Music Now 5.4.1.0

Plenty of Windows Phone users are looking to find a replacement or at least an alternative for the default playback facility offered by the operating system and there are a few options at their disposal inside the Store.

Those interested in getting a pretty simple and easy to use utility that can be used for playing back the audio files stored onto the mobile device can take for a spin the suggestively named Music Now.

Cool graphics and friendly interface

The appearance of this utility is well above average, as it features some neat graphics, including support for album art, even if for some songs or artists it will not find any images.

The informative GUI also presents at a glance a few details about each currently playing music track, while also providing a smart layout to facilitate the access and management of the songs and playlists.

On the downside, there are numerous in-app advertisements that take the form of some animated banners that are shown in the lower side of the screen while in the "Now playing" section.

Swipe and pinch to access various areas and commands

Going through the several sections of Music Now is pretty smooth and it offers an interesting method of accessing the menus and activating come controls.

Thus, by swiping up you will be able to enter the song area, with quick access to the favorite tracks, artists, albums and also to the comprehensive "Music Hub". The latter section enables you to access the playlists you may have onto your phone and also search for songs, albums or artists.

The "swipe down" gesture brings into view the sharing box that makes it very easy to post to your Twitter and Facebook accounts the title of the song you are listening.

Basic playback functionality

Music Now comes with a few functions that you can use to control the playback and besides the usual "Play/Pause" command, you can skip to the next or previous track with swipe gestures.

A nice touch is the addition of a set of commands for shuffling and repeating songs that you can activate with pinch gestures from the main screen.

The playback goes on even if the screen is locked and you can choose to deactivate the automatic lock screen functionality from the "Settings" area of the utility.

Here you can also enable the live tile update with the artist photo and there is another command that makes it possible for you to pause the playback when you switch away from the app.

Add to watchlist:

Player

• Free Music Downloader 1.10.0.0
• Ringtones 1.10.1.0
• SonicXbeat 2.0.0.1