"Reaction [beta]"
iTunes' redesign is a juke 13 Sep 2006
Since yesterday's special event, the media hype has focussed almost exclusively on Apple's new set-top box. Designers, however, are more interested in iTunes' new "Cover Flow" navigation system.
Cover Flow is strongly reminiscent of the jukebox found in the corner of your local boozer. That's right, the one with the left and right buttons for flipping through the stack of CD covers. Mimicking this design within iTunes means that it's now as easy to skim the contents of your digital music collection, as it is to find a tune after a few pints. Wired's Leander Kahney sees the usability benefits of Cover Flow as follows:
"Remember flipping through a big stack of cardboard LPs, looking for something to pluck out and listen to? Remember how fast you did that, and how quick your visual recognition was?
"As demonstrated by Delicious Library, a wildly popular media-management program, the best way to browse a media library is pictorially."
Cover Flow may also become an important weapon in Apple's battle for control of the home-entertainment market. Kahney believes that this design will be incorporated into iTV before launch, setting it apart in terms of user-friendliness from established competitors like TiVo:
"Cover Flow's visual navigation is a vast improvement on the list-oriented view of most other media boxes, like Media Center PCs, game consoles, cable boxes and even the beloved TiVo.
"TiVo more than any other company so far in digital TV has proved the value of a great interface. It's the main reason the company's fans are such die-hards -- much like Apple fans, in fact. Thanks to its interface, TiVo managed to stave off its predicted early death...So much for second lives [however]: TiVo is about to be out-TiVo'd."
Read Kahney 's article in full at Wired.com.
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8 comments so far
Rich 14 Sep 2006 12:35 PM
I doubt this design will really improve iTunes in practice. The CF nav works fine for jukeboxes because they only contain 50-100 CDs. My digital music library however, contains the contents of 1000 CDs - that's a hell of a lot of flipping :(
trovster 14 Sep 2006 02:39 PM
Coverflow has been an existing stand-alone program for music within iTunes for a while. However, Apple have brought the rights as seen on the previous official website for the stand-alone program. However, the artwork lookup in iTunes isn't as impressive as Coverflow was, restricting it to artists within iTunes Store, and requiring you to create an account / login to use the feature...
Ben 14 Sep 2006 02:59 PM
Coverflow's flip mechanism only shows three CD covers at a time (the cover in focus and one either side). I'm pretty sure jukeboxes show you eight to ten covers at a time, which is probably more efficient.
Julio 14 Sep 2006 03:15 PM
iTunes seems to be in the death row.
¿The Murders?... SpiralFrog and Zune,of course.
No matter what Apple guys do, we know who's the boss when the PaidMusic v/s FreeMusic war begins.
Bramus! 14 Sep 2006 04:09 PM
Suggesting you change the name of this post, as I first read "is a joke". This might be due to loads of negative criticism which can be found around the web.
Also note that coverflow at first was a separate program developed by SteelSkies (http://www.steelskies.com/coverflow/) and that the technology was sold to Apple.
PJ 14 Sep 2006 04:36 PM
Maybe it's just my machine, but the demo on Apple's site looks pretty sluggish too.
Guy Atom 20 Sep 2006 09:48 AM
Guys, noone can beat Apple in any technology or any gadget they ever produced, just try to compare any Apple products to products of competitors, please don't forget to take into acccount such things as - price, design, user interface, as of OS, i am on windows since 1997 and switched to mac in 2004, and you know what? I never looked back!
Mike Kirby 15 Oct 2006 09:31 PM
Cover Blow, er, Flow, is a pale ghost of what the standalone program was... this isn't going to help Apple in any way, they would not have tossed the beautiful functionality that they stripped from it if they cared about anything more than another marketing bullet point. Watch for cover flow to remain undeveloped and continue to fail to live up to its potential, in the same way the "browse" view has these last few years.