That's just it though
For the mini player, the vertical buttons are a necessity for space saving. They could decrease the size of the application window or at least utilize wasted space by making adjustments like the vertical button arrangement.
The bottom bar could be removed and have those buttons relocated to the activity window where there is a lot of wasted space. even have more of a grid arrangement for the different ways of displaying information.
I just think Apple could have done so much more if they had utilized the vertical buttons throughout the OS.