We know that most smartphone apps released these days are supported on multiple platforms. If you’re an Android user, there’s the Android Market or alternatives such as GetJar and AppBrain to browse for apps, but what if you, for some reason, wanted to find out whether your favorite Android apps also exist on the iTunes App Store without having to use your desktop computer’s browser? Enter iTunes App Store Explorer – a free and simple to use Android app that lets you explore Apple’s app repository for iOS-powered devices from your Android device. Apart from searching the iTunes App Store for required apps, you can also explore it by various categories including price, country, language, ranking and genre. The app is particularly handy for developers, beta testers and app reviewers who do not own an iDevice, but regularly find the need to have information pertaining to certain iOS apps on hand.

The app not only lets you browse apps through the aforementioned filters, but also displays comprehensive information for each, including app description, detailed app info (size, version, rating), price, developer website, screenshots and user reviews.

When launched, the app opens to a screen displaying all the latest paid apps on the store sorted by price. Tapping the search bar at the top-right lets you manually search for required apps, whereas using the two buttons at the top let you filter apps by availability or genre. Once you’ve selected the required filter, make sure to hit the refresh icon alongside the genre button to update the apps list accordingly.

From within Menu > Settings, you can change Country, Language, default ranking Type and specify a preferred Genre.

iTunes App Store Explorer is available for free in the Android Market, and can be downloaded from the link or QR code provided below.

Download iTunes App Store Explorer

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iTunes is a powerful media player, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital media files on a computer. It is also used for complete management and related operations for iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. iTunes can also connect to the iTunes Store, which allows users to purchase and download music, music videos, TV Shows, audio books, games, ringtones and more. Since it’s inception in 2001, it has become one of the most popular media apps for Mac, Windows and smartphone users. iTunesKeys is a system-tray utility, which lets you control iTunes with global hotkeys or via the tray icon menu, which runs in the background. You can control your playback actions, such as play, previous track, play, pause, stop, next, rewind and fast forward, adjust volume and rate items. You can even create a customized rating system for your tracks. iTunesKeys provides display track info on song change, including artwork, launches iTunes automatically and closes it at exit.

During installation, iTunesKeys provides you with the option to install the restore tray icon for the application. This option is disabled by default, if you would like to use this feature, then make sure that you check this option during the installation process. Once done, simply launch iTunesKeys and it will open both the system tray menu, as well as iTunes. You can view iTunes or track info, hide the tray icon, move to previous/next track, play, pause, stop tracks, increase, reduce volume, toggle shuffle, rate items, create custom rating system, and exit (iTunes and/or iTunesKeys) from the system tray menu. To configure Global hotkeys, go to Options.

From here, you can edit the attributes of the Global hotkeys, so that you can quickly mange your iTunes tracks. For example, you can select the display time for tracks, select a display position, enable/disable system tray icon for a specific key, etc.

The developer has mentioned that many users have complained that iTunesKeys is crashing for them. For this reason, he has provided instructions for running it with the /regserver option, which seems to fix this problem. For example, if iTunes is installed in “C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunes.exe”, head over to Start –> Run and enter the following:

C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunes.exe /regserver

Hit OK, and things should be working. During testing, we did not experience any crashes by running iTunesKeys from a desktop shortcut and other conventional methods. iTuneskeys works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. It requires .NET Framework 2.0 or higher, which is automatically installed for Windows XP users.

Download iTunesKeys

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The blogosphere is abuzz with iBooks 2, after Apple announced the exciting new platform yesterday at their education event in New York. What many people have been asking around so far, is how to get the new iBooks 2 app. Hence, I aim to clear up a few confusions with respect to iBooks 2 in this post, and help you better understand what iBooks 2 offers in terms of improvements and new features.

In its essence, iBooks 2 is not a new app, or platform, for that matter. It comes as an upgrade to the original iBooks app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, bringing text books and other study material to students. iBooks 2 makes the iBooks app integrate well with iTunes U section, and brings textbooks etc to the iBookstore. A lot of genres are supported, including, but not limited to, Algebra, Chemistry, Biology, and Physics. Currently, offerings are extended to customers of the US iTunes Store only, and provides publications of McGraw-Hill and Pearson, with material from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt joining the club pretty soon.

The new iBooks 2 not only brings the iTunes U integration, but also a host of other, slick features, including multi-touch textbooks for iPad, interactive image captions, rotatable 3D objects for textbooks, swipe-through image galleries, text highlighting using your finger, and much more. A detailed account of new features can be found at the official iTunes link for iBooks.

This begets the final question, of how to get the iBooks 2 app. If you’ve already got iBooks installed on your iDevice, an update should be available in the App Store. Else, head over to the download link below, and install iBooks for the amazing new experience. As with original iBooks app, iBooks 2 also comes free.

Apple has also released a couple of companion apps for iBooks 2, including the iBooks Author app for Mac, available for free on the Mac App Store, and the iTunes U app for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, also available for free.

Download iBooks 2

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A large contingent of iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users consists of school and college students. An iPad can really be useful in a classroom, with the amount of educational apps and other supporting matter available in the iTunes App Store. Apple has now taken another step in the right direction to help students, by releasing the new iOS app, iTunes U. Most course books and other relevant study matter, specially for college students, doesn’t come cheap, so this app is the perfect place to find free content related to just about any course.

The interface of this iOS 5 app is pretty similar to Newsstand, and the method of adding books and subscriptions is the same as well. You just have to tap the Catalog button, and you will be taken to the iTunes U section of the iTunes App Store. The material listed in there is mostly free, and you can subscribe to or download anything with a single touch. The range of content comprises of books, audio lectures and videos related to the chosen subject. For each downloaded article, you get the option to add notes to it, and you can also post an addition of your own to any of the stuff in the form of comments.

The iTunes U library listing all the related material is neatly categorized to help students find exactly what they are looking for. If you go to Categories, books are listed based on the field of education they belong to. If you want to look for the helping material related to a particular course from any class in a university, iTunes U library also lists colleges and universities, and under each entry, all courses offered there are listed.

iTunes U is a free app, and you can download it by going to the link below.

Download iTunes U

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iTunes is a media manager for iDevices, and thus allows syncing Library items with only iPod, iPhone, and iPad. If you own a non-iPod portable audio player, and want to synchronize it with iTunes Music Library, have a look at Notpod. It’s a miniscule application that lets you synchronize any type of portable audio player with iTunes library without having to tweak the basic structure of iTunes Music Library.xml file. The application disguises your non-iPod music player as iTunes compatible device, and then adds it to iTunes Devices section, letting you synchronize Music Library with specified folder of your portable audio player.

After installation, it parks itself in system tray, from where you can bring up the configuration console to add the portable media player you want to sync with iTunes. First off, right-click its system tray icon and select Preferences. Now, plug-in your portable audio player, click New device, enter its name, and choose the synchronization pattern followed by target folder on your audio player’s storage. Now, it requires you to specify a unique folder or file to identify the device. Alternatively, you can click Create to a create a .notpod file for device identification purpose. Once settings are in place, choose the playlist which is to be synced with specified folder, and hit Save device. It will add your device in the list. Similarly, you can add more devices to Devices list.

Now launch iTunes to view the newly created device in Devices section. If it fails to add your portable media player, close both iTunes and Notpod, and launch them again. To start the synchronization process, right-click system tray and click Synchronize devices.

A notification balloon will pop-up once the synchronization process finishes.

The first synchronization job might take a while to copy the specified playlist items to your portable music player. The time it takes to synchronize the playlist depends upon the total number of items present in specified playlist. The application works without any issues whatsoever, but it would’ve been better, if it allowed syncing multiple playlists in one go. Notpod works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download Notpod

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If you habitually listen to music both at work or when you’re home, then you would be familiar with the constant irritation of having to stop the music or taking your headphones off when someone comes to talk to you. While taking your headphones off is by far the easiest solution there is, if you have loud music blaring out, it is likely you still wont be able to have a proper conversation. Your only option in this case is to pause/stop the music. While taking your headphones off or pausing music is probably the default reaction of most people when they are suddenly engaged in conversation when listening to music, an alternative reaction can be to unplug your headphones, provided you have SmartStop installed. This Mac app is simple and exists only to mimic the iPod’s behavior when headphones are unplugged from it, i.e., it stops the playback. Replug your headset, and the music will resume where it was left off.

The app isn’t full of any extensive functions, and merely adds a small icon to the system menu bar. You can enable the app to start up at system login, to automatically stop playing music when headphones are unplugged, and to resume playback when they are replugged.

The app icon changes to reflect headphone connectivity. When the connectors are joined, the app detects that headphones are plugged in, and will play music in iTunes like normal.

When only a single connector is visible, the app detects that headphones are unplugged and stops playing music in iTunes.

This app is equally useful if you are prone to unplugging your headphones and forgetting to stop your music before that. Imagine you were listening to disturbingly loud Goth metal, and unplugged your headphones for any reason without stopping the music. The loudness alone might cause a casualty, and since the app is light, having it around can’t hurt. For an alternative, Breakaway was a more feature rich app that was covered earlier last year that supported this same functionality, in addition to many others.

Get SmartStop From Mac App Store

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One of the biggest issues that iPhone and iPod Touch users have had with these otherwise-marvelous devices, has been their deep integration and dependency with iTunes, Apple’s music management software. Although iOS 5 loosened the shackles to some extent, you still cannot manage music on your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad without using iTunes. CopyTrans Manager is a full-featured iTunes replacement for music management on iDevices, allowing you to add tracks, organize and manage playlists, delete tracks right from the device without taking them off your iTunes library, and play the music stored in iPod or iPhone directly on any PC. CopyTrans Manager is lightweight, installation-free, and best of all, doesn’t cost a dime. Details past the break.

The file downloaded from the CopyTrans homepage will install the CopyTrans Control Center on your system. Note that only CopyTrans Manager is free, and all others are shareware. When you click on CopyTrans Manager for the first time, it will seem a little slow, because the Control Center will download the application before running it.

Any device connected to the system will be automatically detected by CopyTrans Manager, and it will be populated by the media available in the device. The interface consists of Categories, Genres, Artists and Albums panes at the top, Playlists pane is available at the left side, while the song list appears in the middle. Media can be added to the iDevice by simply dropping it over the main interface of CopyTrans Manager.

Right-clicking any song allows you to access options such as Play, Add to player, Edit (Metadata), Change Artwork, Delete from iPod, etc.

The application also supports multiple connected devices at a time. From the drop down menu available at the top-left corner, just select the required device to modify its media.

The Settings tab at the top allows you to configure application settings such as Language, Error Sending options, etc.

The application also sports a built-in audio player that lets you listen to songs before editing or deleting them from your device.

Note that you need to have the iOS drivers already installed on your system before you can use CopyTrans Manager. If iTunes is already installed, the drivers will be already present; otherwise you can download and install the Apple drivers from Apple’s website. Also, iTunes must not be running on your system in order to use CopyTrans Manager.

Here is the complete list of supported devices:

iPhone, 3G, 3GS, 4 and 4S up to iOS 5
iPod Touch, 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G up to iOS 5
iPad 1 and 2 up to iOS 5
iPod Nano up to iPod Nano 5G
iPod Classic, iPod Video and iPod Photo
iPod Shuffle up to iPod Shuffle 4G
iPod Mini
Mac formatted iPods (HFS+)
Palm Pre

CopyTrans Manager works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download CopyTrans

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The best things in life, and more importantly, the best apps for your Mac, are the simple ones without extra features that you’ll probably never use, complemented by a clean interface that even a child could figure out. Music Converter, as the name obviously suggests, is a Mac app for converting audio and video files to different formats. More specifically, it converts files to and from MP3, FLAC, WAV, WMA, M4A, AIFF and FLV formats. Besides being a simple format converter, the app lets you edit track data in the simplest way possible, view track info, and play audio from media files. When converting files for iTunes, the app automatically imports the converted files into iTunes.

Once installed, drag & drop a file for conversion. The app does not support batch file conversion.

A play button appears next to the song name, clicking which will start the playback. All information displayed for the track is directly editable. Double click the song, artist or album name, and an editable text box will appear.

Once you’ve edited the song information, select a conversion format from one of five buttons arranged below the song panel. The buttons allows you to convert to iTunes format, MP3, ACC, M4R, or pick another format from the cog wheel button;s dropdown menu. Click Convert to start the conversion process. If you picked the iTunes format, the app will add the file to your iTunes library.

To view additional information, like bitrate, file size, duration etc, click the info button to the right of the buttons panel, and track information will be shown in a new window.

Music Converter isn’t a complex, feature-rich app for mixing or downloading music, nor does it help you organize your music library. It is simply meant to help you convert music files, so that they can be played easily across any and all devices you own.

Get Music Converter For Mac

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Microsoft and Apple are, quite literally, two worlds apart, as are their respective mobile devices, but should necessity ever call on you to get them together in one room (i.e., on one system), it is more than likely that several Steve Jobs & Bill Gates memes will cross your mind. If you’re a Mac user, and need to connect a Windows Phone 7 to your system to be ale to browse and sync files with it, you’ll find Windows Phone 7 Connector very useful. This Mac app, while invoking memories of the All Things Digital conference held in 2007, allows you to browse your Windows Phone 7 on a Mac, sync files to your system, and copy or delete them from your phone. The app supports two way sync, so you can sync your music, podcasts, images and other files from iTunes to your phone, and vice versa. You must have iPhoto installed on your Mac for syncing to work perfectly.

Launch the app and connect your phone, and the device will be automatically detected. The app displays available free space, and also tells you how memory usage is currently distributed between your files. Click Sync to read files from your phone.

You can selectively sync files from your Mac to your phone, and also view files on your phone. Before you sync, click Device Options once your phone has been detected, and select how you want the app to sync your phone each time it is connected. If you want to import photos and videos from the device, select the Import photos and videos from my device to my Mac option. You can also backup and restore files saved on your phone under  Device Update options. Click Create backup to initiate the backup procedure. Your phone will restart during the process.

To sync files from your Mac to the phone, select them from the expandable list to the left. All files in your phone will be listed using Browse Device. Select a file and click Preview to view it, and you may select multiple files and click Import Selected Items to copy them to your system.

To sync media files from iTunes to your Windows Phone 7 device, select Music from the left panel and select what you want to sync from iTunes. Follow suit for everything else you want to sync from your Mac to your phone.

The app is a simple way for you to quickly connect a Windows Phone to your Mac and browse files on it, and is an even more convenient way of syncing iTunes.

Get Windows Phone 7 Connector For Mac

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A while back, we brought to you a roundup of 12 lesser known iOS 5 features, highlighting some niceties in Apple’s latest iteration of the operating system that were either not well-advertised, or skipped the users’ notice due to being well hidden within the system. Turns out, the era of hidden features continues, with the latest addition being the possibility of having an Android-like autocorrect bar over the keyboard. Unlike most hidden features, turning on the autocorrect bar is not a simple matter of navigating the Settings app to hit a toggle switch; it requires careful modification of the keyboard Plist file and a little courage to get the trick done. To top it all off, it works on non-jailbroken devices as well! So, if you’re a fan of Android’s way of suggesting alternate words, or would just like to enable the feature because you can do so (like we did), get your tweaking hats on and hit the jump to find out how.

Before we begin, a little word of caution. Proceeding with this method will not harm your device – we tested it ourselves – but do so at your own peril anyway. AddictiveTips cannot be held liable for any undesirable results.

To begin with, you will need iTunes installed on your computer, and your iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad capable of syncing and backing up with it.

The first tool you’ll need is iBackupBot (download here – Windows & Mac). This is the software that we’ll use to manipulate the keyboard.plist file later on. Install it, and then back up your iDevice with iTunes so that iBackupBot will have a recent backup to read from.

Next, fire up iBackupBot and it will list all your available backups in the left pane. Select the most recent one, and in the right pane, locate Library/Preferences/com.apple.keyboard.plist.

Double-click the file to load it for editing. Please note that if your version of iBackupBot is unregistered, a prompt will pop up, asking you to enter the registration code. Simply hit Cancel to proceed. In the plist editor, enter the following string:

<key>KeyboardAutocorrectionLists</key><string>YES</string>

Save the modified plist file, and restore the backup from within iBackupBot software. Make sure that you perform the restore within iBackupBot and not through iTunes, as that would defeat the modification. When the restore completes, your iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad will reboot, and that’s it. Next time you access the keyboard, the autocorrect bar will be there!

There is one catch, however (yes, there always is a catch); the autocorrect bar is not as convenient as it is on Android. When you type a word and suggestions start pulling up, hitting the space bar will begin cycling through the suggested words instead of accepting your input. In my personal experience, this alone hampered the typing experience enough for me to opt out of using the said hidden feature. Nevertheless, that’s my personal opinion, so instead of taking my word for it, try it out and let us know through your comments how it went for you.

[via AppAdvice]

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RedSn0w seems to be on a roll here, where the latest iOS 5.0.1 has been jailbroken in no time with the latest 0.9.9b7 version. iOS 5.0.1 is said to contain fixes, and especially addresses the messed up battery life on the iPhone 4, which some users have been complaining about. While iOS 5.0.1 is available for the developers only, once the update is made public, there’s a very good chance that the same version of RedSn0w could be used to jailbreak that as well. For now, however, if you have the 5.0.1 update installed on your device (not for iPhone 4S and iPad 2), RedSn0w 0.9.9b7 will help you jailbreak your device in no time. Please do note the jailbreak is still tethered, and there is no untethered solution in place right now. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of ‘Tethered’ and ‘Untethered’ jailbreak, see our guide on what is tethered and untethered iPhone jailbreak.

If you have jailbroken your device on iOS 5 earlier, jailbreaking iOS 5.0.1 would be no different. If not, we’ll tell you exactly what you need to to, step by step.

Disclaimer: Please follow this guide at your own risk. AddictiveTips will not be liable if your device gets damaged or bricked during the process.

Requirements:

• RedSn0w 0.9.9b7 for Windows | Mac.
• iTunes 10.5 installed.
• iOS 5 IPSW file.

Instructions:

1. To begin, make sure you have iTunes installed and the iOS 5 firmware file on you computer.
2. Launch RedSn0w, hit the Extras tab and click Select IPSW to choose the iOS 5 firmware. (No, not iOS 5.0.1.)
3. Once done, go back and hit the Jailbreak button.
4. There on wards, simply follow the onscreen instructions and you will have your device jailbroken in no time.
5. Once your device boots up, you may see Cydia installed but it may not run. To rectify this, plug in the USB cable and power off the device.
6. Launch RedSn0w and hit Extras. (Make sure that iOS 5 was selected in Select IPSW.)
7. Select Just Boot and follow the on screen instructions. Cydia will be up and running this time around.

You should also see our guide on a Semi-tether jailbreak tweak from Cydia.

[via iDownloadBlog]

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If you’ve been trying to restore your iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad to the just released iOS 5 public release via iTunes, there’s a very good chance that you may end up encountering an infamous Error 3200 much to your regret. Apparently the cause of this is the constant bombardment of incoming requests on the Apple servers causing half of the requests to restore, totally fail. Apparently there is no certain fix for this, and even Saurik – the developer of Cydia – and a few more people on twitter have confirmed this to be an issue.

According to people, since this is a server related issue, the only way to go get through is to keep pushing it. You can either restart and try to restore again, or you can keep hitting the restore button every time the error prompts. We also ran into the same trouble with our iPhone 4, but after almost 5 adamant clicks of the restore button, we managed to get through and restored it to iOS 5.

If continuously restoring is not working for you, seems like, unchecking the Sync Music option before attempting the restore seems to fix the problem for some. If any of these methods helped you out or if you’re sill stuck on that frustrating error, do let us know.

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iTunes 10.5 final build has been released by Apple. After countless beta’s being released for the developer community to support the iOS 5, the build is now live on Apple’s site and comes just a day before the company plans to release their iOS 5 to the public. Since the iOS 5 brings about some serious changes and new features, for anyone who plans on moving on to the iOS 5 on their supported devices, the latest version of iTunes is a must if you want everything to go smoothly.

The build is available for both, Mac and Windows platforms. The new iTunes 10.5 will add support for the following features as per Apple’s saying:

• iTunes in the Cloud. iTunes will now keep track of all your purchases and download them to all your iOS 5 devices anywhere and anytime.
• Download previous purchases (as long as they are available on the iTunes Store) at no additional cost.
• Wireless Sync for your devices with iTunes over the same Wi-Fi.
• iTunes match and much more.

While the idea is to get the whole iCloud and iTunes match working flawlessly, Apple has been known more for their superb products rather than their web based services. These services do offer much and we wait to see how ell they pan out and actually how well these fair with the users.

Grab a copy as soon as you can prior to the iOS 5 launch since the Apple server will be flooded when that happens. To download the iTunes 10.5 build, head over to the official Apple website. Or if you already have an older version of iTunes installed, you can simply launch the Apple Software Update application on your PC or Mac and find the update to 10.5 waiting for you.

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After months of waiting and speculation on when owners of Apple’s iPad will get to see an official Facebook app on their tablet, the day has finally come. The Facebook app has finally hit the iPad and it sure does look awesome to the extent that you might believe it was worth the wait. The best part it is, that the app was also updated for the iPhone & iPod Touch which seems to be exactly the same as the one that hit the iPad. With a slight interface overhaul, we show you what has changed.

The app’s interface has been redesigned keeping the large screen area of the iPad in mind, so now you have a Menu that slides in from the left of the screen to allow you to easily navigate through the different pages and options. Facebook has done away with the older main page which listed various buttons related to your profile. Now, you have a clean, sleek menu. The same interface goes on to the iPhone and iPod Touch devices as well.

You now get to surf through high resolution photos courtesy of the bigger screen on the iPad, while simple drop down menus add to the convenience without having you jump from page to page. Also the Search function seems to have gotten more easier and snappier.

The app increasingly seems like it’s desktop counterpart or the mobile Facebook, but whatever it resembles, the app has managed to impress us. You can download or update your existing Facebook app from here via iTunes, or you can simply update it via the App Store from your iDevice.

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Chapter and Verse is a Windows application for creating chapter based audiobooks for iTunes and QuickTime Player. You can join multiple files for creating a chapterized audio books and convert them to iTunes compatible AAC format. These chapterized audio books can then be played using iTunes or QuickTime Player. You can also copy them to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod using iTunes. The application saves the audio book projects in its proprietary CVP format.

Creating a chapterized audiobook can be useful to assemble personal multimedia archives with a customized collection of audio tracks. Such collections can comprise of not just songs but also audio tutorials, help guides and the like. To begin, click Add to insert files to create your audio book. The supported formats are MP4 (MP4a and MP4), MP3, WAV and WMA.

If the added files are not in AAC format, you will be asked to convert them. Click Yes Convert to begin the conversion process.

Once files are added, you can add chapters, set chapter numbers, add chapter intervals, use a PNG or JPG image as the chapter’s art image, and change chapter positions. Once you have compiled the audiobook, click Build Audiobook to save the file in MP4b format. You can also save the audiobook project for editing it later on from File –> Save Project. All saved projects are saved in the applications native CVP format. You can import a project for adding or removing audio files, editing metadata and inserting album art.

The album art and metadata can be imported/exported from Metadata drop down menu, you can export metadata to XML format and import it from XML or Media File, clear all meta data, and export and remove album art.

Similarly, saved projects can be imported from File drop down menu. Once a project is imported, you can edit chapters, add metadata and set artwork for your audio book.

It must be noted that Chapter and Verse has been designed for QuickTime Player and iTunes. It works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download Chapter and Verse

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You may know that iTunes includes Smart Playlists, such as, My Top Rated, Recently Added, Recently Played, etc., to help quickly view filtered songs from iTunes Music Library. iTunes allows tweaking with existing filter criteria of Smart Playlists via native Playlist Editor but many users find it quite hard to define a new criteria for their smart playlists. For example, if you want to create a playlist to include only long tracks having 10 minutes or more playback time or view all tracks with high bitrate, you have to manually search the specific filter fields in Playlist Editor to create a new smart playlist. Smarts saves you the extra effort involved in creating new Smart Playlists and defining custom filter criteria.

Smarts is a small Smart Playlist editor and loader which works in complete isolation. You don’t need to launch iTunes or associate it with iTunes playlist editor. It can edit the default Smart Playlists and load new ones into iTunes without disturbing existing playlist items. The application includes some Smart Playlists templates to help you quickly create a custom filters and load them into iTunes.

The sample templates include, Four stars or better (songs with four star rating or better), Long Songs (tracks with 10 minutes or more playback time), No Artwork (tracks without embedded album art), No Holiday Genres (to filter out Holiday and Christmas genres from the Music Library), and Not Played in 6 months. Each template is highly configurable. Smarts lets you open iTunes native Smart Playlist editor to change the filters and tweak with existing ones prior to loading the template to iTunes.

Clicking Load from Saved Smart Templates asks you to edit the filter criteria of selected template. If you keep Edit Smart Playlist after loading option unchecked, it will load the template into iTunes.

When template is loaded, it will launch iTunes with selected template loaded. You can check the number of items that were filtered through the newly added template. As you can see in screenshot below, it loads only those tracks which have 4+ Star rating.

If you enable Edit Smart Playlist after loading option, it will open iTunes Smart Playlist editor to change the filter criteria of selected smart playlist.

Smarts is a great, little extension for adding new smart playlists and changing their filters according to the requirements. It works on Mac 10.6 and higher.

Gets Smarts from Mac App Store

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If you find it a bit tedious to search the lyrics of songs that you play in iTunes, LyricsSeeker is the application you need. Supporting Growl notification, LyricsSeeker is a Mac app that automatically displays the lyrics of the song as soon as you play it in iTunes. Like other lyrics apps, it reads meta tag information of the song to fetch lyrics of from online sources. You can adjust the Growl notification settings, toggle it on/off and change the lyrics display time duration. LyricsSeeker automatically saves history of lyrics of one playback session, so you can quickly access recently fetched lyrics.

LyricsSeeker works from menu bar. After launching the application, play the track you want to fetch lyrics for. It starts finding the lyrics of the song and displays it underneath the system notification area. You can access Settings to extend Growl notification delay, enable options to open lyrics in background and show lyrics in notifications from the menu bar. By default, it maintains history of 18 lyrics items, however, you can save up to 30 lyrics items in one session.

LyricsSeeker fetches lyrics of the song from metrolyrics.com. When you click the Growl notification box, it opens metrolyrics.com source page in your default browser.

If you want to read lyrics from metrolyrics.com page, disable Growl Notifications from Settings prior to enabling Open lyrics in background option. It will directly open the lyrics source page in your browser without showing the notification. LyricsSeeker works on Mac 10.6 and higher.

Get LyricsSeeker from Mac App Store

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Are you looking for a way to find movies, books, and apps from iTunes and Mac App Store without having to open online stores from respective applications? Although both iTunes and Mac App Store (available for Mac 10.6.6 and higher) provide convenient interface to initiate application search, users have to launch them separately to find and download apps for iOS devices and Mac OS X. Tunesque is small app for Mac which brings the convenience of finding applications, music, movies, and books available on iTunes and Mac App Store from system menu bar.

With Tunesque installed, you wont need to bring up Mac App Store and iTunes to search apps for respective platforms, just input the name in Tunesque search bar to view available items on both iTunes and Mac App Store.

Tunesque adds Mac Spotlight style search in menu bar with options to filter search by different categories, including, TV Shows, Mac Apps, eBooks, Audiobooks, Podcasts, iOS Apps, etc. From right-click context menu, you can bring up Preferences window to set search filters and choose search bar color scheme.

Tunesque shows search results in real time, i.e it starts finding items from specified categories as you type. If multiple categories are selected, it will show all keyword related items in their respective groups, making it easier to find items from both iTunes and Mac app store. When you click the required app from the list, it will open the source link of the item in your default browser.

In short, Tunesque makes it easy to find apps from Mac App Store and iTunes Store. It works on Mac 10.6.6 or higher.

Download Tunesque

[via Lifehacker]

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Looking for way to add lyrics to iTunes Music Library but don’t want the fuss of having to manually add them from Get Info –> Lyrics tab? iOS devices, including iPod, iPhone, iPad can automatically detect lyrics added from iTunes Lyrics tab present in Get Info window which is accessible via right-click context menu, but adding lyrics this way is surely a tiresome process as it requires you to first find lyrics from online lyrics repositories and then add them manually to each track in your playlist. iTunes Lyrics Adder is a miniscule yet powerful application that automates the process of adding lyrics to songs listed in iTunes Music library.

Before you launch the iTunes Lyrics Adder, it’s recommended to verify your tag information of your songs present in iTunes library. Since iTunes Lyrics Adder reads tags to fetch lyrics from online sources – azlyrics.com and mp3lyrics.org, make sure that all songs contain correct meta tag information. You can add and edit tag information from Info tab present in iTunes Get Info window or use previously covered MusicBrainz Picard Tagger to automatically add/fix music tags.

Launch iTunes Lyrics Adder after launching iTunes, select a source, and click Search and Add Lyrics. The application will find all songs that lacks lyrics and add one from the online database (of the source you have selected).

Once the process is finished, a log file will show songs for which it couldn’t find lyrics.

Before you start sync process with your iOS device, open Lyrics tab to check whether lyrics have been added to tracks or not.

iTunes Lyrics Adder certainly provides one of the easiest solution for adding lyrics to iTunes Music library. It is an open source application that works on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.

Download iTunes Lyrics Adder

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Ever wanted to control iTunes or Spotify desktop player without having to open their main windows? In the past, we have featured iTunes menu bar controllers which allow playing and skipping through tracks from their menulets, such as, myTunesControl, MyTunesController, Bowtie, and Musica. Just like for iTunes, there are many tools available for Spotify too, such as, SpotiMy, Spotify Menubar, etc., which sits in menu bar letting users control Spotify streaming and track navigation. If you don’t want to clutter up your system menu bar with iTunes and Spotify menu bar controllers, you may want to have a look at DockPlay iTunes and DockPlay Spotify.

These tools are developed to control their respective applications from dock bar. For instance, if you want to control iTunes playback and navigate through current playlist tracks, put DockPlay iTunes control buttons in system dock to play tracks and skip through playlist items. Similarly, you can dock DockPlay Spotify buttons to control and navigate through lined-up streams.

Once buttons have added to dock, you can play track in the playlists of respective application and move through playlist items using playlist navigation buttons.

Don’t forget to enable option to keep DockPlay iTunes and DockPlay Spotify buttons in dock from Options menu to use them whenever you want to play iTunes and Spotify playlists. It works on Mac 10.6 or higher.

Download DockPlay iTunes

Download DockPlay Spotify

[via How to Geek]

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Job-based synchronization and backup utilities are generally hard to configure as users often require setting up options to schedule sync/backup operations and one-way or two-way incremental and decremented modes before specifying source and target locations to run jobs. If you want to create and run sync jobs without having to configure such complex options, try out FlagSync.

FlagSync is an open source job-based sync and backup application for Windows which comes with minimal set of options to create backup jobs. It supports syncing files between local and network folders, USB flash drives, FTP servers, and other external storage mediums. What makes FlagSync unique is its ability to sync user-specified iTunes playlist tracks with any non-iPod portable audio player.

Additionally, it saves job files in plain XML files which includes sync job details like, mode, source and target folder, schedule, etc. This allows you to easily modify sync job configurations without having to load them in FlagSync console.

On main screen, you can quickly set up as many sync or backup jobs as you want. To create a new job, click New and select either, Local (to sync and backup local files), FTP (sync data between FTP and local location), or iTunes (sync iTunes library items with portable audio player).

In case you choose local, you will need to specify source and target locations and then either backup or sync mode. Before saving the job, give the job an appropriate name. FTP job, it will ask you to enter FTP host address, username and password and local directory from where data is to be backed up.

Just like other backup and sync tools, it allows you to preview all the files and folders which will be affected due to sync and backup jobs. Clicking Preview button after creating jobs will show all the files and folders which will be backed up.

iTunes job option only works if iTunes is installed on your system. After it detects the availability of playlists, it lets you access iTunes playlists from drop down menu and choose target location to perform backup or sync operations between the playlist’s source folder and defined user path.

It’s advisable to preview file backup and sync with iTunes job type to verify backup operation before actually performing it. Click Start to extract iTunes playlist track and sync/backup with portable audio player folder.

In all, FlagSync is an efficient application that makes it overly simple to create, manage and run multiple sync and backup jobs. It’s an open source application that works on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.

Download FlagSync

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iTunes conversion feature mostly needed to those who often import CD tracks to libraries. By default, iTunes converts CD tracks in CD equivalent quality but also lets you tweak with conversion options of iTunes native encoders to further enhance the quality of ripped CD tracks. There is apparently no direct and easy way to quickly convert tracks present in libraries and also to change the iTunes audio encoding format.  Quick Convert is AppleScript based applet for Mac which integrates into iTunes as a script to help users quickly convert selected or all tracks in playlist using iTunes supported encoders, including, AAC and AAC M4B, AIFF, Lossless, MP3 and WAV encoder and send them to defined playlist to keep the track listings organized.

Installing AppleScript applet into iTunes in easy. Before you start out, make sure that iTunes is not running in background. Now head over to <user>/Library/iTunes folder and create folder by name Script in iTunes folder. Once created, copy Quick Convert download package content to Scripts folder.

Now eject the disk image of Quick Convert and launch iTunes. You will see a small icon next to Windows menu on system menu bar. Clicking that icon will open Quick Convert conversion console.

Before you proceed with conversion process, select tracks which you want to convert and send to playlist, and then choose the encoder from Quick Convert applet. It provides option to delete original selected tracks after conversion to avoid duplicates. If you want to send tracks to playlist, enable Copy new tracks to playlist option, enter playlist name, and click OK to start the conversion process.

It is worth mentioning here that Quick Convert can’t set audio bitrate and sample rate. Therefore, you will need to manually set them from Preferences –> General –> Import Settings window. Quick Convert works on Mac OS X 10.6 and 10.7.

Download Quick Convert

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FindThatBand is yet another extension that will enhance the options in the right click context menu in Chrome. Similar to the FastTrack extension for Firefox in function, this extension offers more choice and customization. Once installed, you can select an artist name or song on any site and search for it on Grooveshark, iTunes, Pandora, YouTube and more. The extension was built not for finding songs but for information on artists or bands which is why the list of sites also includes Wikipedia.

Although the extension was built to search for information on bands, it can’t tell if what you’ve selected is a band or a song and will simply search whatever you’ve selected meaning you can search a song on YouTube directly from the right-click context menu. To remove a service from the context menu or to add one, click on the extension’s icon on the navigation bar.

Clicking the little green button next to a service name will remove it from the right-click menu’s options and click save. Clicking the music note + pencil button will allow you to add another service.

Install FindThatBand Extension For Chrome

[via Lifehacker]

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We previously covered three extensions that added useful options to the right-click context menu in Chrome, FastTrack is one for Firefox. While it isn’t for adding events to Google Calendar, searching for images or places on Google Maps, it adds options for the next best thing; searching for music. The extension lets you search any selected text on iTunes, Amazon, Discogs and Juno Download. The extension is by no means a method for downloading music, it exists to make it easier to search for a song or a movie’s sound track without having to type in the name yourself.

The extension also does not distinguish if what you’re searching for is a song, movie or what you had for dinner last night. Any text that you select and right-click on, will have the search options in the context menu. Select text, right-click it and click wherever you want to search for it. The extension does not let you customize which sites you can search on and has only four options i.e. iTunes, Amazon, Juno Download and Discogs.

Install FastTrack Extension For Firefox

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The anticipation for the latest version of iOS (iOS 5) is increasing, and Apple knows exactly how to add fuel to that fire. Over the weekend iOS 5’s fifth beta version was released for developer unlocked devices. The update comes with significant changes and bug fixes. Curious and want to try it out for yourself? You can perform an online wireless upgrade, or you can use iTunes 10 to get this latest beta up and running on your device. If you choose the latter method, here’s how this can be accomplished.

Disclaimer: Please follow this guide at your own risk. AddictiveTips will not be liable if your device gets damaged or bricked during the process.

The beta 5 is compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod Touch 3G, iPod Touch 4G, iPad and iPad 2.

So here are the requirements and instructions.

Requirements:

1. An iOS 5 compatible device (as listed above).
2. iTunes 10.5 (Beta 5). Go to this page and download the appropriate version for your computer’s OS.
3. The ipsw file of the update, which is available here.
4. And of course, a developer unlocked device.

Instructions:

1. Connect your device to the computer via USB cable.
2. Run the latest version of iTunes (as downloaded in step 2 of requirements).
3. Create a backup of your device using iTunes.
4. Now you have to perform a firmware restore on your device. This can be done by keeping the iTunes window active and then pressing:
   Shift + Restore (in iTunes) for Windows
   Alt + Restore for Mac
5. Point the file path to the file you downloaded in step 3 of requirements.

Wait for the procedure to complete all by itself, and once your device restarts, you’re good to go!

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Looking for an iTunes controller which, along with play/pause tracks from current Music library, allows you to search iTunes library and playlists items, find lyrics, set audio EQ, and rate tracks too? myTunesControl is a remote control for iTunes which works from system menu bar. As name hints, the application was developed to control some basic iTunes functions, such as play/pause tracks, control volume, etc. Apart from providing the track and playlist navigation controls, it also has a library and real-time search for playlist to easily navigate between playlists and play the required track. A small lyrics feature is also incorporated which automatically fetches lyrics of track being played in iTunes. Unlike many other iTunes on-screen controllers, it doesn’t require users to first launch the iTunes to play and search library items. Furthermore, if you have multiple iTunes libraries, with myTunesControl, you won’t have to change path in iTunes, simply open Preferences window and replace the default path with new one.

The main controls are lined up at the bottom of myTunesControl UI. The lyrics feature needs some time to fetch lyrics of current track from online sources. The EQ options lies next to lyrics which allows tweaking with iTunes audio equalizer.

The Search window can be brought up by clicking Music link present besides the album art. From underneath the search window, you can find playlist items, navigate through library, and items in current playlist.

Click wrench-imaged button on main screen to access Preferences window. Here, you can change the iTunes library path, record shortcuts, and view pre-set hotkey combinations from How to use –> Shortcuts section.

myTunesControl works on Mac 10.6.4 or later.

Download myTunesControl

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Adapter is a free media converter for Mac and Windows, supporting almost all the known image, audio, and video formats. While it offers a host of presets for different devices, including, Xbox, Apple, Sony, Microsoft Zune, Nintendo, Blackberry, Misc. Cell Phones, and supports many other DVD, Flash, Zen Vision W related formats, users who want to tweak with audio/video, bitrate, framerate, resolution, etc., can turn Advanced mode On.

Unlike other media converters, it allows iDevices owners to directly encode video and audio and transform image formats to iTunes, so they can easily sync them with their devices without having to manually move converted files to iTunes folder. A small file viewer is also integrated within the application to get a preview of video and images and also to crop the defined frame of the file. You also have 4 different image and video size cropping options, namely, pad, crop, stretch, and zoom to change the image/video size according to your display monitor dimensions.

With file drag & drop support, you can quickly list down the files which you wish to convert to different format. To get started, launch the application and you will see Video, Audio, and Image tabs. Navigate to required tab and drop the files. Now from Output Format, choose your device preset from the list and from Video Output Options, choose either custom directory or Direct to iTunes option to encode videos directly to iTunes. Now hit Start Conversion to begin the process.

The Mac version also contains a small Flash video downloader, which lets you grab the Flash content from webpages and download them in bulk.

If you want to preview video cropping options, click the small help button. It will show the way each option crops the video and image.

If you want to customize settings of existing preset or create a new one, click Advanced to change the output format, video and audio codec, bitrate, framerate, audio channels and so on.

Similarly, you can access advance options from Audio and Image tabs as well. From Image tab, you can convert image sets between widely used formats, including, JPG, PNG, TIFF, ICO, XBM, etc. The Advanced image pane refers to specifying timeline to convert and set custom or iPhone/iPod Touch compatible image size.

Adapter is suitable for daily media conversion needs. However, it doesn’t stand next to popular audio and video converters, such as, HandBrake, FormatFactory, and Oxelon. It must be noted that Adapter is in initial beta testing phase, therefore, our opinion may change after a more stable version is released. We did notice some issues while converting audio streams through its Mac version.

Download Adapter

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Are you running out of disk space due to a large iTunes music library and want to move music tracks to external drive to save some precious disk space? TuneSpan is an media manager for Mac which lets you move iTunes library items to external hard drives, USB drives, and network drives without disturbing the iTunes library list. All the items that you move to convenient locations will still be accessible from iTunes. It first moves (spans) the selected music collection to specified location and then update the source paths of moved tracks in iTunes playlists, so you can easily play them in iTunes and sync them with your iOS devices. TuneSpan was primarily designed to span your music tracks in iTunes library across different drives and network locations without removing them from iTunes library.

The application categorizes your iTunes library by default and customized playlists, artist, genre, and albums to let you easily search the tracks and playlists from your iTunes library. Before launching the application, make sure that iTunes is not running in background. On the main interface, you will see all the categories with smart column and smart rows lying underneath the category panes.

All that is required is to select the playlist which you want to span to different location. To specify the source span location, drag the folder (in USB hard drive, network location, etc) from Finder over bottom-left corner. Once path is defined, drag the playlist item(s) over Drag Media Here to Select for Spanning pane followed by click on Span button to start the spanning process. It’s highly advisable to unplug any connected iDevice, as track synchronization can disrupt the spanning process.

Once the spanning process is finished, it will show all the items that have been spanned (moved) to defined locations. You will be presented with options to open iTunes to verify those iTunes library items that were moved by TuneSpan and span more items from iTunes library.

TuneSpan offers the best way to distribute media file in iTunes library across multiple external drives and network locations. While it offers simple yet intuitive way to organize your iTunes media collection, it enables you to effortlessly move specified set of your collection to wherever you want. It works on Mac 10.5 or higher.

Download TuneSpan

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XPort is an application for Mac which was formerly a commercial product, but now it’s available for free. It offers one the most simple way around to export your podcasts and music tracks with album arts, play counts, ratings, saved in your iPod to iTunes, allowing you to manage them with your new collection and, importantly, sync them with your other iOS devices. You can also use xPort to create backup of iPod by exporting the track and podcast lists to iTunes. According to developer, it’s a capability of copying massive 25 GB of music off your iPod to Mac in less than an hour. Therefore, it doesn’t matter how big your collection is, just launch xPort, select playlist, and click export to begin the process.

Before launching the application, you need to plug you iPod in. Now launch the application to detect playlists, music tracks and podcasts on your iPod.

Under each playlist, you will see Add to export list option. You can export complete playlist right away or choose to select the tracks which are to be sent to Export list. Once you’re done exporting the tracks, open Export list present in the bottom of playlist navigation bar. Under Export list, click Export now button to specify directory, track format, and include artwork, playcounts, ratings, etc in export process. Finally click Export now to begin the process.

Once the export is complete, you will find the XML file which you have to import to iTunes to add iPod music tracks and audio podcasts.

Check out the video below which further demonstrates the usage.

xPort works on Mac 10.3 or later.

Download xPort

[via Caschys]

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Are you using iTunes just to listen to your favorite tracks and to manage your playlists? We all know that iTunes is not a lightweight application and initiates several hefty services when launched. Secondly, it can become really slow when system gets hogged down by other running applications. Today, we discovered an awesome lightweight music player and manager, called Music Player, which looks somewhat similar to iTunes in terms of both user interface and basic music controls. However, its major focus is not on providing iTunes like UI and functionalities, it emphasizes more on giving best music management and discovery experience. 7digital live music store is also integrated within the application to skim through latest albums and directly download music into your library.

Playlist management features are all minimalistic. Like iTunes, you have playlists in the main navigation bar. By default, it indexes music tracks from Music folder, however, you can add your music collection directories into watch list to automatically synchronize the collection.

If there isn’t any music file in your Music folder, click Settings button in left sidebar to add Watch Folder list for both music and podcasts. Once specified, it will start indexing.

Your music collection resides in Music category listed in navigation bar. Nevertheless, you can create multiple playlists to separate genre, artists, favorites, etc, from your music collection.

Songs button underneath main window reveals track listing. It categorizes music collection in alphabetical groups, making it easer for users to get to required tracks. The music player gives a highly compact and simple view with only basic playback , track navigation, and volume controls.

Click Store, present alongside Settings, to access 7digital online music store. You can find your favorite artists and sift through latest releases. The DRM free copies are also available for certain artists. You can download them directly to your library.

Music Player is arguably a worthwhile music manager. Since it’s in beta testing phase, you may find some interface related glitches. Hopefully, developer will fix all interface issues in next iteration.

During testing, memory footprint remained stagnant around 60 MB on our system. It works on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. Both iPhone and iPad versions will be out soon.

Download Music Player

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