WMP12 - Windows Media Player 12

[Ian]

Ars Technica (a great resource for W7 info), has a review of the new Windows 12 application for Windows 7.

Though many previously bundled applets now will ship separately to Windows 7, Windows Media Player remains part of the core OS. Windows 7 will ship with Windows Media Player 12, which includes some surprising new features.

The UI itself is brighter and lighter than WMP11. Some buttons and toolbar items have been moved around, but the experience should be pretty familiar to users of version 11. What does represent a big change is the removal of the Now Playing button, which in WMP11 switches to a view showing the current playlist.

This is because WMP12 completely separates library management from what's currently playing, with two distinct player modes; Now Playing view, and Library view. Library view contains all the library manipulation features that should be familiar from WMP11. Now Playing view contains the current playlist, visualizations, and videos.

Read the whole article here:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/pos...media-player-12s-surprising-new-features.html

 

[spuds]

Those screen shots look so much better than WMP11 - it looks lighter and much more integrated into Windows 7.

It's a shame they can't integrate iTunes functionality for iPods into it as then I'd use it all the time.

 

[ElPaso]

I can confirm that WMP 12 is really nice and works great, but I LOVE the genius function of iTunes, so I'll keep using that...

 

[Ian]

I can confirm that WMP 12 is really nice and works great, but I LOVE the genius function of iTunes, so I'll keep using that...

Does WMP12 integrate with mobile devices any better than WMP11, or is it just a prettier skin?

I've upgraded to the iPhone 3g yesterday, so I'm going to give the iTunes Genius feature a go I've been adding all my old sim card contacts to it this morning, and I can't wait to start using it properly.

 

[ElPaso]

I would say it has no integration at all, at least with my iPhone 2G... I gotta try with something else like an iPod...

Anyway the great function is that when WMP is minimized, you can still control it by just passing on the icon with the mouse pointer... not a must have feature, but pretty handy.

And I'm pretty sure you're gonna love Genius, it's the best feature ever