AlbumFlow For WP7: Beautiful Music Player With A Cover Flow View
When it comes to looks and user interface, Windows Phone 7 can surely hold its own against Android and iOS, and this is evident from the beautiful Zune music player on WP7. The Music & Videos hub, as it is properly known as, got even better with the Mango update, due to the lockscreen album art support which was added to it. However, as they say, there is always room for improvement, and apparently that’s what the developer of AlbumFlow thought. The app features your music library in a fluid and interactive way, and you can literally float through your music in this simplistic music player.
The best thing about AlbumFlow is that is won’t only pick those album arts which have been downloaded through Zune, but any associated picture with a song, or artists, will do. This means that you can start using this app as a complete replacement for the stock music player. Using the app is simple, and it is not cluttered with too many complicated options. You don’t even have to import your library entries to AlbumFlow, as the app will do so all by itself as soon as you launch it for the first time. AlbumFlow doesn’t come with a lot of customizing options to keep everything simple, and you just have to swipe through the album art thumbnails for the song list underneath to be updated instantaneously.
If you just have individual songs with album art, the app will show just one entry below the thumbnails; otherwise, the contents of the whole album will be showcased. To play a song, just tap the blue arrow next to it, and once you have done that, you can navigate out of the app and the song will continue playing just like a song from the stock player.
AlbumFlow might not be much in terms of new functionality, but for the unique user experience it provides, the app is certainly worth a try, specially given that it is free.
Update: One of the bugs in the app has now been ironed out, and AlbumFlow has been updated to display all the albums in the your Music library, even those without album art. Also, the app now shows album art on the entire screen if you hold your Windows Phone in landscape mode. The music player too is now about as good as the stock one, having received a time duration HUD for each track, along with some really useful control changes.
