iTunes is probably one of the most used applications on my Mac, but the size of the player is sometimes a problem. Sometimes I end up having to have continuously switch spaces so I can get on iTunes and change a song which serves as a tedious task. Wouldn’t it be better to have a smaller player on the same space as Safari? Introducing Ecoute – my knight in shining armor – a standalone player that allows you to “browse your entire library. Play your Music, Podcasts, Movies or TV Shows without having to launch iTunes.” The best part is that it brings one of the most beautiful user interfaces that I have ever seen.
While using Ecoute, I have found that it works beautifully, smoothly, and overall… it Rocks. Puns aside, the UI is something worth bragging about. With its smooth lines, dark colors, and round edges there is nothing you can hate about this application. The preference popup is extremely simplistic having only 5 panes (that have options for the app) and an additional pane for your registration. In the preferences you can choose from: general, shortcuts, themes, remote, social, and registration.
The application is just fun to use, and it was made with performance in mind. The controls are always at you fingertips, and with a built in desktop player, it becomes 2 applications in one (iTunes and Bowtie).A cool feature Ecoute offers is the dock icon. You may be asking, “why, its just an icon?” The reason behind that statement is because the album image in the icon changes to the album artwork of the song you are listening to. Below are just a few features that Ecoute offers:
- Last.Fm, Twitter, and Facebook Integration
- View Lyrics in App
- menu bar, dock, and desktop player controlling
- shuffle
- all organizational features that are in iTunes
- search
- themes
- Plays videos
- customizable shortcuts
Ecoute is a program that does not allow you to import music nor does it allow for playlist creation because it is simply an iTunes player. To import music and create playlists, you must go into iTunes, but to us that would be expected. This is a music player not a music manager.
Overall, Ecoute is amazing for playing your iTunes library within a slim and simple application. The price of a license is $10 and we feel that that is an amazing price for such a versatile stand alone player. TheMacFeed fully recommends Ecoute, and feels that is it s a great way to save screen space and still control your media.
(Demo Available)Purchase from PixiApps here. Ecoute
Update: Causes iTunes to crash when using both (for us it does).
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