Experiencing “content” 
The intention of Cover Flow was to re-introduce the experience of flipping through album covers, as they were in cases or sleeves, back to digital music. The experience of music itself is beyond the acoustics; emotions and events are embedded in words and melody, and album covers became the visual queue of such interaction. It is “a faster, more artistically complex, and more emotionally potent way to experience our music collections.”. Browsing through album covers hence became a personal experience of not only browsing through music, but through precious life moments and events.
Ever since Apple purchased the rights to Cover Flow, millions of users were once again re-immersed with the interest of “album art”. Though the experience has been re-introduced, the authenticity of this experience had been reduced in the acquisition. No longer are the covers arranged in an aerial perspective in virtual free space, a rather genuine and immersive point of view, but the simulation of flow, and fluid re-arranging animations as users are searching through albums in real-time, are lost in translation.
In my opinion however Cover Flow is not an efficient method of browsing, for any form of content; flipping through covers linearly is a dated experience. Not only are there a restricted number of covers displayed at each instance, but covers overlap. In terms of conveying content, it is in no doubt, contrived and constrained. If visual browsing is the method of browsing moving forward, and given its inherent semantic potentials, how then should visual browsing be in the digital era?
