Let’s face it, Apple has always been obsessed with being as sleek as possible when it comes to their hardware and providing as much eyecandy as possible when it comes to their software. They have a knack for introducing products that will Wow the public while making Mac lovers drool over the most recently overpriced product they released.

Thus, it was hardly surprising when Apple purchased Coverflow from an independent artist back in 2006. Coverflow was originally an additional plugin to iTunes, which did exactly the same thing it does today: showcase your album art in a very stylish and sleek form, precisely what Apple loves. When Apple first bought it, all they initially did was make it a default feature in iTunes, but as time went by, they tried to introduce Coverflow to anything and everything.

Everytime I watched Steve Jobs introduce a new product or iPod at keynotes in recent years, he’d always reach the part where he shows off Coverflow for the umpteenth time. Everytime he tries to wow everyone with it, I’m busy cringing in front of my computer screen going, “Not this stupid thing again…”

The truth of the matter is that Coverflow is nothing more than a gimmick. I use it for like 5 seconds now and then just to scroll through all my album art really really fast, because it really does seem cool! For literally 5 seconds that is, after which I imeediately switch back to the much more functional list view.

And now, with the latest beta version of Safari, Apple’s default web browser for the Mac, they’ve done the unthinkable: shoehorning Coverflow into a web browser.

This really is the last straw.

Does Apple REALLY expect people to use it to browse through the history of the sites they’ve browsed? Personally, I almost never look at my history, except when I need to go back to a site whose URL I forgot on the rare occasion, I’ll do a quick search and be done with it.

What does Apple expect us to do? Get bored with web surfing and so we turn to surfing through our history for the fun of it?

Get real. Practically no one uses Coverflow on their iPods or iTunes, where we actually get to see some pretty cool album art fly by. But honestly? Watching snapshots of websites fly by? Nu-uh, not for me.

Tags: coverflow, safari beta