This Week's Sponsor:

Kolide

Ensure that if a device isn’t secure it can’t access your apps.  It’s Device Trust for Okta.


Coversutra: You Should Love Your Music.

CoverSutra has been around for a long time. Over it’s several revisions, it’s seen some new features, and a whole lot of bug fixes. With all the revisions it’s gone through, it’s got to be one of the least-buggy applications I have ever used.

Find out why.

When you first open CoverSutra, you see artwork on your desktop and an icon in your dock. You have the option of disabling each of these. On the desktop, you see a CD case (or vinyl one) along with some artist info. When you double click on this, you see the main window of CoverSutra.

Coversutra

Coversutra

Coversutra

Coversutra

You have several toolbar buttons here. You’ve got your standard stop/start controls as well as shuffle, play in order, volume controls, and a scrubber. If you wish, you can also tell CoverSutra to play music from a playlist in your iTunes library.

CoverSutra allows you to also scrobble to Last.fm with now playing notifications. It also enables you to control your music with keyboard shortcuts. It’s incredibly useful for controlling iTunes outside of the iTunes application.

There are several areas where CoverSutra shines, one of them being in its search field. Beautifully designed (by Laurent Baumann), CoverSutra’s search is also blazingly fast. I’ve found it to be more reliable, more accurate, and in genral way faster than that of Bowtie or Ecoute.

Coversutra Search Bar

Coversutra Search Bar

Another amazing graphical feature of CoverSutra is its now playing bar.

Coversutra Now Playing

Coversutra Now Playing

You can also choose to configure now playing notifications via Growl. I can’t stand to lose the amazing design here, so I keep notifications to CoverSutra.

Coversutra Preferences

Coversutra Preferences

CoverSutra includes 3 default themes for you to see your music on your desktop. These include Vinyl, Modern Case, and CD Case. Each one of these is attractive, but after a while I got a little tired of them and switched to the pixels modification for CoverSutra.

Coversutra Mod

Coversutra Mod

While CoverSutra only lets you see 3 themes at a time, you can change the themes by modifying the resources of the application. Even better than themes, though, is that when you enter exposé, CoverSutra keeps the art on the desktop.

CoverSutra is a beautiful controller for iTunes. Its feature set is quite complete, but I felt like the lack of easy theming could be improved. The design is beautiful and so is the functionality: with Last.fm scrobbling, desktop cover art, and even a dock icon to see what’s currently playing. It’s the perfect workflow enhancer. Chances are it will be free tomorrow (to celebrate its birthday). Pick it up for $20 at Sophiestication software.

Unlock More with Club MacStories

Founded in 2015, Club MacStories has delivered exclusive content every week for over six years.

In that time, members have enjoyed nearly 400 weekly and monthly newsletters packed with more of your favorite MacStories writing as well as Club-only podcasts, eBooks, discounts on apps, icons, and services. Join today, and you’ll get everything new that we publish every week, plus access to our entire archive of back issues and downloadable perks.

The Club expanded in 2021 with Club MacStories+ and Club Premier. Club MacStories+ members enjoy even more exclusive stories, a vibrant Discord community, a rotating roster of app discounts, and more. And, with Club Premier, you get everything we offer at every Club level plus an extended, ad-free version of our podcast AppStories that is delivered early each week in high-bitrate audio.

Choose the Club plan that’s right for you:

  • Club MacStories: Weekly and monthly newsletters via email and the web that are brimming with app collections, tips, automation workflows, longform writing, a Club-only podcast, periodic giveaways, and more;
  • Club MacStories+: Everything that Club MacStories offers, plus exclusive content like Federico’s Automation Academy and John’s Macintosh Desktop Experience, a powerful web app for searching and exploring over 6 years of content and creating custom RSS feeds of Club content, an active Discord community, and a rotating collection of discounts, and more;
  • Club Premier: Everything in from our other plans and AppStories+, an extended version of our flagship podcast that’s delivered early, ad-free, and in high-bitrate audio.