Gallery & Video: Portait Music Player "Instinctiv" free on the Ovi Store – What Nokia Music player should be

Here’s a little GEM of an application that’s free on Ovi Store for your Nokia N900. This is by far the most promising user interface for a music player I’ve ever come across on a Nokia handset. It’s called “instinctiv”, download it from the Ovi Store on your N900. The player supports wma, flac, ogg, aac, mp3 and can be synced with the instinctiv desktop player (I think Mac only at the moment)

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The first thing to note is that it’s entirely designed for portrait, which IMO is great on a music player. I’m often on the move when I’m listening to music and such only have one hand available to browse the music player. Portrait in this sense is a must. (Can’t do this by default with N900)

At start up, you’re presented with either LIBRARY or SHUFFLE view. (You might want to let the player load up the album art on initial use – it automatically fetches these so your albums can look great too)

In LIBRARY, you’re presented with SONGS, ARTIST and ALBUMS. At the top, you’ll have a really helpful breadcrumb trail that will help you quickly get to any point in the menu in one click. No more digging around or pressing back!

Notice also the nofication of number of tracks/albums/artists. I have only just got my N900 back so my music isn’t all on this yet (And some tracks came with it:p)

Notice there’s nothing at the bottom (for now). Note, when you select something, it’s highlighted in blue. It’s a little bit like the iPod player, but IMO, much better in terms of navigation. (Though the breadcrumb bits could do with possibly a little label)

Below is ALBUM view. Yes, it has kinetic scrolling (leave Instinctiv for a bit to compile its archives, once that’s done it’s quick and smooth)

Here’s within Album view.

The main player view is absolutely beautiful. The breadcrumb finishes with the title of the song, you have a HUGE album art to take advantage of the screen real estate and at the bottom you have your music controls. On top of this, you get Album, Artist and Song details (really helpful  when in shuffle mode).

It would have been cool if Album/Artist was selectable (to quickly switch to their album/songs if you happen to like that song).

What’s really nice though is that the track time line is ALL of the bottom space underneath the line and above the player controls. (See first screenshot above – it even covers the music controls, very nice) you can tap in the space below the time line and you’ll jump to that section – much better than having a skinny line.

Another thing I’d have loved here is adding to playlist/rating function.

Notice that now, in any view you’ll have visible music controls. This makes it really easy to switch music tracks. The bottom right most button (triangle) brings you back to “Now Playing” view (like in the default N900 Media Player)

I’d really love a persistent music player buttons to be visible throughout the OS, like a swipe left (or some sort of gesture) to bring up music controls in any view – whether you’re in an app or browsing the web.

Below is all songs view.

Below is artist view. When there are multiple albums per artist, songs of each album are grouped next to each other.

Finally there’s shuffle mode. It’s not just plain random shuffle of all songs, there’s options for “INSTINCTIVE SHUFFLE” which supposedly is based on the tracks you skip as opposed to frequently played songs. That’s actually quite smart as there are some songs on certain albums I just always skip but just can’t be bothered to delete.

“PLAY SONGS SIMILAR TO” which I’m hoping might be like Sony’s “Artist Link” or Apple’s Genius Playlist to find songs that you like and go well together.

CONCLUSION

PROS:

• Fantastic intuitive interface, easy to navigate
• Looks great, clean but very visually appealing (huge album art, with song details)
• Persistent music player buttons throughout music player with button to go back
• Automatic album art – no fussing about.
• Breadcrumb trail to bring you back to any point (without mindlessly having to keep clicking back)
• Intelligent shuffle
• Works in portrait (not in landscape yet though sometimes it switches to landscape and it still looks good – not a default feature though)
• It’s FREE

CONS:

• Does not yet work with bluetooth headset music buttons. (Though plays perfectly, including volume. Skip/back/pause/play not working)
• No playlists
• Initial startup is a little slow (10 seconds?)

It is a little slow at first but that’s only because it’s archiving. When that’s done it’s quite quick. I’ve put this note here to make it more noticable.

WISH LIST

• PLAYLIST/RATING OPTION, with quick access at Now Playing view
• Search function
• Bluetooth controls
• Perhaps labelling of the icons in the breadcrumb (I’m fine without, though it might help others)
• Landscape view – though I wouldn’t mind completely portrait.
• For this to be the default UI of Nokia Music player on touch phones.

I would have done a video for you guys for an app as nice as this but I my cam has gone walkabout -_-. There’s a video demo by ericube840218 though, even showing installation.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMrAmXPYI0g]

So what you waiting for? Head over to the Ovi Store now and try it out.

Tags: Instinctiv, Maemo, Music Player, N900, Nokia, Nokia N900, Video

Category: Maemo, MNB, Nokia, Nseries, Rant, Reviews, Video