CoverFlow.app is still better than iTunes

I apologize for second Apple related blog entry, it's been pretty slow this week.

CoverFlow was introduced as a stand-alone application by Steel Skies in early 2006. Its main purpose is to bring aesthetic appeal to your mp3 collection by allowing you to browse through album artwork like you would vinyl records (oh how hip). It was later bought out by Apple because they didn't think of it first. Apple then integrated a severely crippled version of CoverFlow in iTunes 7. I am most frustrated because Apple could easily include all the features of CoverFlow.app into iTunes with a simple preference pane, not even making them default options, just having them there. Instead, Apple has disallowed anyone from tweaking and upgrading the CoverFlow technology, which is already superior to the bullshit they put into iTunes. These are the reasons I still continue to use the strand-alone app (which continues to be available at MacUpdate.com):

• It is prettier and smoother. The stand-alone app has these beautiful and subtle hanging and swinging animations that give the images (album artwork) a far more realistic quality.

• CoverFlow.app automatically pulls album artwork from several different sources (MP3 tags, Synergy, Clutter, Google Images, Amazon, Wikipedia). iTunes has its own exclusive library of artwork, which is not comprehensive.

• The stand-alone builds its own playlist when you select an album (and you can queue other albums by command+enter/double-click). This allows you to browse through your main library in iTunes while albums are playing in the "CoverFlow" playlist.

• CoverFlow is able to cache all album artwork allowing a smooth slide through your entire library. iTunes forgets the end of your list when you browse the opposite side of your library (e.g. I'm viewing Andrew W.K. and the Warren Zevon covers need to be re-loaded).

• Finally, CoverFlow.app was developed for people who love albums. You can filter out singles, ignore albums with blank titles, and exclude albums under "x" minutes (mine is set to 8 minutes). iTunes can't even sort albums by duration.

Apple recently updated iTunes to version 7.1. Among other things (Apple TV, most notably), iTunes now supports CoverFlow in fullscreen mode. Fullscreen is the only CoverFlow feature that iTunes has upgraded, which is very disappointing.

So, Dan, why don't you just use the stand-alone app and stop bitching to us about all of this!?

Well, because CoverFlow could be even better! Its fullscreen + animations could be integrated into Front Row so I can move through albums with my remote (CoverFlow does have remote capabilities, but they are limited). I am also forced to leave a second application open on my MacBook, which is a complete waste of system resources. If it was in iTunes maybe my computer would run faster! And I'm sure some of those genius Apple programmers could think of even more innovations for browsing album artwork.

I guess CoverFlow has taken a back-seat to things like the iPhone and Apple TV (which, by the way, doesn't play AVIs... deeming the thing almost completely useless). I just hope Apple will get their shit together and realize the error they have made.

But we all know that will never happen.