My Artists Review

My Artists attempts to replace iPod.app with its gorgeous, artists-centric music playing app. While it integrates wonderfully with the iPod/iPhone experience (largely courtesy of iOS 4.0) and I love many of its features, My Artists isn't perfect...yet.

My Artists pulls in your iPod's entire library (just like the iPod.app would) and lists all of your artists. The UI is beautiful and very visual-oriented...dare I say it looks better than the iPod?

It's also artist-centric, rather than song-centric. My Artists takes each artist and creates a page that integrates photos, text (think Wikipedia bios), and a full listing of the artist's other music. So, for example, when I choose Tegan and Sara, I can play one of the albums that I have, read their bio, or check out their other albums and songs via integrated YouTube videos (an internet connection is required, of course). The app can also recommend music to you based on last.fm listings.

This all looks great, so much so that I almost wonder why Apple hasn't copied this. Better yet, it's fully integrated with iOS 4: usual volume controls work, multitasking is supported, and the app will even pick up the song you were playing before launch.

Now for the bad news. There's absolutely no Playlist support -- it's like being stuck in the Artists tab forever. Genius is absent, and listening to single songs or mixes is difficult...this is really meant for Artists and their complete albums. At first, I also experienced some crashes and general lag. A few reboots cured that issue.

That being said, My Artists is a gorgeous app and in many ways it outshines the default iPod app. If you can live without playlists and long for artist-centric eye candy, My Artists can easily replace iPod.app. Now that's an impressive feat.