Competitor UI Dominates iPhone’s Music Experience
1:59 am, November 2nd, 2009, Pete Mortensen
There’s a dirty little secret lurking within the hearts of iPhone and the iPod touch: neither of them is a particularly great music player. A lot of iPhone owners actually keep a separate iPod nano or classic with them to listen to their music libraries. I’m not one of them, but I’m thinking about it.
Don’t get me wrong. Syncing media to modern Apple handheld is the best such experience money can buy, and the actual playback and browsing experiences are in the top tier of media phones and Internet tablets. That doesn’t mean they’re great, though. For the most part, the iPod app found on the iPhone and touch is a fairly literal translation of the original iPod interface ported over to a much higher-end device, plus an overly complex Cover Flow mode — which doesn’t even work well with Playlists. And that’s kind of pathetic, given Apple’s ordinarily high standards.
This is not the usual case where Apple is so far ahead of the competition that it’s not even clear how a media player app should change as it migrates to a modern multitouch platform. The video linked above is the proposed Rachael UI for the media player app in Sony Ericsson’s Android-based phones. It’s not amazing, but it does a few things really, really well. Notably, it provides a lot of rich information on artist pages that brings back some of the feel of listening to a physical album, and it also makes it easy to find your favorites, recently added albums, and tracks, and your most recently played music — all on one screen. That alone, in my opinion, annihilates the best of the current iPhone music experience. And I think we’d all agree it’s a refreshing departure from either a long list of artists listed in alphabetical order as a home screen.
The Zune HD, though its UI is an overly stylized collection of wank, also does some interesting things with tagged favorites that show the untapped possibilities available in next-generation handheld music playback.
I’ve had my iPhone 3GS for about four months now, and I love everything about it — except that it doesn’t do a great job of helping me rediscover diamonds in the rough of my music collection. The iPod app is good enough, but it isn’t great yet. Here’s hoping that the old competitive spirit will push Apple to truly push the edges of what’s possible. Shouldn’t we be able to view iTunes LPs on the iPhone, at the very least?
Sony Ericsson’s “Rachael” Android UI: Android + Zune HD > iPhone [Gizmodo]
Posted by Pete Mortensen in Apple, Software, iPhone, iPod | Comment on this article
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After this proposed interface, I appreciate the one provided by Apple even more so!
Idan, on November 2nd, 2009 at 2:28 am
I wish Apple would put the ‘classic’ scroll wheel on the back of the iPod Touch/iPhone. As a straightup music player, from a pure usability standpoint, the Touch/iPhone suck.
dave, on November 2nd, 2009 at 2:57 am
when they put search into the iphone OS, that helped a lot.
I’d like to see more info when the screen is dark and you click the black button to light up the screen. Currently, if music is playing, you see the hard to read song title. If you double click on the home button, up comes the player and you can see artist/song/album, so it’s a little better, but in a tiny font again. It would also be nice to be able to flag or rate a song there, without having to unlock the ipod. at least the external volume controls are useful.
joe, on November 2nd, 2009 at 3:47 am
After watching the Rachael UI video, I appreciate the iPod app on the iPhone even more, if anything. It is just ugly.
I don’t have any problem with the iPod app personally, although the Cover Flow feature could be vastly improved as noted. I actually use Spotify though, for the value for money the service offers, but never had any qualms with the iPod app.
Kev, on November 2nd, 2009 at 5:48 am
You can do recently added by synching your recently added folder to the iPhone and keep the live update option ticked. Also genius and genius playlists are a great way to discover diamonds in the rough. I would also some extra features like beat matching, bpm detection for a true dj style. To be frank I think coverflow was added to promote album listening.
Saman, on November 2nd, 2009 at 6:08 am
Seeing as we haven’t seen iTunes X yet – I think we should reserve some judgement. Dual core CPUs for the iPhone are just around the corner. When Apple’s ARM work bears fruit, it’ll likely be pretty cool.
Tom, on November 2nd, 2009 at 7:02 am
Might be nice to have a decent title to article too:
It’s not
Competitor UI Dominates iPhone’s Music Experience
It’s
Competitor’s proposed UI looks good
Tom, on November 2nd, 2009 at 7:04 am
lots of good points made here, apple have gotten lazy as they dominate the ipod.
recently added and favs would be easy to add.
@dave the ipod touch with a click wheel is the ipod!?
ged, on November 2nd, 2009 at 7:08 am
how in your right mind can you say this dominates the iphone experience?
no only is this is tasteless garbage, the animations are so overly used they would induce epileptic shock in just about anyone.
while the iphone might be dated after 3 years – it’s certainly more palatable on daily basis.
these grandiose articles that you think are going to make apple change their decisions are pretty lame. stories like this only give them more evidence that they made good decisions and are less likely to change anything.
mr nice, on November 2nd, 2009 at 10:47 am
i’m one of the people that carries both an iphone and an ipod. i stream music on the iphone but i don’t store music on it, my trusty 60 gb 5g ipod carries the music and the podcasts. i will use it until it dies, then i will get whatever version of the classic is out, unless there is a nano out by then that is at least 60 gigs or better.
firesign3000, on November 2nd, 2009 at 12:01 pm
I disagree with your opening sentence, the iPhone/iPod Touch are great music players, I’ve owned several iPods and my iPhone is definitely the best of the bunch. I use the Apple in-ear ear buds with the built-in mic/controller thingy, so with OS 3.0 I can change tracks with it still in my pocket and use voice to select playlists artists etc.
What’s not to like?
Hari Seldon, on November 2nd, 2009 at 2:00 pm
My issue is starting and stopping playlists.
On my Classic iPod I can always hit the play button (unless it’s locked) to pause. In order to do the same thing on my iPhone I have to unlock it, go to iPod inside the iPhone, and pause it. Not something that is easy in a car when you are driving and don’t have a passenger.
Why would I want to pause it in those circumstances? Easy, traffic is heavy and I can’t have any of my attention pulled away from what I’m doing which means I’m not listening to the audio book so I want to pause it and can’t without it being REALLY dangerous.
Because of that I miss the scroll wheel from my Classic, which died, so I can’t use that.
OlsonBW, on November 2nd, 2009 at 2:41 pm
I have great equation for you:
CultofMac.com + Bad Writers (such Pete Mortensen) = Bad Blog.
Also, the Zune HD is the most gimmicky device ever known by man.
Delusion, on November 2nd, 2009 at 3:30 pm
So I guess all those iPod Touch users keep a Nano around to listen to music?
Uniformed "Journalist", on November 2nd, 2009 at 5:43 pm
People who walk around carrying an iPod with their iPhone should feel pretty silly being as how the iPhone IS an iPod!
The iPhone has been the ultimate streaming iPod for me. Not only can I stream Podcasts from the iTunes Store and MP3s and other Quicktime media from websites, but also stream my ENTIRE iTunes library from my home using the Simplify Media app. I barely even sync any music to my iPhone anymore! For those with control issues, maybe you should check out something like the Gesture Music iPod Player app.
Aaron, on November 3rd, 2009 at 1:55 pm