Have you noticed how Apple spends every second sentence telling us how much it loves music? Particularly U2 (?!!). Yet, it doesn’t seem to be all that good at making music players. iTunes on desktop is a lumbering beast with a face to match, and although the iOS Music app is somewhat nicer to look at, it is no beauty, either. Many folks don’t care, of course. But if you yearn for a more visually appealing music space on iOS, Transcynd might be what you are looking for.

Released in the last month, this lightweight music app is all about the experience of listening to music. Navigating your library is a fairly standard affair, but the controls in this app are unusual, in that they borrow the idea of “cards” from Google’s Android.

Cover art fills the background, while in the foreground the controls change color, chameleon-like, to complement the background image. Tapping on the background brings up your library; tapping on the arrow above the controls gives you access to the other cards. These include an artist bio card, and a sharing card — the latter allows you to attach album artwork to your music-flavored social updates. The whole thing looks beautiful in a very high-res kind of way, and it is intuitive in use.

Not that it will be to everyone’s taste. There are no power-user features in there, and no actual organization (other than by way of star ratings) is possible. At times, it also drifts into pretty designer world, where things that don’t need fixing are messed about with in the name of beauty.

However, in terms of simplicity, looks and usability, Transcynd ticks all three boxes, and at a reasonable price — at $0.99, it’s definitely worth a buy.

Transcynd is available now in the App Store.

Extra Time — Adobe CC Updates

The other major dot on this week’s iOS radar is the raft of new Creative Cloud releases and updates that Adobe has pushed out.

The whole mobile suite now stretches to 9 apps, including photo- and art-specific Photoshop apps, a video Premiere app, two Illustrator apps and a trio of “capture” apps. The apps in the last of these categories utilize your iDevice’s camera to clip colors and shapes, which are then converted into their digital equivalents, ready to be used in your designs.

You can read the full list of updates on Adobe’s website.

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