Musicality: AirPlay popular music services to enabled speakers
Musicality (US$9.99) offers one-app access to Pandora, Last.fm, and Grooveshark streaming music services. What's more, it adds in extra features that integrate with Growl notifications (so you can immediately see what song is playing, even when the app itself is hidden) and AirPlay.
It's this latter feature that had me asking to take a look at the app. With AirPlay, you can stream your music from your computer to any AirPort Express, AirPlay-enabled speaker system, or Apple TV.
Musicality offers separate destination and volume controls for each AirPlay destination it finds on your local network. If you wish, you can mute your computer and send your music exclusively to your AirPlay speakers.
In my testing, the app worked exactly as promised. It took just seconds for me to create a new Pandora radio station and start it playing back on the (good) speakers attached to the Apple TV. Local volume control meant I could adjust that playback without having to stand up and walk over to tweak the physical knobs.
Beyond AirPlay, the app seems to be a solid player. I admit my interests were pretty much limited to choosing music and playing them remotely and Musicality ably provided those features. Musicality also offers support for the integrated keyboard media keys found on most Apple keyboards and works without need for opening a browser.
You can give Musicality a free try for 10 days via a time limited demo. If you like it, it's just US$10 to purchase.
We were curious how the new Mountain Lion preview and its built-in screen streaming might affect the future of Musicality. TUAW contacted Industrious One Owner Jason Perkins. He told TUAW, "I've had a chance to check it out, and I am confident that AirPlay mirroring will not negatively effect Musicality in any way. Display mirroring isn't of much benefit to us, but our built-in AirPlay support continues to work great, and the new share sheets, notifications, and other new APIs will only make it better."
