Nice Interface, Missing Features
This app has one of the better interfaces Ive seen for using in the car, and Ive probably tried 10 similar apps. There are a couple of things that I would like to see improved or added. First, it doesnt respect playlist hierarchy in your iTunes playlists. You just get a flat listing of all the playlists. Many other third party music apps behave the same way, so I dont know if that is an Apple limitation or not. The program also sorts differently than iTunes. Playlists that begin with a number show up at the bottom of the list, not the top as they do in iTunes. I sometimes put a space at the beginning of a playlist name to move it to the top of the list. This works in iTunes but not this program. The biggest limitation for me is that there is no way to select which output device to send the audio to within the program. The output selector (little upward pointing arrow next to the fast forward button in the stock music app) is missing. So if I plug the iPhone into my car audio dock and then turn on my bluetooth handsfree (which causes the bluetooth handsfree to take over the connection), I cant redirect the audio to the car dock without exiting the program.
There seem to be two kinds of third party audio apps in the app store. Those which load your music library into their own database and then operate independently from the stock music app, and those which are basically just a skin running over the top of the stock music app. These later apps dont appear to keep their own database and use the stock music app to actually play the audio. This app falls into that category. In fact, if you double click the home button and swipe the bottom bar right to see the music controls, the icon for the stock music app appears as the app which is playing audio. The gist of this discussion is that I dont know what limits the developer has regarding the reading for the database, so I dont know if he can address my sorting issues. However, Im pretty sure the output selector can be added if he chooses to do so.
SDupuie about
Car Audio Deck