UPDATED · News · 28 Jul 2011 · MTW Editorial Team
Another thing that now “works” in the latest Mango 7712 build is the ability to stream MP3 files that have been uploaded to a Skydrive. Don’t get excited though, contrary to what some people may assume this isn’t some kind of official Skydrive Music Streaming service at all. Streaming MP3 files has always been possible in Windows Phone 7 via the browser and this is exactly what’s happening here but prior to this new Mango release it didn’t work on with MP3 files uploaded on Skydrive (first spotted by Mannan here). As you will see in the video I shot all Microsoft did here is enable the browser to stream an MP3 file from the Skydrive website ,nothing else. You still have to painfully manually upload the files via your desktop and go through IE9 Mobile to access them (the Office Hub will always send you to the browser) Same works for any MP3 file on any server:
So, yeah it’s “cool” but not really useful in my opinion. Edit: Having a HTML5 music player built into Skydrive would definitely fix this awkward situation and enable proper music streaming. The best solution would obviously be native Skydrive integration the Zune / Music + Videos hub though.
Update: Seems like reporters and commentators are being confused by this news. Microsoft didn’t change anything to the Skydrive: there’s no new music streaming service, functionality etc.. The only “new” thing is that IE9 Mobile in the 7712 Mango build can now properly open the music and videos files hosted on a Skydrive (just like it has always work with similar files hosted on any other server. As a matter of fact I just shot a short video demonstrating and HD video hosted on my Skyrdrive streamed on the device:
UPDATE: You can actually stream the videosdirectly from the Pictures hub!
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