WP App Review : Gesture Music Player

NOTE: This review has been updated at the bottom

SECOND NOTE : This app's developer has changed from Red Queen to Laukik.

Please scroll to the bottom for updated information and review.

Gesture Music Player (Version 2.5)

Red Queen

Free

Previously known as Car Music Player, Gesture Music Player is as the name suggests, a music player which is controlled based on on-screen gestures.When Gesture Music Player first released in early February 2013, it was called Car Music Player. Since this was a new release, I was hoping that the developer would update it to make it more user friendly, and the newest updates takes it one step closer to becoming a great gesture based music player such as Fluxtunes or the now discontinued Flicktunes found on iOS.

My Lumia 920 is my main source of music when driving and so far I've been using CarTunes as a replacement for Fluxtunes which I used when I was on iOS. However, the last update was in 2011 and I've always been on the lookout for a more stable app geared towards WP8. When I came upon this app, it was originally named Car Music Player. Since it showed some promise I made a few suggestions in the marketplace review (no direct contact link was available.) Just the other day, the app has been updated to Version 2 while also being renamed to Gesture Music Player.

So far, the only review of this app in the marketplace is by me, so I'll assume that the developer has read it and taken my suggestions into consideration. Originally, the app would only play all songs and had a search box to type and manually search for a song. The background was lackluster and showed no album art and the tile design was mediocre at best. 

My initial suggestions included adding a way to access playlists, adding album art, browsing playlist songs, and adding custom gestures, mainly for shuffle. With the newest update, most of these suggestions are now included.

First off, the default background is no longer dull looking, although now it's a bit too colorful for my tastes; but I can easily look over that. You can now access your playlists and browse songs without typing by double-tapping the screen - there's no way to browse through the song list of a specific playlist yet though. Tapping and holding will bring up the gesture instructions and your other basic controls are the standard tap to play/pause and swipe right/left to change tracks.

Playing a song now shows the album art, but it uses the full screen and stretches the image out. The slight distortion is apparent but I'm not constantly staring at the screen while driving so it's not too bothersome. There is another issue with the album art that does bother me though. If you play a song which has album art and switch to a song that doesn't have one, it keeps the previous song's album art on screen. It'd be nice to have a default background for songs without album art, such as the standard "music note" which most players use.

One last feature the player needs is a lock screen time out option set to "never". I know that some Lumia 920 owners have a "never" option but most users don't. Including a "never" option in the app is a must for a music player geared towards driving use. Other than that, a metro style tile would be definitely welcome.

I've updated my marketplace review to reflect these new suggestions and hopefully the developer reads and fixes these issues as there's no way to directly contact them. So far, the developer seems responsive to ideas and with a few more updates I can see Gesture Music Player becoming my default car music player as well as becoming the go-to gesture based music player for Windows Phones. It seems like no one else is producing a quality gesture based music player and I know I can't be the only one wanting one.

Update Version 2.5

Gesture Music Player was reviewed just under a week ago and if you've read the review, you'll know that when the app first hit the market about a month ago, I made some suggestions to the developer in the MSFT marketplace review. The first update included many of the features I had asked for. I again made some more suggestions after the first update and in just under a week the developer has updated it again to fix some of the problems and other features I wanted to see.

First off, a huge credit to the developer for adding all these features that I've been suggesting. Having a gesture based music player to use in the car was one of the main apps that I had wanted, especially coming from iOS which had a few great apps in this category. I couldn't find a decent replacement until now.

The newest update now includes a short tutorial on how to use the app when you first launch it, something that was missing in the first iterations. The overall app feels a whole lot smoother and gestures still work extremely well.

One of the issues I had after the first update was regarding the album art. First, it would take up the whole screen which caused it to be a bit distorted. Also, when switching to tracks which had no album art, the screen would still display the previous song's album art.

The newest update fixes both of these. Album art switches without a hitch and songs without one get a default image. The album art also no longer covers the whole screen and instead is half-displayed in a rotating turntable to the left of the screen which I think looks and works awesome. Credit to the developer for this excellent idea.

A much needed feature that I had originally suggested is also now included and that's the ability to browse through the song list of the playlist that's currently playing. Just like before, you can double-tap to bring up the song browser which will display the songs in the playlist, or you can swipe horizontally to access your other playlists or songs. Also added was the disabling of the lock screen time out, a much needed setting for in-car use.

Gesture Music Player is definitely the best app of it's kind now and there's only a few more nitpicks that could be addressed. When using the app, if you press the phone's "home" button to access another app such as navigation then switch back to Gesture Music Player via the "home" button, double-tapping doesn't display the Playlist song list anymore so you'll have to restart the playlist to access it. Re-accessing the app via long-holding the "back" button has no problem however. Also, toggling the shuffle via a swipe up or down would be a lot easier than the tap-and-hold and then pressing the shuffle button.

The only other things are cosmetic wise and of course are personal preference. I appreciated the removal of the super-colorful background image but the default album art could be a bit "cooler" looking. Also, I'd still like to see a nice high-definition metro-style tile.

Still, with all these updates, Gesture Music Player has now become my default in-car music player. If you love playing music through your phone and need to control it via gestures, this is the app to get. The best part is that it's free (and I'd gladly pay for an app like this) so give it a try and give the developer some love by rating and leaving a review.

I'm still surprised by the responsiveness of the developer to add in all these features I've been requesting. Although I haven't directly contacted the developer, I'm pretty positive that they've been reading the reviews I've been leaving since it's the only review up so far and there's no other way to contact them. All the suggestions I've been requesting have been implemented from the creation of the app and it's grown from a simple app to one that's fully featured and looks great.

Excellent apps like these with an active developer willing to take up suggestions are what help make the Windows Phone community grow and become better in my opinion. If the developer happens to be reading this, I truly appreciate the hard work you're putting into this app.

You can read my original review followed by the review update found on this page by clicking here.

UPDATE (Re-branded) Version 1.1

Gesture Music Player (Version 1.1)
Laukik
Free / $1.29

The new Gesture Music Player has changed the developer name from Red Queen to Laukik and the previous version is no longer available in the marketplace. The new version maintains all the basic features as previously mentioned in the old reviews but includes some slight cosmetic changes in the way the information is displayed.

It's still a solid gesture based music app but after using it for a few months I thought it could still use a few more tweaks. I've recently changed my car phone mount to display in portrait mode which makes the app less intuitive to use. If the basic play screen could support portrait mode that would be a great plus and hopefully it's easy to implement as selecting a playlist and songs do support portrait.

Since changing to a portrait mode car mount setup, I've been using the OEM music player and so Gesture Music Player's swipe left to go to previous track instead of next track gets confusing. Almost all music players have this default "swipe left for next track" so having this one app which is reversed is counter-intuitive.

My nitpicks are similar to before : integrating a swipe up or down to toggle shuffle would be less hassle-free then tapping and holding, then tapping another button. Ultimately, custom gestures would be the best. I do like the simplicity of the current graphical interface but being able to change font color would be a good addition and adapting to the "light" or "dark" theme of the phone would be nice. Lastly, a more generic rotating disc image for songs without album art would be welcome along with an updated modern looking tile.

Still, Gesture Music Player is a solid app and I still keep it loaded on my phone. Enabling portrait mode would be the one thing to get me to start using it as my default car music player again ...

UPDATE (Re-branded) Version 1.2.0.1

Unfortunately, this once solid app has gotten worse in terms of graphical interface. There are generic animated GIFS that pop while playing and just the overall UI feels cheap and looks like something out of the early '90s.

The original Version 2.5 looked the best, but now that there are a few more gesture-based music players out, this one falls behind.

Pros : Solid gesture recognition, easy to use

Cons : Generally user/graphical interface has gone downhill overtime