LauncherPro is one of the most attractive (and most useful) home screen replacements available for Google Android. Now the developer is working on an app that can replace another program that comes with Android: the music player. This week Fede launched the first beta version of UberMusic. It’s been in alpha testing for a little while already, but the beta has a completely new look.

Earlier builds were designed to mimic the Zune music player from Windows Phone 7, but UberMusic beta has a more standard Android-like design. The play/pause and skip buttons still look like they were designed by Microsoft though.

One cool feature that still takes a cue from the Zune interface is the ability to grab photos of the artists you’re listening to and use them as background wallpapers while you’re viewing an album or listening to a song. You can opt to only use this feature when you’re on a WiFi connection so your phone doesn’t needlessly use your 3G bandwidth to download images.

UberMusic beta 1 also supports Last.fm scrobbling, a customizeable music list, the ability to disable the lockscreen while listening to music, and a theme engine that will allow third party developers to create skins that change the look of the media player.

Right now there’s not much you can do with UberMusic that you can’t already do with the default Android media player — and the app doesn’t currently support Google’s cloud-based music service. But it’s an attractive music player which takes up less than 1MB of disk space, so it’s certainly worth checking out if you’re tired of looking at the official Google Music app. The current beta expires on July 15th.

via reddit

Microsoft is retooling the Music+Videos Hub for Windows Phone. When the Mango software update rolls out later this year it will bring new tools for managing podcasts, a “Smart DJ” option which creates a playlist based on an individual song, artist or album, and better Marketplace search.

The podcast update is long overdue. While you can listen to podcasts on a Windows Phone device you currently need a computer running Zune desktop software to subscribe to podcasts. Mango will add an on-device podcast directory.

The Smart DJ service will create playlists from music on your device. But if you have a subscription to Microsoft’s Zune Pass service, the Smart DJ feature will be able to create mixes by pulling in some of the millions of songs available to subscribers.

Other changes in Mango include new placements for the shuffle, rate, and repeat buttons, better history, and new options for controlling media  playback from your phone’s lock screen.

We got an early look at some of these changes when the Windows Phone 7 Mango emulator hit the streets. But now Microsoft is highlighting most of the major changes to the Zune media software and Musi+Videos Hub in a Windows Team blog post where you can find more details and pictures.

Microsoft promised there would be at least 500 changes in the Mango update to Windows Phone 7 due out later this year, so it’s not surprising that the company didn’t highlight every last tweak during its press event this week. Now that the developer tools have been released, the folks at anythingbutiphone fired up the Mango emulator and noticed that the new version of the Zune media software has been updated.

There aren’t any really drastic changes here. Zune didn’t drop support for music and video and become a PDF viewer or anything. But the playback controls have been moved from the bottom of the screen to the top, the volume meter has been changed, and the artist image is now darker on the now playing screen. It’s easier to find the repeat, shuffle, and favorites settings, and the lock screen has been updated to make the playback controls visible.

You can find more details and images at anythingbutiphone.

Microsoft has a tool for synchronizing media between a Mac and a Windows Phone 7 device. But for some reason there’s no official tool for doing the same thing with a Zune media player — even though the Zune platform has been around longer than Windows Phone 7. The folks at ZuneBoards have figured out something interesting though: You can use the Windows Phone 7 Connector app for Mac to sync with a Zune or Zune HD media player.

In order to get it to work properly you’ll need to tweak some settings. First you download and run the connector once to create a preference file. Then you have to open a terminal window and enter a command. Once you’re done, you should be able to sync media between a Zune and a Mac computer.

Now that handsets with Windows Phone 7 are starting to ship in some parts of the globe, a handful of customers are inevitably wondering “how to do I get this thing to sync with my Mac?” Well, as promised, Microsoft is working on it.

PC users can sync their music, movies, and other data with a PC using the Zune Desktop software. But Zune Desktop isn’t available for Mac. Instead, Microsoft plans to launch a Mac app called Windows Phone 7 Connector which offers users tools to synchronize their data and manage theirmedia.

The software’s not available to the public yet, but a number of reviewers have gotten their hands on beta versions. Electric Pig reports that the app can grab your iTunes content and playlists and transfer them to your phone. Pocket Lint reports that the app also grabs data from iPhoto, and allows you to either synchronize your media automatically or manually.

While the Mac application doesn’t let you purchase media from the Zune Marketplace, you should be able to purchase music on your phone and then transfer it to your Mac, since the music is DRM-free, but the folks at Pocket Lint say that feature isn’t working properly yet.

A public beta of Windows Phone 7 Connector for mac should be available on October 24th.

Microsoft’s Zune Marketplace music store lets users purchase music or sign up for Zune Pass subscriptions on a Zune media player, Xbox 360, Windows PC, or an upcoming Windows Phone 7 device. This week the company announced several major changes to the service:

• All purchased songs will now be available as DRM-free MP3 files instead of WMA
• The Zune Marketplace is expanding to new countries
• There are more indie artists in the store

Zune Marketplace will be available in the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, and other countries this fall, with prices for a Zune Pass subscription set at 9.99 Euros or 8.99 pounds in the UK. The US price is still $14.99, and US Zune Pass users can keep 10 MP3s they download each month — something that isn’t available to European users at this point.

The PC Zune software will also serve as the synchronization client for Windows Phone 7, ending the reign of the Windows Mobile Device Center. The update also supports instant streaming of HD videos on a PC.

via Gizmodo

Ever wish the home screen on your Android phone looked more like the Zune HD launcher? Yeah, me neither. But there’s an app for that anyway.

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Zune Home is a $0.99 app available in the Android Market that replicates the basic look and feel of the Zune HD app launcher. Instead of a series of shortcuts and widgets, the Zune Home screen features a list of apps which you can scroll through to launch your most frequently used programs. The app is customizable, allowing you to pin any app to the home screen, or to choose any app you like for the default actions such as contacts, messaging, email, or Twitter.

At its core, Zune Home launcher is kin do f a one-trick pony though. It doesn’t actually bring the Zune HD media player to your phone, for instance. And it doesn’t include the same 3D effects when you actually launch apps. It just gives you a scrollable program list on your home screen.

You can check out a brief video demo from Android Central after the break.

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There may only be about a dozen apps for the Zune HD in the Zune Marketplace. But third party hackers are doing their best to turn the handheld media player into a full-fledged mobile computer. A few weeks ago we saw the launch of an independent development kit that made it possible to write games and other apps that would take advantage of the Zune HD’s 3D graphics capabilities. And now a developer has ported a Nintendo Game Boy emulator to the Zune HD.

At the moment it can handle Game Boy and Game Boy Color games, but no Game Boy Advance titles. The emulator is still a bit rough around the edges. It doesn’t’ support audio, for instance. But the latest release adds support for saved game states, which is something.

You can check out a video of the emulator in action after the break.

via Engadget

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