Developer(s) | Microsoft | ||
---|---|---|---|
Stable release |
| ||
Preview release | Windows 11: 11.2110.34.0 | ||
Operating system | Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Windows 11 | ||
Platform | x86, x64, ARM, ARM64 [1] | ||
Predecessor | Zune Music Pass, Xbox Music Pass | ||
Successor | Media Player (2022) | ||
Available in | 113 languages [2] | ||
Type | audio player | ||
License | Freeware | ||
Website | music |
Groove Music (formerly Xbox Music or Zune Music Pass) is a discontinued audio player software application included with Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 and Windows 11.
The app is also associated with a now-discontinued music streaming service, Groove Music Pass, which was supported across Windows, Xbox video game consoles, Windows Phone, as well as Android and iOS. [3] As of 2014 [update] , The Groove catalogue had over 50 million tracks. [4] [5] Its subscription service Groove Music Pass was officially discontinued on December 31, 2017, and the Android and iOS versions of the Groove Music app were discontinued in December 2018, restricting the player to its native Microsoft Store base.
Groove Music was superseded by Media Player in Windows 10 and Windows 11. The update was rolled out to Windows 10 users between January and June 2023.
Microsoft had previously ventured into music services with its Zune brand. The Zune Music Marketplace included 11 million tracks. The line of Zune players and Zune music store were somewhat unsuccessful, and the brand was largely discontinued at the beginning of the 2010s, although it continued to exist on different devices and the Zune Music Pass offered unlimited access to songs for US$9.99 per month. [6]
During its E3 2012 press conference, and in the wake of the upcoming release of Windows 8, Microsoft announced the relaunch of the service as Xbox Music. With the accompanying announcement of Xbox Video, this move was intended to position Xbox as the company's main entertainment brand. Both services launched on October 16, 2012. [7] [8]
On July 6, 2015, Microsoft announced the re-branding of Xbox Music as Groove to tie in with the impending release of Windows 10. The new brand utilized the Microsoft-owned "Groove" trademark formerly used for the unrelated product Microsoft Office Groove (now OneDrive for Business). Joe Belfiore explained that the re-branding was intended to disassociate the service from the Xbox product line, making it more inclusive to non-Xbox platforms. [9] [10] [11]
On October 2, 2017, Microsoft announced that its subscription service, Groove Music Pass, and music purchases on Windows Store would be discontinued after December 31, 2017, leaving support for playing music stored locally and on OneDrive. At the same time, Microsoft began advertising the competing service Spotify, displaying a banner ad for the service within the Groove Music user interface, [12] and offering the ability to migrate music collections and playlists to Spotify. As a side effect of the discontinuation, on May 31, 2018, Microsoft additionally announced that the Groove Music apps for Android and iOS would also be discontinued and cease functioning on December 1, 2018, with users being redirected to Google Play Music and iTunes Match for similar cloud synchronization functionality (the OneDrive app still offered limited music playback functions within). [13] [14]
Microsoft began replacing the Groove Music app with a new Windows Media Player app in January 2022 via an update from the Microsoft Store; it initially applied to Windows 11, with Windows 10 following suit in January 2023. [15] [16]
Groove Music Pass (formerly Xbox Music Pass and Zune Music Pass) is a discontinued pay subscription service that allowed unlimited streaming of the service's catalog on any device with the service installed. The pricing in the U.S. included monthly and annual subscriptions. [17] A one-month trial offer was available, but those who previously tried the Zune Music Pass subscription prior to the rebranding were ineligible for this offer. [18] An advertising-supported streaming tier was previously available, but discontinued effective December 1, 2014. [6] [19] Music could also be purchased directly from Windows Store. [20]
Users' purchased music, and playlists consisting of songs available on the service could be synced through OneDrive and accessed from multiple devices. Songs in a user's local library on a Windows 8.1 PC could be matched and made available to other devices if available on Groove Music Pass. [21] [22] Custom "radio stations" could be generated using songs related to user-selected songs. [23] Songs could be downloaded for offline listening on smartphones. [24] Uploading of non-Groove music became available on Windows 10. [20]
Windows 10's Anniversary Update allowed users to hide features that require a Groove Music Pass from the interface.
On October 2, 2017, Microsoft announced the discontinuation of the Groove Music Pass service effective December 31, 2017. Existing subscribers were refunded, and Microsoft began promoting Spotify as an alternative by allowing saved playlists to be migrated to the service. [25]
Groove Music lets users create a collection of songs and playlists that roam through the cloud on all the supported devices. [21] The songs can be added from the Groove Music Store or matched (within the Groove Music Catalog) to songs either saved locally on the user's machine or uploaded to the user's OneDrive account for the country the user is in.
The Groove Music API provides access to RESTful web services for developers to leverage the catalog and features of the service in their application or website. [26]
Countries where Groove was available included: [27]
The app in Windows 10 supports a number of formats, [28] [29] including:
Windows Media Player, is the first media player and media library application that Microsoft developed to play audio and video on personal computers. It has been a component of the Microsoft Windows operating system, including Windows 9x, Windows NT, Pocket PC, and Windows Mobile. Microsoft also released editions of Windows Media Player for classic Mac OS, Mac OS X, and Solaris, but has since discontinued them.
A playlist is a list of video or audio files that can be played back on a media player, either sequentially or in a shuffled order. In its most general form, an audio playlist is simply a list of songs that can be played once or in a loop. The term has several specialized meanings in the realms of television broadcasting, radio broadcasting and personal computers.
The Xbox network, formerly known as Xbox LIVE, is an online multiplayer gaming and digital media delivery service created and operated by Microsoft Gaming for the Xbox brand. It was first made available to the original Xbox console on November 15, 2002. An updated version of the service became available for the Xbox 360 console at the system's launch in November 2005, and a further enhanced version was released in 2013 with the Xbox One. This same version is also used with Xbox Series X and Series S. This service, in addition to a Microsoft account, is the account for Xbox ecosystem; accounts can store games and other content.
Zune was a brand of digital media products and services that was marketed by Microsoft from November 2006 until it was discontinued in June 2012. Zune consisted of a line of portable media players, a music subscription service known as Zune Music Pass plus Zune Marketplace for music, TV and movies, streaming services for the Xbox 360 game console, and the Zune software media player for Windows PCs which also acted as desktop sync software for Windows Phone.
Zune is a discontinued software program that was developed by Microsoft for Windows that functions as a full media player, library, media streaming server, mobile device management, and interface for the discontinued Zune Marketplace. The software is used to sync with all devices with Zune functionality including the Zune 4, 8, 16, 30, 80, 120, Zune HD, Windows Phone 7, and Microsoft Kin. Zune devices work exclusively with the Zune software, which applies many design principles of Microsoft's Metro design language.
Digital music stores sell copies of digital audio, for example in MP3 and WAV file formats. Unlike music streaming services, which typically charge a monthly subscription fee to stream digital audio, digital music stores download songs to the customer's hard disk drive of their device. The customer will have the copy of the song permanently on their disk, provided the track is not deleted by the customer, the disk does not get physically damaged, or suffers from being corrupted. Major examples of digital music stores include iTunes Store, Amazon Music, Bandcamp and 7digital.
Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued mobile operating system developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design language. Unlike Windows Mobile, it was primarily aimed at the consumer market rather than the enterprise market.
Spotify is a Swedish audio streaming and media service provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 602 million monthly active users, including 236 million paying subscribers, as of December 2023. Spotify is listed on the New York Stock Exchange in the form of American depositary receipts.
MixRadio was an online music streaming service owned by Line Corporation. The service was first introduced by Nokia in 2011 as Nokia Music for Windows Phone, serving as a successor to Nokia's previous Nokia Music Store/Comes with Music/Ovi Music Store initiatives, which was based on the LoudEye/OD2 platform. After its acquisition of Nokia's mobile phone business, the service was briefly maintained by Microsoft Mobile Oy before it was sold to Japanese internet company Line Corporation in 2015. Following the acquisition, MixRadio expanded to Android and iOS in May 2015.
Style Jukebox was a hi-fi high-resolution audio cloud music streaming and storage player for the Windows, iOS, Android and Windows Phone platforms. A Web Player was also available for Mac, Windows and Linux.
The Microsoft Store is a digital distribution platform operated by Microsoft. It was created as an app store for Windows 8 as the primary means of distributing Universal Windows Platform apps. With Windows 10 1803, Microsoft merged its other distribution platforms into Microsoft Store, making it a unified distribution point for apps, console games, and digital videos. Digital music was included until the end of 2017, and E-books were included until 2019.
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Moodagent is a white label music streaming service that specializes in interactive playlists and personalized music recommendations. The Moodagent brand is developed and owned by the Danish company Moodagent A/S, which has proprietary methods for recognizing emotional and musical characteristics of individual tracks.
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