nanoGroove 1.0 – grooveShark client for Windows Mobile with playlist support

Developer : nanoGroove

More Apps from this Developer : Click Here

nanoGroove is a Windows Mobile application that uses the Grooveshark online music service for streaming any song to your mobile phone via the data connection. The app has got a great interface and has truly embraced the stylus free approach that many new windows mobile apps have been doing. We take a look at this great app to see what are its strengths and weakness.

nanoGroove

After the usual cab installation the shortcut is placed in the start menu. Once you lanunch nanoGroove it takes a few seconds to initialize and comes up with a blank page with a searchbox. The left softkey is programmed to exit the app ( If you hit the x on the taskbar the app will minimize ) while the right softkey give you option to switch between the different interface. The options available are

• Player
• Song Search
• Playlist
• About Screen

Player : The main player interface has the current playlist and you can toggle this with the album art by clicking the small arrow below the playlist window. Below that the app has 3 main buttons ( Previous Track , Play/Pause , Next Track ) and the time-line for the audio being played. You can seek forward and back through the audio by clicking on the timeline. Note that you can only seek fwd if that section has been cached ( for a 4 min long clip it only took less than 20 seconds on WiFi ). The app also shows the length of the clip being played on this screen.

Song Search : This is the default landing page for the app. type in the name of the song / artist / album etc and hit search and the app gives you the list of matching songs, you can scroll through these and add these to the player, then switch to the player to play the songs.

Playlists : Only for Grooveshark VIP members ( $3/month or $30/year ) Even a free Grooveshark account can create and use the playlist ( thanks to our reader Poodz for pointing that out ) . Put in your username and password then hit login. The app will remember these when you next login so you dont have to enter the info each time.

About : Give you version info and you can add the unlock code to register the app.

I am quite happy with the app. Its got a great design and lets me play which ever music I want when ever I want. I can hook in to my VIP Grooveshark account and access my saved playlist. And now on to the things that bothered me. Once I logged in the playlists from the VIP Grooveshark account were not auto populated. I have to hit refresh and then select the playlist. Then I have to enter the songs from the VIP account playlist to the player on the device. I would love to just log in select the playlist from my VIP Grooveshark account and if all the songs from that playlist is automatically added to the player on the device.

The Trial version of nanoGroove will automatically shutdown after five minutes of use, unless you buy an unlock code. This allows you to check if the application properly functions on your device and operator’s network before buying it. There is no limitation on the number of times you can restart nanoGroove and test it for another five more minutes. For $4.99 this app gets the thumbs up from us. Now back to streaming music

I did not test how the app reacts to incoming calls. If any of you guys can let us know how it handles the incoming call. Plz use the comments section.

Tested On : HTC TyTn ( WM 6.5 )

Pros :

• Finger Friendly UI
• Great design
• Retrieve GrooveShark VIP Playlist

Cons :

• Does not auto populate the playlist retrieved from Grooveshark Account

Possible Improvements :

• Save search history

Screenshot :

Windows Mobile App : nanoGroove

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Price : $4.99

Version Under Review : 1.0

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The guys from nanoGroove.net wants to give 10 lucky readers a chance to win a FREE copy of this app. All you have to do is tell us why you would like a free copy of nanoGroove. We will select 10 random entries and contact you via email. Will close on 24th Jan 2010 ( Melbourne time ). Plz note that the winners will have to send us the deviceID ( from the about page in the app ) and we will need to pass that info to the developer and we will send you the unlock code.

UPDATE : We will need to send the deviceID and the email address to the developer. They will need that info to retrieve a customer’s unlock code again when support questions come up. (e.g. customer loses their unlock code). Once the winners are selected we will contact you and then you can provide us with the email id and device ID.

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