[video][iPad] deck. A replacement for iOS 5's horrible Music app.

http://www.szello.com/deck/

by tareqismail • 14 years ago

16 14 14 years ago

The screenshots on this page are next to useless for evaluating the app. I appreciate there is a video but it seems they're missing a trick.

The app's App Store page on the the other hand is much more pleasant.

funkah• 14 years ago

This was built for me. That Music app is so bad! Thank you.

joejohnson2• 14 years ago

This app looks really nice, but what was so bad about the native music app? Third party apps that try to replace a native iOS app are usually unable to replace all of the built-in functionality. For example, will this app show the album art on the lock screen?

antipax• 14 years ago

The Spotify app does it, so I imagine it can if it's been implemented.

tareqismail2• 14 years ago

Good question, Joe. Not all apps that replace native iOS apps are the same nor use the same techniques.

Since our app uses the built-in iPod Music controller, we activate all the same features that the Music app does. So, your example of showing the album art on the lock screen does in fact work.

This is different than different category apps, like Safari replacements, that can't take advantage of all the built-in controls/features outside of the app.

(I work for szello)

joejohnson2• 14 years ago

Oh, that's cool. I didn't know that was possible.

djKianoosh• 14 years ago

For one, the default app is horrible at browsing podcasts. Positively awful; can't see the full title of the individual podcasts, in any view; can't see all my synced podcasts in a single view; and as far as I know I can't browse other podcasts while listening to podcast.

jmreid3• 14 years ago

My problem with the built in app is the placement of important buttons. I'm constantly hitting back/play/forward instead of the "back" button when navigating artists or albums.

It's the same issue I have with the AirPlay icon on the iPhone lock screen; it is right beside the forward icon and I am ALWAYS hitting forward instead of my intended tap on AirPlay. When you're listening to a two hour podcast, this is very frustrating.

gavinlynch• 14 years ago

Big buttons are better, but this still replicates an incredibly annoying UI paradigm that kills me: << > >> or Back, Play [Pause], Forward

Whether it's an audiobook or music, I'm hitting the play and pause buttons all the time. I don't have particularly thick fingers, but my genius self still manages to accidentally hit the Back or Forward button's instead of Play or Pause about 2 times out of 10. In an audiobook, loosing your place and finding it again is a killer, especially if the book is split into very long segments of audio.

Minor nitpick on a device with such large buttons, but I just find that idea annoying. Could be just me and my obviously adroit digits though :p

unoti• 14 years ago

I think the world needs an app especially for listening to audiobooks, because that's a special case needing different UI from listening to music. A purpose built app for listening to audiobooks needs a rewind 30 seconds button, like Audible has. It would also need special UI features for moving forward and back through the audio-- the normal slider method works really terribly when listening to a 4 hour long piece of audio where 1 pixel is like 7 minutes.

tareqismail2• 14 years ago

Very true. We tried to accomodate for audiobooks and podcasts by adding 30 second back button and a larger slider that's easier to scrub. It isn't perfect, but is much better than the Music app.

You're right though, an app especially for audiobooks with bookmarks, notes, etc. would be great.

Thanks for the feedback!

jokull• 14 years ago

Maybe mention that it plays songs from the standard music library.

jmreid3• 14 years ago

Ya, that's important to understand. This is really just another UI for your existing music (works great with my iTunes match library for instance). You can even switch between both the built-in app and deck to control if you want.

jmreid3• 14 years ago

One complaint: When browsing artists, why don't you move though the Artist -> Albums -> Songs hierarchy? If I have an artist with 10 albums, selecting that artist just gives me an alphabetical list of all their songs across all 10 albums. This is lame when you want to start an album from the top and listen through.

(Yes, I'm aware that you can navigate by album name, but who remembers all your album's names?)

[video][iPad] deck. A replacement for iOS 5's horrible Music app.

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