cover flow
though they didn’t invent it, apple introduced one of the major aesthetic interface innovations of the virtual world — cover flow. i found it semi-nifty when i first tried it on my nano, but it wasn’t until last night that i checked it out in iTunes. IMO, it replicates, for the first time since global digification, sitting on the sofa flipping through an album collection. i’m so hooked on it that i stayed up all night adding art to complete all of my 350+ albums.
each of the 4,794 songs on my iPod now has appropriate-enough cover art, even if the more obscure album covers came from scarce thumbnails retrieved from cubby holes across the world. i really only need to scan two covers (rykodisk 15th anniversary sampler, and the apparently only album by the “trinity mountain boys”), but i’ll probably blow it off and leave the substitutes i threw in so they wouldn’t be blank.
notable cover flow coolness points:
- the best real-time image resize/enhancement/skew software i’ve seen. blows away IE/firefox resizing, and has the crazy ability to make 170×170 pics look pretty great, even blown up several times original size. this may be helped immensely by…
- shiny back reflections! i mean… c’mon; looks damned sharp, having these albums flip by on what appears to be a highly polished black conference table or something. gonna be cool to see it get even better with more nuanced shading, etc.
- velocity angles — momentum. the proggers have nailed and improved the fluency of real life album flipping, balancing visibility/recognition with density. flip through faster, and the string of albums flattens out with physical dynamics. fun, functional, and addicting. text can’t begin to communicate so quickly as familiar cover art.
- recognizes the long established power of combining visual art and music. if you’re a relic of the vinyl era, how many hours have you spent listening to music while immersing your virtual self in album art? i cut my geek music teeth on the art of roger dean, and will never forget it. listening to Relayer even today, the music and his paintings are forever intertwined.
found out yesterday that iTunes isn’t a bad tag editor. couple of tips if you’re having trouble with redundant covers in cover flow: on different albums with the same name (e.g., “Greatest Hits”), fill in the “Album Artist” field as well as the usual “Artist” (which should already be populated). for things like soundtracks, where the artist may change with each song, be sure the “Part of a compilation” field’s checked for all tracks in the album. that’ll scrunch those bastards up right good.