Click-wheel iPods. Sure they’re not the latest and fashion statement. Nor do they hold the same “I’m Tech Savvy” clout as the iPhone or iPod touch. But for music-loving multitaskers they do have one strong advantage over their touch screen brethren: the ability to change songs effortlessly without looking at the screen. You might not see the need for this until you’re navigating the expressway while trying to unlock your iPhone and then find the tiny next arrow. Or how about when you’re exercising with the iPhone strapped to your arm? It’s very easy to lose your tempo while trying to change tracks looking at the upside down screen (and I’m not even going to bring up involuntary switching to landscape mode).
Enter FluxTunes. Developed by Quokka Studios and available in the iTunes App Store, FluxTunes is a smart alternative to your built-in iPod music player. Its beauty resides in its ability to effortlessly peruse and play your music library while generously accepting sloppy screen taps and swipes. Granted, there is a learning curve to the gestures. To acquaint yourself with the FluxTunes commands, just tap and hold anywhere on screen. A menu with appear showing the various commands.
So let’s take it for a spin. To begin, you can launch FluxTunes while a song is already playing from your built in iPod player. FluxTunes will pick up the current song and continue with the active playlist (we were extremely happy about that). Alternatively, you can start FluxTunes, slide two fingers down, and select any song, artist, album, or playlist you want. To pause/play, simply tap anywhere on the screen. Advance a song by sliding left to right (this seems backwards to us since the next album art enters from right to left). Sliding right to left switches to the previous song or the beginning of the current one (if 10 seconds has passed). Volume can be adjusted by sliding one finger up or down. And the list goes on (see our menu screenshot). One great feature is that FluxTunes won’t lock your screen without you giving it the go ahead (four finger tap). Instead, it dims the screen after a user-defined time period. We understand this will have a drain on your battery, but it might be worth it for not having to slide to unlock every time you want change tracks.
Quokka has designed the UI to not only work great but look great too. Album art is displayed with the song info cleanly above it. With all these great features, FluxTunes nails the “control your iPhone while multitasking” issue dead center. We give it our coveted 5-Dimple rating.
FluxTunes gets our AppSmile 5-Dimple rating:
