Personally I'm not a fan of the default Music App that comes with any iPhone, iPad or iPod. For me it's not very useful when it comes to driving and playback and has far to many menus to get to your music. Plus I also think certain apps/features such as remote should be build in.
So for the past few years I've spent my time searching for an alternative.
After a few "Good but not good enough" contenders I found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
CAR TUNES MUSIC - £2.99/$4.99
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/cartunes-music-player/id415408192?mt=8
The app is very well put together. The music player interface is simple, yet beautiful and also configurable, you can add or remove certain features you don't want such as a clock, song rating and you can even change the font to something that matches your music preference.
My favourite option is the Colour Matching. It picks out the dominate or subtle colour in your album artwork and matches the progress bar and Artist info with it. It just makes it a more visually pleasant experience.
Once your settled on your configuration your met with a large display (iPhone 5 optimised) displaying your album artwork in a "very iTunes way" with the reflection below. But unlike the default app, which takes up all the display with the controls and uses precious screen real estate with that now, none removable progress bar, all that is tightly packaged space and the controls are removed...
So how do you control your music I hear you ask...
Well it's simple.
Tap once to play.
Tap again to pause.
One finger right to left swipe to skip to next track.
One finger left to right swipe to go back to previous track.
Press and hold to turn volume up or down.
Swipe up to get to your music library.
And if the mood takes you that you need to tell everyone what your playing.
Swipe down to post to twitter.
These are all very simple controls and as the name suggests very easy to use in the car with your iPhone or iPod in a head up holder. You can literally do it without looking, allowing you full concentration on the road.
Browsing your music is effortless. Gone are the small tabs of the default app In its place Five Large Buttons at the top of your screen. From Left to right.
Songs
Albums
Artists
Playlists
Podcasts
What more can you need?
Select the particular Artist, Album or playlist and it's displayed on a menu that slides in from the right, if it's not the right one swipe left to right to end up back where you were.
A great feature that's not been over looked is Album art is shown in all the menus so you know for sure that's the right track you wish to play.
One other thing is the app support. I had a small query in relation to the app the other night so I utilised the app support option on the App Store and sent the developer a quick email, within one minute the developer replied with my query all sorted. It's the best support I've ever got from a Developer.
If I could add anything to the app and it's only a personal preference it would be Last.Fm scrobbling. I currently use a separate app but it would be great if it just did it in the back ground.
OVERALL
A very strong app, little effort to use, nice features with configuration, excellent browsing of music library.
Price point is a little high but totally worth every penny/cent.
If you are in the market to replace the default app STOP. You've found it.
iJoe.
Follow me on Twitter @joebromley
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