With it being my most used app, I’ve taken quite a bit of time trying out different add-ons to make the most of iTunes. Below is a listing of 10 apps that I’ve used and feel comfortable saying they’re worth the price you pay for them.

CoverSutra

CoverSutra (previous coverage) is one of my favorite add-ons. It is packed with little features that aren’t immediately apparent when you first start using the app.

A few features include music search, a mini-player, Last.fm integration, keyboard shortcuts, and album cover display.

The $22 price tag seems a tad much, but I’d suggest giving the free trial a run and then deciding for yourself if you can live without it.

Moody

I tend to listen to music based heavily on my current mood, or the mood I’d like to be in. Moody (previous coverage) makes that a piece of cake.

Moody lets you tag your music based on color. The app has a spectrum of 16 different colors to classify your moods. From there, you can pick a combination of colors to create a dynamic playlist based on your mood.

What is even better about this is the fact that it is completely free.

Tangerine

In the same vein as Moody, Tangerine (previous coverage) creates playlists based on the BPM of your songs. So say you wanted to create a playlist for a workout (something more intense with a higher BPM), Tangerine can whip up a playlist for you right on the spot.

Tangerine will set you back $24.95 after the 15-day free trial.

Awaken

I find the sound of a regular alarm clock to be one of the most abrasive and painfully horrible ways to start my day. Awaken helps change that by turning your mac in to an alarm clock.

By tying in to your iTunes library, you can now wake up to something soothing like Sunrise instead of that horrendous, ear-piercing buzzer.

Awaken is well worth the $12.95 (with free updates for life). Give the 14 day free trail a run for the next few mornings and see how you like the change.

Simplify Media

One of the really nice things about living in the dorm rooms back in college was that I had access to the iTunes libraries of hundreds of other iTunes users…effectively expanding my listening options exponentially.

Now that I live in suburbia with no one else on my network except for my wife, I’ve lost that easy access to other music.

Fortunately, Simplify Media (previous coverage) has created a really cool add-on that basically gives you that access back.

All you do is add the username of other Simplify users (who have approved your adding them), and you’ll then be given access to stream their iTunes library just as if it was on your own local network.

Simplify Media is free in every way possible.

Synergy

Synergy is a “classic” iTunes add-on. It has been around for over 5 years and is probably one of the most widely used apps for iTunes.

The latest major release (3.5) was a complete rewrite for Leopard.

Synergy basically adds 3 small buttons to your menubar to give you immediate access to controlling iTunes. It is an affordable $8 and includes a free trial. Be sure to check out the tour.

The Filter

The Filter (previous coverage) is another playlist-creation add-on that almost seems magical.

Simply select a few songs that you are interested in, click on The Filter and an entire playlist is created with other songs you’d probably want to listen to at that point.

The Filter uses “advanced recommendation technology” to create these unique playlists by tying in to The Filter community of other users.

The Filter is free to download and use.

DiscoBrick

I don’t use the iTunes visualizer that much, but sometimes it’s just fun to check out what what your music visually creates.

DiscoBrick takes that one step further and creates some seriously amazing visual effects based on the beat of the music.

DiscoBrick is $10.95 for a single, personal license and up to $55 for a public-use license if you want to use DiscoBrick at parties or other events.

TuneBar

TuneBar picks up where Synergy leaves off. On the surface it’s just a simple iTunes controller. Past that…it’s still an iTunes controller. Ultimately TuneBar is more customizable than Synergy and lets your create your own themes by editing simple HTML.

Is it worth the $4 extra over Synergy? Maybe not. Just depends on how much you’d like to customize your player.

iWow

The iTunes equalizer is quite capable for the majority of iTunes users.

But if the sound controls are quite what you’re looking for, or if you’re looking to make those small headphone or desktop speakers sound better, I’d suggest you check out iWOW.

iWOW is an audio “enhancer”…which basically means it uses different settings and effects to make the audio larger, fuller, and more crisp than what iTunes can do.

iWOW is currently on sale for $19.99 here.

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I love iTunes (and my massive music library); if my MBP is open, there’s a 98% chance that it’s got music coming out. Using it all day long like this, I wanted some hot keys for it.

Man oh man, did I find some. After trying a host of options – including Quicksilver – a friend recommended CoverSutra, from Sophiestication. I was a little hesitant, mostly because I was looking for freeware. (What can I say, I’m a poor grad student.) They swore it was the best thing going, however, so I gave it a try.

By the end of the ten-day trial period, I was sold. Now, though, I have a problem again. There’s eight days left on the MacHeist bundle, and only four on the demo of the new CoverSutra 2. Since CoverSutra 2 isn’t available outside of the bundle until the offer ends, I’m going to need something to tide me over while I wait: and hence, a review.

CoverSutra – both 1 and 2 – revolves around a nice set of features, with the upgrade to 2 having a few changes. I’ll do my best to note which features differ between the two, but this is mostly a review of version 2. At the heart of things, it’s an iTunes controller, with a customizable set of hotkeys (+up, left, and right in my setup) and a menu-bar accessible preference editor. It’s the nice little tweaks, however, that got me so hooked.

For starters, you’ve got all that nice album art that iTunes so carefully gathered from the iTunes Music Store for you, right? But if you’re controlling iTunes from hotkeys, you probably never see it. If you want it to, CoverSutra puts a nice album cover on your desktop. In CS1, this was a black-spined CD case; CS2 adds the ability to choose between three provided ‘skins’ – the old one, a clear, round-edged jewel case, and a vinyl sleeve. To the right, you can see which one I chose. You can also choose to have it display the track name, artist, and album title underneath. If you don’t have album art, it will instead display a ‘handwritten’ cover.

You can also hide this if you don’t want to clutter your desktop, or substitute a floating window that shows most of the same options and information as iTunes’ mini player, with the addition of the album art and a more attractive interface.

Head on up to the menubar and there’s some more goodies. The menubar icon got a redesign in CS2 from the old frisbee-like image to that heart; clicking on it now pulls up a Spotlight-like search box. This in turn has a clean HUD-type interface that lets you select not just the album but also the song to play.

CoverSutra can also handle your Last.fm submissions, if you use that website. While I had some problems with this in CS1 – and by ‘some problems’ I mean ‘it never worked at all’ – CS2 actually does this. (And I’d rather it did – while I like iScrobbler, one less thing running in my crowded menubar is always a bonus. Remember that screenshot of my Desktop Manager pager? All those boxes?)

In other nice features, it talks to Growl – you can have a popup notification each time the track changes – and works with the Apple remote. The memory footprint is tiny, even with the album art on the desktop option on.

All in all, this is an excellent little piece of shareware, well worth the $22USD price tag. CoverSutra 2 is Leopard-only, although CoverSutra 1 is still available for Tiger users.

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