Planetary Experiences An Explosion Of New Graphical Beauty, Plus Even More Control Options
September 12, 2011
Emerging into the App Store earlier this year, Bloom Studio's celestial music control app, Planetary, was a spectacular discovery in its initial state. However, Bloom has proven that they listen to users by adding a few new controls and preference settings, plus even better graphics and graphical elements.
I really enjoyed the concept and graphics before, however, v2.0 really makes the app look stunning. It's so realistic at times, you'll swear Planetary is a regular astronomy app and not a music player, especially when used on an iPad 2. Not only have many of the previous elements been enhanced, but even more have been added. Words can't properly describe the effects, so, you'll just have to see them for yourself.
Also available when using an iPad 2 is a new visual control scheme. When enabled, accessible by tapping on the settings (gears) icon and then making sure the gyro icon is lit, facing your iPad 2 in different directions will change the viewing angle within the app. To the left of the gyro control button is the new automatic animation enable and disable button, offering randomly changing viewing angle movements.
If you're observant in the least, you should have noticed the new playlist quick selection button: "ABC" located to the left of the settings icon. Playlists were available before, but only offered at the root (galaxy) level. Although, now you can navigate to any one of the alphabetized artist playlists while anywhere in the app by simply tapping on the playlist button and then tapping on a letter.
Visual enhancements and settings aside, the app is still designed to be a fully functional music player. By request, Bloom has added a repeat and random preference within the settings area. As should be obvious by now, tap the gears icon and look to the very bottom right. Tap on the random or repeat buttons to enable or disable the feature. When enabled, the virtual button will be illuminated in blue.
Planetary literally turns your music library into a virtual galaxy of bright suns, planets, and moons. The hierarchy is broken down into the grouping of artists with the same beginning letter contained in a galaxy, solar systems represent artists with the sun being identified as the artist’s name, planets are album names, and the number of moons per planet equals the number of tracks per album.
Exploring your music library is as simple as tapping on the astronomical objects. The environments can be zoomed in and out using two fingers, and panned with a swipe or flick of a single finger. iPad 2 users can change the viewing angle with motion by activating the gyro control option. Moving outward, say from a planet zoom level to a solar system zoom level, is accomplished with a simple expand gesture. Song information is shown in the bottom-left, whereas the basic controls are available in the bottom-right.
The effort that Bloom Studio put into this app is undeniable. The graphics are great, including animations, and there is plenty of variation, such as different colored suns, etc. However, what I felt was the niftiest addition is the use of mapping elements beyond simple aesthetics. I’m referring to the use of a moon’s orbital path as the song duration counter, getting highlighted according to the percentage of the song completed.
Once you've got the tunes playing, it's possible to do a little cleanup and make the experience truly stellar. Expand the extra settings by tapping on the gear icon, then tap on the "Tt" button to disable text labels and the almost replay looking button to hide the orbital paths. If you want to move the entire control bar out of view, tap on the black tab above the playback controls.
Planetary is compatible with iPad running iOS 4.0 or later, and available in the App Store as a free download.
