Wouldn't it be cool if you could use Coverflow to flip through pictures on your iPhone or iPod touch? If you're a visual artist of any kind you've probably got your best portfolio pieces on your iPhone already--but so does everyone else. Wouldn't it be nice to stand out from the crowd? If metadata about your pictures--who shot it, where it was shot, when it was shot--is important, wouldn't it be cool if you could just flip the picture over and see this info? Well guess what--you can! And the best part is, this all happens with software that you already have!
Be warned that this is not a particularly easy process--in fact, it can be pretty counter-intuitive. This isn't a rapid, easy-to-use, useful tagging system like iPhoto. It is, basically, a way to show off, or a way to carry certain information if it's really important to you and worth the time to create. And if you're doing this to show off your portfolio, you should also have high-res versions in the regular Photo app as well since cover art is shown at 225x225 pixels and you can't zoom like you can with regular photos.
What we're going to do is use the iPod feature to show the photos. What you do is import any audio file, even a 10-second silent MP3, and choose a nice picture as album artwork. If all you want to do is show pictures, you just need one audio track per image. If you want to flip the picture over to reveal metadata, you'll need one audio file per line of data--what we're doing here is making a single "album" and when you flip it over you'll see the "track names" which are actually your metadata. So if you want to list three pieces of metadata about five different pictures, you'll need a total of fifteen tracks, which will be split into five albums, each one with one piece of cover art.
To create duplicate MP3s in the Finder, click on a file and press Command-D. Then drag all the files into iTunes. Info will be listed in order according to track numbers. So, to list photographer, subject, and client, Track 1 would be "Photographer: Bob Smith", Track 2 would be "Subject: Pine tree", and Track 3 would be "Client: Tree Magazine". Once you've got it all looking good in iTunes, just create a playlist, sync, and you're set!
Download a silent 10-second MP3 here.
Silent songs grouped by album in iTunes with metadata as track names
Silent songs in iTunes, album artwork applied, viewed in Coverflow mode
Albums loaded on the iPhone in list mode...
... and in coverflow mode.
Flip the picture over to see metadata!
