Audium's Gestures And Sleek Design Make Music Listening Pure Bliss
Audium ($0.99) by Mic Pringle is a gorgeous, gesture driven music player for the iPhone. The intuitive touch interface and beautiful design are what make this app a winner.
You are presented with your albums, and cover art, in a tidy row on the bottom of the screen. At times, this made me more aware of how many albums I lack the art for. Nevertheless, use your finger to scroll through your albums and pull down on the cover to view the album name.
To play the selected album, just double tap it. Once it's playing, you can swipe up and down on the screen to adjust the volume or double tap the album to toggle play/pause. If you want to skip ahead, or even listen to preview tracks, swipe right for the next song and left for the previous.
This app is built to be both beautiful and simple. So simple, in fact, that there is no way to search. So, if you're the kind of person who needs to find something specific right away in your music collection, this won't sit well with you. That isn't what Audium is all about.
On the other hand, if you would like to scroll through some albums and say, "Hey! Haven't heard that in a while." or "This will do." then you probably don't mind not being able to type anything specific into a search box.
It definitely caters more toward avid album listeners rather than playlist enthusiasts. But the gestures alone make music listening easier and more delightful.
It would be nice to try this one out on the iPad — given, it's eventually made available as a universal app. Other than that, I don't have any real complaints.
Audium is available in the App Store for only $0.99. If you would like an intuitive — and gorgeous! — music app for your iPhone, this is it. Given you don't need the bulk of a search tool or access to playlists.
