‘Planetary' iPad App Reimagines Your Music

"OMG: #3" tweets app developer Ben Cernevy. That's not about his third OMG moment of the day -- that's for his new app, Planetary, making it to No. 3 on iPad's top-10 downloaded list.

Planetary's climb up the app popularity ladder has been nothing short of meteoric.

Cerveny has been working for years, changing the way we work with high tech devices, specializing in the user interface (UI). 

"I feel as if I'm in a surrealist film" he writes.

His new app Planetary is a reimagining of the iTunes playlist. Instead of a list of songs, you see your music presented as a solar system. The star is the artist. Take, for instance, Ingrid Michaelson.

Around her star orbits her album, "Be OK." Zoom to planet Be OK and you see the tracks from the album as moons. Click on a moon and it begins to play.

It's a curious - but not illogical - analogy.  And changing the way we think about how data is presented is exactly what Cerveny is trying to do.  An early developer of what would become Flickr, Cerveny has worked with big name design firms like Frog Design and brands like Sony and Nokia.

The app is far from perfect.  It will not play playlists; in fact, you cannot even play an entire album.  You must select each song individually.  But it's an interesting first try demonstrating how the iPad may change the way we look at everyday data.

Planetary (voiceover) from Bloom Studio, Inc. on Vimeo.

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