The Historical past of Cowl Stream – 512 Pixels
During the last decade or so, Apple has been onerous at work in simplifying the person interfaces that energy its myriad platforms. I’ve welcomed most of that work, however it’s onerous to disclaim that we’ve all misplaced some issues alongside the way in which.
Right this moment, we take a look at a UI ingredient that began life in iTunes, however unfold to the iPod, iPhone and Mac over time: Cowl Stream.
Cowl Stream’s Early Days
We’ll get to that in a second, however first we should always acknowledge Andrew Coulter Enright, the inventor of Cowl Stream. In December 2004, he published a blog post proposing a brand new technique to skim media in iTunes:
Like paper playing cards flipping inside a bar jukebox, I pictured every cowl flipping out and in of the illuminated heart place, revealing the following album/track because the person browsed by the present library. The quicker you scrolled, the quicker the covers would shuffle out and in of the highlight.
Enright went on to speak about why such an interface was essential to him:
Like LPs in a bin, you would see which information you had simply handed and which of them you’d get to in a minute. You might flip previous awful information the second you acknowledged that tell-tale graphic ingredient on the sting of the sleeve.
Like LPs in a bin, cowl artwork displayed inside an interface like this feels much more like a “actual” object than similar cowl artwork displayed as a flat graphic (the way in which iTunes does presently).
In different phrases, the quilt picture isn’t a characteristic of the album/track, the picture is the album/track and consequently the quilt is the music. It turns into a real signifier versus a ornament. Music and its consumption by humanity haven’t all the time been simply concerning the waveform. Let’s restore among the components that had been created each to fulfill our non-aural senses, and to be signifiers for Music itself.
The pictures within the weblog publish are shockingly near what the characteristic would turn out to be when Mac developer Jonathan del Strother carried out it in an app referred to as “CoverFlow” that permit customers flip by their non-iTunes MP3 collections in a way more visible manner than scrolling folders in Finder. Here is how it was pitched:
Don’t find out about you, however I discover searching an inventory of album names considerably uninspiring, to say the least. One of many massive sights of a bodily album is the gorgeous packaging and aesthetic attraction, one thing that’s sorely missed with the digital equal.
CoverFlow goals to deliver that aesthetic attraction to your mp3 assortment. It means that you can browse your albums full with stunning paintings pulled from any sources it will probably discover, whether or not that’s buried in your track tags, collected through Synergy, or appeared up on Amazon.
You may see a video of CoverFlow in action here:
CoverFlow was bought by Apple in 2006, as the app’s website still reports:
We’re happy to announce that each one CoverFlow know-how and mental property was just lately bought to Apple. It has been integrated into the most recent model of iTunes.
That model was iTunes 7, released in 2006. As you’ll have already guessed, it included a brand new technique to shortly skim bigger media libraries:
Apple right now introduced iTunes 7, essentially the most important enhancement to the world’s hottest music jukebox and on-line music and video retailer because it debuted in 2001. iTunes 7 delivers beautiful new options resembling the brand new album and Cowl Stream views of music, TV exhibits and films, enabling customers to shortly discover titles of their library in addition to casually flick through and re-discover titles they already personal.
Right here’s what Apple’s model appeared like:
In its heyday, iTunes was usually a little bit of a UI playground for Apple. Some options by no means made it out of the applying — like vertical window controls — whereas others took flight throughout the ecosystem.
Cowl Stream Eats the World
Cowl Stream’s largest second got here in January 2007, when Steve Jobs launched the unique iPhone. (You may bounce proper to the iPod part with this link.) When the person rotated their gadget into panorama orientation, the Music app would present all the library’s albums in Cowl Stream, and scrolling by them was as simple because the swipe of a finger. Tapping the middle album would reveal a observe record:
Within the fall of 2007, Apple revised its complete iPod line, bringing Cowl Stream to the iPod classic, third-generation iPod nano and the iPod touch. The latter labored identical to the iPhone, whereas the standard iPods used the clicking wheel to maneuver forwards and backwards in Cowl Stream.
On the Mac aspect of issues, Leopard introduced Cowl Stream to Finder. This iteration allowed customers to see an inventory of recordsdata and folders and a nicely-sized preview on the identical time.
Right here’s a bit from the press release:
Scheduled to ship in October, Leopard introduces over 300 new options, together with a brand new Desktop and Dock with Stacks, an intuitive new technique to set up recordsdata; an up to date Finder that includes Cowl Stream and a brand new technique to simply browse and share recordsdata between a number of Macs; Fast Look, a brand new technique to quickly preview most recordsdata with out opening an software; Time Machine, a brand new technique to simply and routinely again up and restore misplaced recordsdata or a whole Mac; Areas, a strong new characteristic to create teams of functions and immediately change between them; and enhanced iChat and Mail functions, which simply permit customers to speak much more creatively.
Two years later, in 2009, Safari 4 launched with many new features, together with our outdated pal:
Safari 4 makes searching extra intuitive and gratifying with revolutionary options, resembling High Websites, Full Historical past Search and Cowl Stream, and assist for contemporary net requirements like HTML 5 and superior CSS Results.
“The profitable beta launch helped us advantageous tune Safari 4 into a good higher, quicker model that prospects are going to like,” stated Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vp of Worldwide Product Advertising. “Safari is loved by 70 million customers worldwide and with its blazing quick pace, revolutionary options and assist for contemporary net requirements, it’s the perfect browser on any platform.”
That beta included Safari 4’s infamous “Tabs on Top” design, however that’s a narrative for a unique time.
Safari’s model of Cowl Stream impressed Jim Dalrymple, who wrote about the feature for Macworld:
I go to loads of Internet sites a day, doing analysis for tales in addition to visiting a few of my favourite music websites. Positive, I may use the outdated manner of viewing my historical past as an inventory, however it’s not almost as environment friendly or correct as this Cowl Stream view.
For instance, once I’m researching a narrative, I usually come throughout obscure references to my matter. Sadly, I don’t all the time bookmark these pages for reference. The tip result’s that they’re misplaced within the mire of Net hyperlinks in my browser historical past. It will get even worse when you consider a number of days’ price of searching to wade by.
Having an enhanced search through Cowl Stream provides me a technique to slender down my search after which scroll by home windows with a thumbnail of the Site. Even when I don’t acknowledge the Net hyperlink within the record, I’ll most of the time acknowledge what the location appeared like with the Cowl Stream thumbnail.
Cowl Stream by itself in all probability wouldn’t be that helpful in a Net browser. Nonetheless, identical to in iTunes, having the mix of Cowl Stream and the search performance makes discovering issues a lot quicker. Finally, that makes my expertise utilizing the software program higher.
Like clear plastic years earlier, Cowl Stream popped up in numerous locations around the globe past Apple’s personal merchandise, like in some VW models.
A Sluggish Fade Into Historical past
Cowl Stream’s heavy use of animation and reflections had been by no means going to be match within the nice flattening that took throughout Apple’s design work within the mid 2010s.
Up first was iTunes’ model of Cowl Stream, which was removed with version 11 in 2012.
The subsequent 12 months, iOS 7 dropped Cowl Stream from the music app, replacing it with an interface of tiled album artwork.
The ultimate blow got here with macOS Mojave in 2018, which swapped out Cowl Stream for a brand new Gallery view:
My Take
Though it took many various varieties over time, Cowl Stream by no means actually clicked for me. I usually worth effectivity over visible aptitude with regards to how I prefer to work, and Cowl Stream didn’t provide me sufficient to modify away from extra conventional views of my music, recordsdata or Safari historical past.
Nonetheless, Cowl Stream nonetheless holds a particular place in my coronary heart. I get the sense that Steve Jobs cherished it, and that counts for one thing.