On a 5th gen iPod, non-square cover art appears in it's native shape, while the text is shifted slightly in order to end up the same distance from the art on the "Now Playing" screen. In other words, the 5G is specifically designed to handle non-square art using its native dimensions. With the 6th gen, however, all the cover art gets "padded" with black so that the picture ALWAYS ends up square. This results in ugly black areas on any art that is not square. This obviously effects CD box sets (which often have "tall" art), as well as Podcasts and audiobooks, all of which commonly use non-square art, but it ALSO effects normal CD art, however, since this art is often not "exactly" square, which results in an ugly black edge on a lot of my albums. The end result on 6th gen "Classic" ipods is a LOT of art that has ugly black areas.
Is this a "bug" with the 6th gen, or is it a limitation of the way these new iPods work? My first thought was that it's a bug since this does NOT happen with the 5th gen, but I don't know if the new units handle art differently, perhaps due to the "Cover flow" feature.
Even if it IS a limitation with the new iPods, would it be possible to pad the art with "transparent" pixels instead of with "black" pixels? In other words, even if the art HAS to be square on the new iPods, would it be possible for the padding to be invisible so that it didn't display the ugly black areas?
Thanks,
Larry