Smart Queues And Other Smart Features Now Available In New And Improved OnCue
March 14, 2012
Let's face it: Apple's stock Music app for iOS doesn't quite cut it. Far be it from us to totally cast the app aside, but don't we all think that we deserve to have a music app on our favorite devices that is enriched with more helpful features? At the very least, shouldn't the ability to queue tracks have been added to the app by now? The reality of it, though, is that the Music app is a passably basic music player. Fortunately, Apple has long lifted its ban on third-party apps that essentially replicate the functions of its preinstalled proprietary apps. As a result, some able developers have created music players for iOS that do far more than what the plain and simple Music.app does. One such developer is Dan Pourhadi, who made the feature-rich and queue-friendly OnCue, The Music Player.
OnCue aims to supplement, maybe even substitute, the app formerly known as iPod on our iOS devices. Its main selling point is, as mentioned, its support for initiating a song queue and subsequently adding more songs to the queue. This makes for a more enjoyable listening experience, especially for the audiophiles among us who desire uninterrupted music mixes to entertain us while we're out and about. But OnCue is much more than a music queuing app, to an even greater extent now that it has been updated to showcase an interface overhaul and an enhanced feature set.
While the App Store has listed the new version as 4.0, Dan assures us that OnCue is in fact already at 5.0, practically two full steps ahead of the previous release, version 3.1. Indeed, it's a major upgrade. In addition to the app's complete redesign, which I should compliment by saying that it looks a lot like a product of Tweetbot creator Tapbots, OnCue 5.0 boasts gesture-based rearrangements of queues and access to song information, smart queue filters and configurable crossfade settings, which is hands down my new favorite feature.
OnCue, The Music Player 5.0 is, of course, a free update for users who have previously purchased the app. Otherwise, it's available in the App Store as a universal app priced at $0.99. Are you content with Music.app, or would you rather take advantage of the advanced features of OnCue.app?