CoverSutra
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CoverSutra kerfuffle highlights Mac App Store teething troubles
The Mac App Store is off to a great start, but it's not all sweetness and light. Users have been confused by how some third party apps bought elsewhere show as "installed" in the store UI whilst others don't -- and in fairness, it is confusingly inconsistent. Meanwhile, developers are struggling to deal with the lack of upgrade pricing, and what that means for their existing customers. As with the iOS App Store, everyone buying an app pays the same price, whether they are a new customer or someone who bought a previous version. There is also no ability to "grandfather in" licenses from elsewhere. For example, I purchased Pixelmator v1.6 from its website for $60 back in September, but the team has now announced that v2 will be exclusive to the Mac App Store. If they had maintained the $60 price point, I would have had to pay the full amount again in order to move my license from their own system and onto the Mac App Store. Generously, they have dealt with this by offering Pixelmator v1.6 for $30 on the store for a limited time -- with a free upgrade to v2 when it is released. This isn't perfect; some people like me feel annoyed that they paid twice the current rate just a few months ago for a product that won't get an upgrade to v2, and Pixelmator's developers are also effectively giving new customers an upgrade discount they perhaps shouldn't be entitled to. Overall, though, it's the best of a bad set of choices they can make. Not all devs are having such a smooth ride, however.
iTunes 101: Using the Album Art widget
Here's a cool new feature in iTunes 10 that we haven't mentioned yet: when listening to any song in your library, you can double click on the album art window in the lower left hand corner to detach it from the main window and see it full size. That's not new -- you could get a closer look at the art in previous versions of iTunes. But what is new is that when you mouse over that detached art, you now get full QuickTime-style controls for your tracks. You can then minimize the main window (using those weirdly-aligned buttons, of course), and then just control the music directly from that square widget (which can also be resized any way you want). Pretty neat, and somewhat hard to find if you don't usually zoom in to see your album art full size. This replicates some (not all) of the functionality provided by CoverSutra and a number of other "iTunes controllers," so it looks like Apple has (yet again) decided to make a popular function in third-party apps part of the official thing.
CoverSutra updated to be faster and Snow Leopard compatible
I picked up CoverSutra a little while ago in a bundle purchase, and I generally liked it -- it's an iTunes controller with the added features of regular notifications with album art, a music search, and Last.fm scrobbling. My one complaint with the software was that it was a bit of a CPU hogger -- my little Mac mini chugged right along trying to keep it running, and I occasionally had to turn it off completely if I was doing something else CPU-intensive.But maybe with newly released version 2.2 they'll have fixed that problem -- not only have they made the app fully compatible with Snow Leopard and iTunes 9, but they've beefed up performance, taking advantage of all available CPU cores and, they say, dramatically loading album artwork and searching music faster. I haven't tried it yet, but if you've had the same problems with CoverSutra I have, it's worth picking up the new version and testing it out. 2.2 is of course a free upgrade to current users, and the app itself is available for $19.95.
Last day to buy MacHeist Bundle
Today is the last day to buy the much coveted MacHeist application bundle. MacHeist has decided to sweeten the deal by unlocking SoundStudio early and offering $5 off any Insanely Great Tee. If you are a registered member of the MacHeist site you can also get early access to Headline (an RSS reader).The MacHeist Bundle currently includes the following Mac apps: VectorDesigner DEVONthink XSlimmer CoverSutra Awaken iClip Overflow Cha-Ching WriteRoom Enigmo Bugdom 2 Nanosaur 2 TextExpander SoundStudio The MacHeist Bundle costs $49 and 25% of your purchase will be donated to your choice of charity. Currently, MacHeist has sold over 4,000 bundles and raised over $50,000 for charity. You can purchase a bundle at the MacHeist website.
CoverSutra iTunes controller 50% off today only
I'm a big fan of CoverSutra, Sophia Teutschler's sexy and incredibly useful iTunes controller. It gives you global keyboard shortcuts to skip and pause songs, display album artwork in a jewel case in popup notifications or permanently on your desktop, and it can even interact with the Last.fm music community to share the list of songs you're listening to.CoverSutra is easily a good deal for its standard $20 price tag, but for today only, software discount outlet MacZOT is selling it for just $9.95. Get it while it's hot.
TUAW Desktops of the Week for 4/30 - 5/5/07
This week I found it impossible to choose just one image from our TUAW Desktops Flickr group, so I chose four - two desktops and two honorable mentions. The first, simply titled My Current Desktop (how about some more unique names for these desktops, eh?), is from Flickr user tj scenes and is quite the melding of OSes, interesting wallpaper, minimal icon design and unique choices in applications. What you're looking at is not yet another ShapeShifter theme, no - it's Parallels running in Coherence mode with a black Windows XP theme and the Windows taskbar stifling Mac OS X's menubar. You're also looking at the custom icon set Amora, ClearDock and - believe it or not - Winamp, the good ol' media player for Windows that could. It's quite an interesting setup, though tj scenes neglected to mention one thing: what wallpaper he's using, and where he got it (ok fine that's technically two things). Next up is Mac OS X Desktop in a Mosaic from Flickr user blumensath, a desktop that is interesting primarily due to the way it was created. Blumensath used MacOSaiX, a mosaic generating app, and plugged in Flickr pictures tagged with "osx" to create a cool mosaic of... well, Mac OS X. These next two images from t_szuba receive honorable mention for their minimal setup and shout out to the old school days of Apple. They're both running Panic's Stattoo and Sophia Teutschler's CoverSutra, and both feature custom app icons for the left-aligned Dock and Unsanity's ShapeShifter. While t_szuba mentions the wallpaper designers for both desktops, no link was provided (yet). If you'd like to see your unique, functional or otherwise interesting desktop featured in our TUAW Desktops of the Week series, check out past featured desktops as well as the original post for the rules and to get an idea of what we're looking for. Then, upload your desktop screenshot to our TUAW Desktops Flickr group. We'll feature one or more desktops each weekend, giving credit to the desktop owner, wallpaper creator and any apps featured in the screenshot (if available). Keep those desktops rolling in!
Revisiting CoverSutra, now with Last.fm and Growl integration
It's been a while since we first mentioned Sophia Teutschler's CoverSutra, a new iTunes interaction and manipulation app, and it's come quite a ways since its v1.0 debut. From the start it's offered things like global keyboard shortcuts for controlling iTunes (including one for toggling Shuffle), Apple Remote integration and album artwork that can live on your desktop underneath all your other windows (for that nice Exposé peek-a-boo effect), but recent developments have brought two major new features. The first is integration with the increasingly ubiquitous Growl notification system of which we're big fans, but the second big new feature finally made me decide to buy a license: integration with the Last.fm music community. For those who haven't seen it, Last.fm can watch what music you're playing (on both Mac OS X and Windows) and upload what is more or less a history of all the songs you listen to (it doesn't upload the songs themselves; it isn't the next Kazaa/LimeWire). From there you can share your playlists and discover new music through both friends and strangers who also use the site, and even embed your Last.fm playlist in a website or blog. It's a great service for any music enthusiast, and now it's built right into Sophia's excellent iTunes controller app. Consider me sold.A demo of CoverSutra is available from CoverSutra.com, while a license sells for €9.95 or roughly $13 USD.
Desktop of the Week for 4/22 - 4/28/07
This week's TUAW Desktop hails from Flickr user brianpunx and makes use of a number of Mac OS X software and icons which brianpunx was kind enough to list (hint: that makes my job easier when picking a TUAW Desktop of the Week, though it doesn't influence my decision). First, it's running a ShapeShifter theme by the name of Amora Pearl by well-known Mac OS X icon and desktop artist David Lanham. Now I couldn't track down the wallpaper, but the album art/iTunes controller in the bottom left is CoverSutra (which we've mentioned before), and the date/time display at bottom center is the work of Panic's excellent Stattoo. You have to view the larger version of brianpunx's desktop, however, to really take in the view and clever placement of icons in relation to the wallpaper.If you'd like to see your unique, functional or otherwise interesting desktop featured in our TUAW Desktops of the Week series, check out past featured desktops as well as the original post for the rules and to get an idea of what we're looking for. Then, upload your desktop screenshot to our TUAW Desktops Flickr group. We'll feature one or more desktops each weekend, giving credit to the desktop owner, wallpaper creator and any apps featured in the screenshot (if available). Keep those desktops rolling in!
CoverSutra - a customizable iTunes controller with style
These days, there is absolutely no shortage of apps that let you control iTunes in one way or another. You can use your PSP, tiny menubar controllers, countless iTunes widgets and now - CoverSutra. Featuring a stylish bezel with loads of control feedback and album art display, CoverSutra aims to give you complete control over iTunes without invading your space. It can even work with the Apple Remote, offering visual feedback without the need to enter something like Front Row. A 10-day demo of CoverSutra is available, and it sells for just under $13 USD (€9.95). While CoverSutra is a brand new 1.0 app, the developer is promising "plenty of new things in [the works] for you," and upgrades are free until version 2.0. If other controllers such as the über-everything Quicksilver don't quite float yer boat, CoverSutra looks like a great solution for controlling iTunes without interrupting your flow.
