother on my iPod. The thing that really puts Track 8's smoothness ahead of yours is that Track 8 is less resource hungry than Muzik. Unfortunately, this is what made the difference that set Track 8 apart in terms of animations and smoothness for me. It simply ran a lot faster, quicker, and more stable for me. Both apps still crash, so I'm not using either one.

EDIT:

When I say your app is inefficient compared to Track 8, I mean in terms of resources (RAM and processor usage). It is a lot slower with the iPod Touch. It's evident in many ways, from scrolling lists, to traversing menus. Speed just isn't as snappy as it should be. This is out of your control though as you don't own an iPod.

Less resource hungry while it's running... EG, it's more efficient while it's running. EG, they use better memory management, better use of the processor, etc. Reason why it crashes? It easily could be that they delete something from memory they should not have.

Muzik may or may not do that deleting, but there is something up with how it's running as I get sluggish results with the iPod Touch 4G. If you compare it to Track 8, it's no comparison.

App has been updated a little. It's added a few features including two major ones that were well needed:

• Gesture controls
• Twitter integration

Facebook integration would be nice as well as that is a new feature in iOS 6. They stated there are some stability improvements, but I haven't had time to test that yet.

EDIT: Random crashes seem to have gone away

I wish I could test it on an iPad... The UI looks absolutely gorgeous. Too bad about the lack of portrait mode though