The iPhone has very few physical buttons. Simplicity is often a virtue, but not when you want to control an iPhone without looking at the screen. For example, I listen to podcasts and music when I drive in my car, and while I used to use the Kensington LiquidAUX in my car which includes a handy remote control with physical buttons that you can easily reach and use while you are driving, a few months ago I switched over to the Kensington AssistOne. I prefer the AssistOne to the LiquidAUX in every way except for one; I miss those easy to use physical buttons on the remote for when I want to pause/play music and skip to the next track while keeping my eye on the road.
The other day, on the MacSparky blog run by David Sparks, I read his "home screen" interview with writer, director, and actor David Wain. One of the apps Wain keeps on his home screen is FlickTunes, and after reading about the app I decided to buy it myself to try it out. After just a few days of use, I can see that this is a really useful app. It makes it vastly easier to control my iPhone when I don't want to look at the screen to find the tiny virtual button to press, such as when I am driving and my iPhone is docked in the AssistOne or when my iPhone is docked in my Bose SoundDock Portable.
If music (or a podcast, audiobook, etc.) is already playing when you launch FlickTunes, FlickTunes will take over control of that music. The artist and song and album titles are clearly displayed in large type at the top. (If too long to fit the screen, the line with the words automatically scrolls to reveal what is missing.) There are several different display options so you can place the words, album art, etc. in several different positions. The displays work in either portrait or landscape mode. You can also configure FlickTunes to automatically start playing a playlist that you specify whenever it launches, which saves you the multiple steps of opening up the iPod app and then tapping the play button.
By default, you can simply swipe left or right on the screen to switch to the next or last song. That is so much easier to do than looking for the small next or previous track button in the iPod app and then tapping it. There are also two finger and three finger swipe controls, which gives you 12 different command that you can give the app without having to look at the screen. Frankly, just four commands is enough for me so I rarely use anything but a one finger swipe. I have mine set up so that if I swipe down the music will pause/play. If I swipe up, I have mind set so that the the music will skip back 30 seconds, useful when I have a podcast playing and I want to quickly repeat what I just heard because I stopped paying attention to the podcast for a short while.
Take a look at the following screens to see all of the different commands that you can assign to any one, two or three finger swipe:
Note that for FlickTunes to work, your iPhone does not go to sleep and therefore it uses more power. I usually use FlickTunes when my iPhone is connected to my AssistOne or my Bose where it is being charged anyway so that is not an issue for me, but keep in mind that you will use more power with FlickTunes than with the normal iPod app. There is a setting to dim the screeen when FlickTunes is running, which I suppose decreases some of the power use.
If you ever find yourself wishing that you could control the iPod function of your iPhone without having to look at the screen and find the little virtual button to tap, FlickTunes is well worth a buck. The app has earned a place on my first home screen.
Click here for FlickTunes ($0.99):