Windows Phone 7.5 includes SkyDrive streaming music

By Tom Warren, on 28th Jul 11 6:56 pm with 27 Comments

Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) update includes the ability to stream music from its online cloud service.

The software giant issued a beta build of Windows Phone 7.5 Mango to developers earlier this week. The build includes support for MP3 streaming from SkyDrive. Manan Kakkar discovered the feature in the latest build and has demonstrated it in a video (see below). The feature will allow SkyDrive users to store their music in the cloud and stream it using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 browser.

Microsoft’s support for streaming music could be an early entry into an upcoming cloud battle. Apple and Google both provide similar cloud services and all three companies are expected to compete strongly in this market. Microsoft is expected to deliver a final copy of Windows Phone 7.5 in September, around the same time that Apple is expected to unveil its latest iPhone 5 device and iOS 5 software. Microsoft’s cloud battle with Google in the enterprise is already underway but its consumer piece is a big part of the company winning over customers for its new multi device Metro user interface. Game on.

  • http://twitter.com/OmegaRa Shaun Sommer

    doesn’t work for me. I updated to 7712 last night and it still says it can’t play the file.

    • Anonymous

      Confirmed…not working on my Samsung Focus Build 7712.

    • Entegy

      Same. It won’t play a MP3 file off of SkyDrive.

  • http://twitter.com/aamyre Aamyre Tarique

    thats really cool :D

  • http://twitter.com/aamyre Aamyre Tarique

    thats really cool :D

  • J A

    It certainly needs to be cleaned up so that by default everyone’s SkyDrive account should have a Music folder that one’s Zune links to based on your LiveID ao that one can go into Zune and see all your albums, playlists, and other Zune categories and stream from there. This will essentially make the SkyDrive music folder backend a seamless experience to Zune end users. Of course this may take away some from Microsoft’s Zune streaming subscription but they should then add sales of additional storage so that as users max out their 25GB free SkyDrive storage, they can purchase additional storage for a monthly subscription.
    I think this will be brilliant and much better than any competitor’s offering.

  • J A

    It certainly needs to be cleaned up so that by default everyone’s SkyDrive account should have a Music folder that one’s Zune links to based on your LiveID ao that one can go into Zune and see all your albums, playlists, and other Zune categories and stream from there. This will essentially make the SkyDrive music folder backend a seamless experience to Zune end users. Of course this may take away some from Microsoft’s Zune streaming subscription but they should then add sales of additional storage so that as users max out their 25GB free SkyDrive storage, they can purchase additional storage for a monthly subscription.
    I think this will be brilliant and much better than any competitor’s offering.

  • http://openid.tomservo.eu/ Tom Servo

    Way to blow things out of proportion. Mobile IE9 can probably just handle Skydrive’s HTTP responses better than whatever version’s in Nodo. If you had Acrobat Reader installed and tried that with a PDF, you’d see that working, too.

  • http://openid.tomservo.eu/ Tom Servo

    Way to blow things out of proportion. Mobile IE9 can probably just handle Skydrive’s HTTP responses better than whatever version’s in Nodo. If you had Acrobat Reader installed and tried that with a PDF, you’d see that working, too.

    • http://www.winrumors.com Tom W

      Sure but once SkyDrive mobile is updated to HTML5 then it will run in the background as Mango supports that.

    • http://www.about.me/AngeloGopaul Eingoluq

      sweeeet

    • http://www.about.me/AngeloGopaul Eingoluq

      sweeeet

    • http://openid.tomservo.eu/ Tom Servo

      That assumes that Skydrive will automagically wrap MP3 and other music files in the tags by then. And even then, it’ll be ham handed, since it’ll be all browser based.

      To make this work proper, the Zune player would need to support Skydrive by itself.

    • http://openid.tomservo.eu/ Tom Servo

      That assumes that Skydrive will automagically wrap MP3 and other music files in the tags by then. And even then, it’ll be ham handed, since it’ll be all browser based.

      To make this work proper, the Zune player would need to support Skydrive by itself.

    • http://www.winrumors.com Tom W

      Sure but once SkyDrive mobile is updated to HTML5 then it will run in the background as Mango supports that.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1724462076 Tim Mariner

    I have a Zune Pass, so I already get to enjoy streaming music.  But, this is definitely a nice feature to have, except that I wish you could stream from the cloud with the Zune music player instead of IE.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1724462076 Tim Mariner

    I have a Zune Pass, so I already get to enjoy streaming music.  But, this is definitely a nice feature to have, except that I wish you could stream from the cloud with the Zune music player instead of IE.

  • http://twitter.com/oolong2 oolong2

    This is more of a function of IE than it is Mango…  

    Microsoft has been doing cloud and synchronization for a long time however if they want to compete well with Apple and iCloud they need to be thinking INTEGRATED EXPERIENCE.

    In other words skydrive music needs to automatically show up in the music hub, including any metadata, album art, etc. that can be gleaned from the file.

    They’ve done a good job with the WP7 UX so far they really need to keep that momentum and offer a more integrated experience with skydrive like Apple does with iTunes.

    The one cool thing they were doing with the Kin was the Kin Studio… that should have been part of WP7 and SkyDrive yesterday and hopefully it will be soon….

  • Anonymous

    This is a good first step, but I’m hoping that they add a “Music” section to along with their “Documents” and “Photos” sections as well as add a skydrive music player.

    Amazon has clearly lead the way and made it possible from the legal standpoint.  With Google’s cloud player coming, MS needs to keep in the game.  Skydrive is simply awesome and Music would make it that much more awesome!

  • Anonymous

    Video not uploaded to Skydrive through the phone plays as well (Under the Pictures hub)

  • http://www.facebook.com/soundtweaker Dan Menapace

    Get Windows Home Server and youll have unlimited storage and streaming to your WP7 with the My Home Server App.

  • appachi

    it is working in my Omnia7, bulid 7712, it is not something convenience, but anyway it works

  • http://www.appatic.com Avatar X

    So no you can stream on the desktop and on WP7.  One of apps i miss on WP7 from WM6.5 is SkyStream. That up the recent Skydrive update allowed you to stream from skydrive too.  

  • PhoneBuyer99

    I am in a market for smart phone. I have never owned one. doing research Windows phone 7 has the best reviews. I understand different OEMs offer different devices. Is there a Windows Phone 7 device that supports tethering and 4G with Sprint or Verizon? None of the reviews that I have read provide any information on this.

    • Tmzhollywood

      As of now there is no wp7 that supports 4g or tethering but there is a rumored htc device from tmobile with 4g connecivity …the htc bresson with a 16 mp that will be available in september

    • Anonymous

      thanks for information. From googling I found out that OS do not support tethering at all. HAs this been changed?

  • Anonymous

    Yaaawn … wake me up when they integrate skydrive storage with the standard music player app.  Browsing to a web page and playing single MP3 files at a time is not anything worth cheering for.