Serious Flaws in Mediascape of Sony Ericsson Xperia X10

I was throughly impressed by Timescape and Mediascape applications from the first day i heard of it. And i had few expectations already when i first tried it on my Xperia X10 here in India.
Those expectations were met to a large extent in case of Timescape but as i used Mediascape on a regular basis, i found some serious flaws in it and was really disappointed with it.
Although, there are no other better looking Media Management on any other Android Device Till Date, it’s simply Super Sexy. ( Yeah, i mean it! ), but it lacks at few points in functionality.
I know you know about Mediscape that it’s a sexy looking Media player Exclusively on Xperia X10 with Infinity button access that lets you search for your local and online Content, blah blah.., so would go into detail in listing each of it’s functionality, rather would like to point out all the Flaws “I” noticed on Mediascape.
But Before i go into details let me make few things clear to better understand the situation.
Mediascape has a Home-Screen with 3 tabs Music, Video and Photos. And as you tap the Mediascape Icon you would be presented with this Home-Screen ( unless you are playing any song. In that case you would directly go to the Playing Screen on the tapp of the Mediascape Icon! )
When you tap the More button on the Home-Screen, you get into List view of the Library Screen where various related Views are presented for the content. So,your whole content resides here. And lastly there is one more screen is when you tap that Infinity Icon on the Playing Screen, which brings you the Related Online and Local content from the Playing screen. Lets call this as Infinity Screen.

Considering Only Music Part First!
I love listening to music and do listen to it quite often. Love browsing different Artist and Albums all the time. Have around 5Gb of my SD card with the my Favorites of all time. So, it didn’t take long for me to notice the bugs in the Mediascape, i tried to list them all, but if you find something is not a bug, please let me know!

- The Seek-bar is not accurate on the Mediascape : The small triangle on the progress bar ( Timeline ) of the Music currently playing is not at all accurate, it’s like 2mm ahead of it always, okay not always, it changes positions, i mean sometimes 2mm ahead, sometimes 2mm behind and at other time at the exact positon. Now that gets irritating!
And that is surely a bug! Else the seekbar won’t change it’s position everytime.

- You don’t have any access to your main Library form the Playing Screen : There is just one small Home button on the Playing screen which takes you to the Home-Screen and then only you can fo to your Main Library or the Library Screen. So, you need two taps before you get access to you main library form the playing screen which would really frustrate you. You always don’t want to hit the Infinity Icon and just get the related content, you might want to access your Main Library from almost everywhere in the Mediascape.

- Can’t access Main library from the Infinity Screen : Simiilar to what i stated above, main library should have access from almost every where in the Mediascape. I understand when the User tapped the Infinty Icon, he is interested in related content of the artist or song, but what if doesn’t find the related content? What if changes his mind to listed to something related in some other sense? ( I mean, name, co-artist, or anything? ).
There is just the Homescreen Icon to the top left of the screen similar to the Playing Screen. I don’t think adding another Icon to the top Right of the screen would make life so difficult for the Sony Ericsson Programmers?

- Can’t create Playlists! : Can anything get more frustrating than that? How can Sony Ericsson forget to add this in the Sexiest Media Player on the Android Platform! ( Or can i say any platform? ). Although there are several views on the Library Screen which includes the Playlist View as well, but alas there is no way to create one. ( on the phone ) They do provide you with different views on the Home-Screen such as Recently Played, Added and Favorites as well, but that can’t make up for the Playlist. Looking at the Playlist View in the Library Screen, i guess the most important feature will surely come in the Next upgrade!

- Search is not well Implemented : Well I don’t know if this is to be considered as a flaw or not? But i generally do not find myself using this Functionality inside Timescape. I mean if i want to search Any song, artist or content why do i need to scroll to that list to do that? I mean if i want to search for a artist on my Xperia X10, i’ll have to first scroll to that Artist List in the Library Screen, then i need to tap the search bar then type the artist name to trigger the search?
What’s the point i say? I mean if you want me to reach to artist tab to find the artist, i would better use the Alphabetical Sidebar for it.
A better search function that searches all parts of my library with Search icon again at almost everywhere in the Mediascape would make things more user friendly.
( I Use Gesture search to find music on my Xperia X10 most of the times! I want a solution inside the Mediascape as well. )

- Can’t remove or change the Album Art Once assigned in Mediascape : Seriously why? You know thats a program, it won’t always find you the correct Album Art for you! OR sometimes, you want to remove it or for any other matter! Why can’t we have a remove Album Art Option or Choose album Art Option?
Plus if you trigger the “Get Album Art” Option form the Home-Screen, it will find all the Songs and albums which doesn’t have a Album Art and will try to update it! Very nice and user friendly feature indeed! But it stops updating if it can’t find a Album Art for a single file in the updation process? Is this what it was supposed to do? Wasn’t this supposed to skip the file and update the other Songs and Albums?

- Timescape is not totally connected to Mediascape : It’s really a nice feature to get your recently played music in the Timescape, and when you tap that Tile in the Timescape, you go to the Respective Album View in the Mediascape ( which is under the Library view- Yeah there are sub screens under the Library screen as Album View, Songs View, Artist View, Genre View and playlist view )
but when you select the Song under that artist or any other artist it takes you to the Playing Screen, which doesn’t have the Library Icon as we know it, but surprisingly it doesn’t have a Home Icon either?
So, there are just the two screens available to you, Album View Screen ( Sub Library Screen or the limited Library Screen ) and the Playing Screen. And if you want to access other contents form your library, you need to get out of this limited Mediascape app and then the Timescape app and then go to the Mediascape again. Great, isn’t it?

And i din’t find any way to use Audiobooks and Podcasts as well, please suggest me on how to use them?
Well, these are just the Music Version of the Timescape, will post another part with the Flaws of Photos and Videos in the Timescape. Remember, i mentioned only the Flaws, not the features missing on the Timescape like Equalizer and other stuff.
There can be pretty much other stuff that should be added in the Sexiest Media Player on Android Platform.
- Equalizer
- Few More Codec Support like Divx/Xvid
- Increase in Sound Levels
- HomeSceen Widget Plus a Lock screen shortcut controls
Any other Suggestions are well appreciated, share you opinions in the Comments section.

And do post if you discovered any other flaw in your Xperia X10′s Mediascape?
Will Update this with more screenshots once i’ll learn how to take Screenshots of my Xperia X10. Or else i’ll post some live pics of the Mediascape.

Related posts:

1. Got my Sony Ericsson Xperia X10- My First Impressions!
2. Few Faqs and tricks for Sony Ericsson Xperia X10
3. MWC’10 set to start with Sony Ericsson Press Conference & Launch of New Xperia Phones
4. X10 Mini and X10 Mini PRO on Video review-First Handson the Latest Android Phone by SE
5. 3 New Phones announced by Sony Ericsson at MWC ’10-Xperia X10,Mini,Vivaz,Vivaz Pro

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