Planetary: One Giant Leap in Music Player Visualization – iPad App Review
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Ground control to iTunes: Planetary will change the way you see your music. Bloom Studio’s Planetary debuted in the App Store earlier this week, but we wanted to take a closer look at this intriguing music player. Planetary turns a user’s music library into a stunning and expansive music universe. Each artist has its own solar system where the artist is the sun, the albums are planets, and the songs are moons.
The app is full of tiny, clever details. For example, Planetary visualizes the iTunes play count, so a larger play count equals a larger moon. (Note to LastFm scrobblers: your plays in Planetary should count when you sync if you have scrobbling set up in iTunes). As a track plays the Planetary universe is constantly in motion. Planets spin on their axes, moons orbit at various rates of speed, while the whole system revolves around its artist sun. The app integrates customary gestures such as pinch-to-zoom, which makes navigation seamless, and it’s easy to hide all of the labels for a more stratospheric listening experience.
Let’s take a trip into my music library to illustrate how Planetary works.
Navigating in Planetary starts with the alphabet. I chose the letter “T,” and all of the artists in my library that begin with T popped-up to form a constellation. The stars even vary in color.
The images show how a user can “fly” to the T section. After arriving at Galaxy T, it was time to choose an artist. I chose tUnE-YarDs. Next, Planetary lets users move to the solar system level. I have two albums to choose from, and I picked w h o k i l l. Finally, Planetary displays all of the tracks that orbit around Planet Whokill. The track closest to the sun is track one.
Planetary supports Airplay, but users need to access the settings outside the app at the moment. The app does not yet support Home Sharing.
What I liked: The UI was stunning. Planetary zoomed quickly from one part of its audio universe to another without a single technical glitch. Planetary’s structure reminds listeners that artists release albums, not just tracks.
What I didn’t like: Planetary is limited by the storage capacity of the iPad. I would have loved to visualize my entire music library instead of limiting myself to the tracks I had uploaded. Perhaps Planetary will be able to access Home Sharing in a future update. At the moment Planetary doesn’t support shuffle/continuous play within the app, nor does it have volume controls, but there are straightforward workarounds to fix both issues.
To buy or not to buy: Interacting with Planetary is enjoyable. It runs so smoothly that using it is relaxing. The app is free, and is worth a try. Planetary does its job well. It may not replace the iPod function, but it definitely augments it.
App Name: Planetary- Version Reviewed: 1.0
- Category:Entertainment
- Developer: Bloom Studio, Inc.
- Price: Free
- Score:
