Cover Flow

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Cover Flow
The Cover Flow interface.
Developed by	Jonathan del Strother, currently developed by Apple
Latest release	RC1.2 (1.997) / September 11, 2006
OS	Mac OS X, Windows (iTunes), iPhone OS (iPod touch iPhone)
Genre	Music Software
License	Apache License
Website	[1]

Cover Flow is a three-dimensional graphical user interface included with iTunes, the Macintosh Finder, and other Apple Inc. products for visually rummaging through files and digital media libraries via cover artwork.

1 Overview
2 Screenshots
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Overview

CoverFlow was invented by artist Andrew Coulter Enright^[1], and originally implemented by an independent Macintosh developer, Jonathan del Strother.

CoverFlow was purchased by Apple Inc. in 2006, and its technology was integrated into its jukebox application, iTunes 7.0, which was released September 12, 2006.^[2] The name was also changed to “Cover Flow”. The last release of Steel Skies’ stand-alone application, version RC1.2, was released the day prior, September 11, 2006. It was freely distributed for that day only, but remains available for download from MacUpdate. On January 9, 2007, Apple announced that the iPhone would incorporate Cover Flow technology. During the WWDC Keynote on June 11, 2007, Steve Jobs announced that Cover Flow would be added as a view option in Leopard’s Finder. On September 5, 2007 Apple announced that Cover Flow would be utilized in the third generation iPod nano as well as the new iPod classic and iPod touch models.

The Cover Flow interface has also been implemented on other operating systems. The open source media player Songbird offers a Cover Flow navigation on Windows XP. Using the Shift Switcher plugin of Compiz-Fusion^[3] on a Linux system, it is possible to switch between open applications with a Cover Flow animation.

[edit] Screenshots

Full screen Cover Flow first introduced in iTunes 7.1	New version of Cover Flow included with iTunes 7.6	Cover Flow on an iPod touch	Older version of Cover Flow (Discontinued)
Cover Flow in the Mac OSX Finder