A new media player is on the block, for those who can’t wait for OS 4.3 to get their playlists. FlipSide is in open beta right now, for your testing pleasure, featuring not only a customizable playlist, but also a very iPhone-esque cover flipping. I know some of you Mac guys out there want your swooshy user interface but still hang onto the BB functionality, which FlipSide certainly delivers. Using the scrollball to flip through albums feels great, and the controls are highly intuitive: spacebar to play and pause, hold it down to skip tracks, click the scroll button to view an album’s contents, and hold it down to add a track (or album) to your playlist. On top of smooth controls, FlipSide also downloads covers for your music and even links to Wikipedia biographies of the artists. If you listen to any music whatsoever, grab this now, it’s awesome. Hell, even if you don’t listen to music on your BlackBerry, this will make you want to.
Well, the beta is done, and the commercial version is live. This is a great little music app, letting you queue up a playlist, get album art and info, as well as some cool swooshy browsing options and easy to use keypad shortcuts. Sadly, it doesn’t seem to be reading my WMA files, so it’s probably safe to assume this is an MP3-only thing. Also, there isn’t a way of fast-forwarding or rewinding to search particular tracks, so you’ve got to take the good with the bad. Having used it for awhile now, I’d say it’s worth it. Check out more