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Search results for "Ecoute"

CoverSutra 2.5 Released, Exclusive to Mac App Store

A major new version of popular music controller CoverSutra by Sophiestication was released today, and it’s available exclusively on the Mac App Store at $4.99. For those who are not familiar with the app (which we last reviewed here in January 2009), CoverSutra is a desktop controller for music coming from iTunes. Unlike Ecoute, which is more like a lightweight music player, CoverSutra only display songs information by plugging directly into Apple’s software.

CoverSutra, however, doesn’t only come with a neat desktop widget that displays the artwork for the album that’s playing. Although that option got even bigger with the latest 2.5 update (it now supports artworks up to 256px on the desktop), what’s cool about the app is that you can assign keyboard shortcuts to almost any function supported by CoverSutra. You can choose to invoke a heads-up display window with music control through a hotkey, or assign multiple shortcuts to dozens of commands like volume up and down, next track, search and so forth. Search, for instance, happens in a popup coming down from CoverSutra’s menubar icon; you can search for any song, album or artist you want and navigate with the keyboard through the results to start playing.

The Mac App Store 2.5 also includes a new keyboard bezel display style, and an option to let the app automatically start and quit with iTunes. Now this is nice, as it’s an iTunes controller and it depends on it. CoverSutra 2.5 is available as Mac App Store-only here.

Instinctiv, An Alternative to doubleTwist

There are definitely a lot of new kids on the block nowadays. For the iTunes alternatives, we don’t have to look farther than Ecoute and Everplay for smaller solutions, and Songbird and doubleTwist as full library / syncing replacements for our multitude of devices. With doubleTwist making a name for itself with its ability to sync to the Droid (including recent Podcast and Amazon integration), one more player has stepped into the field that’s currently open to the public. Instinctiv syncs playlists to my Droid, shuffles music to my mood, and is a rather simple solution for playing and searching your music.

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Bowtie: The Customizable Music Controller. For Mac and iPhone.

How do you control your music?

I don’t know how many times I’ve been asked this question since I started blogging on MacStories. I still haven’t found a good way to control my music, besides the good & old “go to the player of choice and press play”. Yes, I’ve never been able to stick with a dedicated desktop controller for iTunes or Spotify, as I kept switching back and forth between new apps (Tracks), popular alternatives (Coversustra) and even mobile applications (Remote). As I mentioned many times before, I found a good compromise in Ecoute, which is a neat app that enables you to play your music library without launching iTunes and it even displays a nice controller on the desktop.

There was this other app, anyway, that many people were using and enjoying: Bowtie. Bowtie has been sitting on the much popular beta stage for months, but has been finally released as a 1.0 version - both on the Mac and iPhone. Was the wait really worth it?

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Tracks: A Spotlight for iTunes

I’ve got a strange relationship with music, both in my life and on Mac OS X. Personal situations aside, my digital problem is the following: I’ve got a 100GB music library and I can’t find any real good application to manage it. iTunes is somehow slow and unresponsive sometimes (but we all know why), Vlc is too poor and outdated, I don’t like desktop controllers at all. I’ve found a good compromise in Ecoute, which is both a desktop controller and a music player itself, which is pretty great actually.

On the other hand, I could talk about a webapp that is deeply changing the way I listen to my music, but let’s leave it for later this week. So here I am today, talking about this Mac app called “Tracks” which I’ve been using for some days now.

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MacStories Apps Tree Winners Announced!

So, it’s finally over. The #appstree, the event I launched last week and which included over 500 licenses of Mac and iPhone apps has come to an end. I’d like to thank everyone who supported me during this event and the whole organization process: my Twitter followers, the readers who commented, the TechCrunch guys, the designers and developers who agreed to be interviewed or write a guest post.

Thank you.

Now, this is the post with the names of the winners. The list is pretty long, so I suggest you to Cmd + F on the page and search for the username you used in the comment. Some names come with a number next to them, that’s the number of the comment. As for the licenses, they’ll be sent during next week and the first week of January: there’s Christmas, the New Year Eve, so it’s impossible for me and the devs to send them right now. But don’t worry, you’ll receive the licenses straight into your inbox. Also, iPhone promo codes will be sent out first, as they’re very likely to expire. Last, I’m very glad to say that I’ve still got many interviews to publish, be sure to check them out.

The list is after the jump. And again, thank you!

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MacStories Apps Tree: 540 Licenses of Mac and iPhone Apps Up for Grabs Worth $10,000+!

I wanted to make something great for my readers during the Christmas period. I mean, everyone of us like sto remember Christmas as a special moment, whether you pass it with your family, friends or online. So I thought, what about giving away something to my readers and offer them some exclusive content they won’t find anywhere?

This is the result. The Christmas Apps Tree is an event which features interviews with famous designers, bloggers and developers,some cool guest posts and a huge giveaway of Mac and iPhone apps. And by huge I mean more than 500 licenses up for grabs, with dead simple rules to enter! You’ll find well known apps such as Pixelmator, Espresso, 1Password, Mailplane, Dropzone and Socialite but also little gems like Tags, MoneyBook, EmailBackup Pro and ForeverSave. Apps for web designers / developers, software developers, bloggers and “regular” Mac users.

This is the giveaway post, the content will follow during these 7 days on MacStories.

Details after the jump! Read more

50+ Beautifully Designed Mac Apps Icons for Your Inspiration

“Aqua offers a photo-illustrative icon style—it approaches the realism of photography but uses the features of illustrations to convey a lot of information in a small space. Icons can be represented in 512 x 512 pixels to allow ample room for detail. Anti-aliasing makes curves and nonrectilinear lines possible. Alpha channels and translucency allow for complex shading and dimensionality. All of these qualities allow you to create lush, vibrant icons that capture the user’s attention.”

That’s what Apple says in the Human Interface Guidelines document about icons. Icons are a great way to convey information about the application you’re using and give you some eye-candy at the same time. In this roundup I’ve collected 50+ of the most beautiful, well-designed icons of 3rd party apps for Mac OS X. Do you know more? Feel free to share them in the comments.

Enjoy! ;)

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Insipiration: 60 Awesome Mac Apps Websites

Usually, a great Mac app has always an outstanding design. This happens beacuse the Mac platform is highly focused on providing a better user experience than other OSes and a good design is very important to acheive this. But, if you’re an app developer, you have to tell users that your app is great in the first place. And the first place is the application’s website.

Here I’ve collected 60 awesome Mac apps websites for your inspiration. If you know more, I’d love to hear about that in the comments.

Enjoy! ;)

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