Microsoft's Your Groove goes wider to Insider Slow and Release Preview Rings
If you are on one of the lower rings of the Insider program, you should be in for a small treat tonight. Microsoft's Your Groove is now heading to Slow and Release Preview Rings for further testing and evaluation before its big Anniversary Update release.
Build 3.6.2303.0 of the Groove Music app should be live in the Store in the next few hours according to Microsoft's Ellen Kilbourne. With the update comes the new Your Groove playlist feature. Your Groove was announced three weeks ago in mid-June and has the following features:
- Quickly get back to things you've played recently
- Find recommendations for what to play next
- Playlists for you are automatically generated playlists curated to your taste, based on a variety of factors such as your use of Groove (e.g. top plays, recent adds), musical metadata (e.g. mood, genre, era), information about the world of music around you (e.g. recent releases, who is on tour, critical reception), and common music-related activities (e.g. focusing at work, getting a party started)
Of course, it is that third option that has Groove users dancing as the curated playlists start to encroach on Spotify territory.
Up until now, only users in the Fast Ring were able to get the Groove Music app with Your Groove, but Microsoft is now letting all other testers in on the action. Once the company feels the service is up to snuff it will go out to all Windows 10 and Mobile users timed with the Anniversary update. Users will need their music stored on OneDrive for analysis or a Groove Music subscription to use the Your Groove feature.
Your Groove has already seen a recent update with improved UI and design changes, and there will likely be others in the future.
As of 9:15 PM ET the update is not yet live. However, it should be available soon. The current Fast Ring build of Groove Music is build 3.6.2301.0 so there is a good chance Fast Ring users will also see an update to match the newer 3.6.2303.0 build. The Groove Music update will apply to PC and Mobile users.
Download Groove Music from the Windows Store
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Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central. He is also the head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007, when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and watches. He has been reviewing laptops since 2015 and is particularly fond of 2-in-1 convertibles, ARM processors, new form factors, and thin-and-light PCs. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.