Groove For iPad Is A Breath Of Fresh Air For Your iPad Music Library

Groove will integrate with the music that is already on your iPad in the iPod app. However, when you open the app, you're greeted with a beautiful interface that will provide you with a split pane view as the main screen.

This "Home" screen features "In the Spotlight" and "Favorites." If you already need some help with something to listen to (indecisive, much?), these are a great place to start. You'll notice that there are also four buttons in between these two panes: Groovy Mix, Surprise Me, Favorites, and Three of a Kind.

These buttons will bring up a mix of songs already in your library that go well together, and you can see what's playing and the current playlist on the left panels.

If you like a certain playlist mix that comes up, you can save it for later listening by tapping the "+" button. Don't like a particular mix? Just tap the refresh button to bring up a different variety of songs.

What if you like a particular mix enough that you think it should be shared? No problem. Groove for iPad allows you to share the entire playlist mix by email, or you can share the song that is currently playing on Twitter or Facebook.

Tapping on the currently playing song will bring up a full screen mode, where the album art and song information will appear in the middle of the screen. The other songs of the mix are shown at the bottom, represented mainly by the cover art of the album. You can navigate in this full screen player mode by using swiping gestures.

Playback controls are always at the top of the screen, no matter which view you're in. Groove allows you to adjust the volume, navigate to previous and next song, and play/pause.

Along with the Home screen view, you can choose to navigate through your library by Artist, Albums, Tags, or Playlists. Tapping on an artist will bring up information on that artist through Last.fm's database.

Groove is powered by Last.fm, so it makes use of their database, as well as your own listening preferences, to create the mixes. If you are missing album artwork, the app will download it, along with artist photos. Tags from Last.fm are used to organize your music library as well.

Convinced, but still looking for AirPlay? Groove for iPad supports AirPlay, so no worries there. The app can play in the background, though it is only playing through the iPod app, and not a standalone player.

I found Groove for iPad to be a great music player. I usually listen to the same stuff, so making use of the mixes that Groove makes was great. I discovered some songs that I either forgot about or actually never really heard before (with tons of albums, it's hard to keep track of every song).

I just have to wonder why there is no Last.fm integration for scrobbling if the app is powered by the site. Maybe in the future this can be implemented. I would also like to see this work as a standalone player, and not go through the iPod app at all.

Still though, if you want to rediscover your music library, then give Groove for iPad a try. The mixes that it creates are pretty awesome.

There is also a free iPhone app that does the same thing. Groove for iPad is currently 50 percent off, at $1.99.