iPod App Changes
The majority of the iPod functionality of iOS remains unchanged. In fact, superficially the application’s appearance is the same as it was in iOS 3. The notable new feature here is the ability to finally create custom playlists on the fly without resorting to “on-the-go” playlists introduced with the 4th gen iPod - back before the age of touch screens. Honestly, I could never figure this feature out, so it’s nice to see real playlist creation coming.
In the playlists tab, in the list of playlists, sits “add playlist.”
Clicking that brings up a creation name dialog box, and now you can start adding songs from your library into the playlist.
You can add virtually anything just by tapping the blue plus symbol, just like you’d expect from a real playlist anywhere else. Tap done, and it’s now a playlist which will sync back and forth across iTunes.
Tapping on the playlist you’ve created brings up the songs, videos, or media inside, where you can then edit, clear, or delete the playlist. Deletion and reordering is just like you’d expect it to be; delete with the red alert sign, reorder by dragging on the traction strip.
Control Changes
Of course, since iOS 4 brings multitasking, Apple had sacrifice one input gesture method for another to get you out of apps and into the task tray. Double tapping on the home button brings up a list of recently run applications and pushes your active window up. Swipe left in this list of apps, and you’ll be at the new iPod control interface.
The rightmost icon is the application which has current control of the audio stack; in this case, iPod. However, run Pandora Radio’s iOS aware application, and it’ll change to Pandora as expected.
The controls work just like you’d expect, including next and previous track, and pause.
Rotation lock is at far left, and is a carryover from its hardware toggle switch analog on the iPad. What’s puzzling, however, is that rotation lock only locks you in portrait mode. In fact, it seems as though iOS 4 intends you to only multitask in portrait mode, as bringing up the app switching tray in landscape results in the following:
Which is decidedly un-Apple given the garish combination of portrait icons plus titles, and landscape application UI here. Maybe in time Apple will make the icons rotate.
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