Add additional features to iTunes with this customizable companion.
M-Beat is flexibility for iTunes. You're in the driver's seat with the ultimate iTunes Companion Application, featuring one-click menu items, hot keys and floating windows. Best of all, it's completely customizable.
Adds a tiny dropdown icon and controller to the menubar at the top of OS X's screen that lets you: pause and play iTunes, skip back or forward, change volume level, access playlists from the dropdown, apply star-ratings, and buy the album from Amazon.com.
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<p>You can do even more if you open the Preferences pane and poke around, like one-click access to album artwork from Amazon.com which you can then apply to your iTunes library (well, maybe it's two clicks).
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<p>Overall, a very cool little app, well designed and discreetly small and unobtrusive.
Cons
I like that themes are available, but I wish more than one theme came with the installer.
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<p>I also really like that it retrieves album artwork, but there needs to be an option in the Prefs panel to make it automatically apply the artwork to iTunes' library.
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<p>Another suggestion: The dropdown that shows the ratings doesn't actually show my current rating of the playing song. Just the ones that I can apply.
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<p>The Volume Mute option needs an un-mute option, otherwise I have to switch back to iTunes to do it; and the Volume Up and Down options are kinda worthless without a slider.
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<p>The Song Information option doesn't seem to do anything at all.