The unique iPad app Planetary has just been added to the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum’s collection. The institution has gone one step further by acquiring the app’s source code as well.
This is the first time the Smithsonian has attained a piece of code. The institution has also made this code available to everyone, in an attempt to preserve software as more of a living thing, rather than just an interesting app.
The app itself is essentially an alternative music player for the iPad that visualizes your music collection as a series of celestial bodies: Songs are moons, albums are planets, and artists are suns.
The orbits of each of each of these celestial bodies are determined by the length of albums and their respective tracks. Their brightness also represents their frequency of playback.
Yes, it’s free. Check out the video below. Download it to your iPad.
