iTunes: how to improve it? - II

Fill gaps in iTunes

These applications are quite independent of iTunes: they will break your habits and will not allow you to return easily to the reader from Apple if necessary. If you're not quite allergic to iTunes, maybe can fill its gaps before removing its icon from the Dock.

iTunes software is an old that takes into account end badly and internet options to complete the musical experience with contextual information. Wikit (2.99 €) is a small application that will display information from Wikipedia on the artist, album and song courses.

The TunesTEXT Dashboard widget (free) or application MusiXmatch (free) as to allow them to display lyrics of current song: the widget integrates with the metadata for those who would see the example on their iPod or iPhone, the application displays the screen for karaoke lovers.

The main shortcoming of iTunes is still the duplicate management, particularly deficient. From this perspective, the application Dupin ($ 15) is infinitely more subtle and intelligent, and is probably one of the best managers of duplicates for OS X. It allows for multiple criteria to facilitate the search for true duplicates (for example, keep the live versions of songs which were also the studio album), or conversely to sort through multiple interpretations of a same song.

Dupin's creator, Doug Adams, is also known for power-users of iTunes: it offers on its website over 400 scripts to add many features to drive Apple's management of metadata in search of jackets through the fusion of songs, create playlists, and you pass. If you have always found it lacked a little something in iTunes, it is possible that you find your happiness in this collection of scripts.

Go further

Finally, several applications use iTunes for most functions shifted. Sleepytime (3.99 €), for example, converts iTunes (or Listen) in alarm. You can fall asleep and wake to the sound of your music, Sleepytime can help you fall asleep with entertainment, or provide you wake up the day's weather.

Less useful, but funny Flutter (free), a beta application that lets you control your iTunes through hand gestures: the webcam on your Mac recognizes your movement, like the Microsoft Kinect. For now, however, Flutter recognizes only one gesture, to pause music. The attentive readers will have noticed that an application has not been mentioned in this folder, Spotify. He had to leave the honors of the conclusion, as it can completely replace iTunes. First, it can recover iTunes library for local music, but it obviously adds a thick catalog, with advertising in the free formula or against an unlimited subscription. 

Spotify has recently been enhanced with many applications that allow for example to better see what's new or to arrange a real evening karaoké. Finally, its social functions allow for example to let your friends in your inbox recommendations of songs to listen. Since all solutions of this issue, Spotify shows that iTunes is now more than ever dated: it is announced each year, but a real overhaul of the music player / multimedia Swiss Army Knife Apple would probably not too.