Coverjam Can Be Your Groovy iPod Replacement
Coverjam (Free) by Electric Pocket is a facelift for your iPhone’s music player.
The app turns that boring old cover art into a slideshow of images related to the artists playing in your queue, a la SoundHound only without the extra information.
Coverjam also serves as an all out iPod replacement, playing your media directly from your iTunes library. The cover flow mechanic is a nice touch (when it works) and song playback was flawless, however Coverjam isn’t quite ready to take center stage from your iPod.
Coverjam is first and foremost a media player for the iPhone. As such, the app will happily troll through your music library, sorting by artist, album, song, or playlist until you’ve found a selection you like.
The player itself is barebones, offering basic pause, skip forward, and skip backward controls. But what really sets Coverjam apart is its excellent slideshow mechanic.
When a song is first played, the app prowls the Internet for images related to the artist. It then pulls a dozen of them onto your device, scrolling through the pics at random while the song plays.
Coverjam offers slideshow animations, as well as the option to ban a specific image: A feature that’s most useful with recent shots of Keith Richards. To top it all off, users can even export the photo stream to Safari, Twitter, Facebook or email. It’s quick, easy, and functional, adding a bit of much needed spice to the iPod’s bland cover art.
That being said, Coverjam isn’t quite there, yet. The app searches indiscriminately for images, producing some rather humorous results. For example, the band Cream returned photographs of pastries and whipped toppings. Similarly, the slideshow for Oasis, one of my favorite artists, often had a desert theme.
Users do have the ability to ban images they aren’t fans of, but Coverjam is no Pandora: The app will not “learn” which choices you prefer, producing better results as it goes.
Images aside, Coverjam’s music player itself is a bit lacking. The included controls are minimalistic, excluding a fast forward, rewind or shuffle button. There’s also no onscreen volume control, which may bother some users. Thankfully, the volume rockers work as expected.
Likewise, the app features full integration with the iPod’s music library, and browsing my tracks was easy as pie. I also enjoyed the ability to export photographs to social networking sites. It has never been easier to spam my friends with pics of my favorite bands.
At the end of the day, Coverjam is free in the App Store, meaning its faults won’t cost you a dime and its benefits come without a cover charge. There is also a Pro version of the app that will remove the ads that are in the free version.
It isn’t yet a total replacement for the stock iPod app, but with a few more features and better image searching, it could certainly become one. In the meantime, just try to avoid any band names that sound like foods. Looking at you, Cake, Meat Loaf, and Humble Pie.
