I’m always looking for ways to enhance my music listening experience on the Mac. For the last several months I’ve been using Bowtie to control iTunes with keyboard shortcuts, and Ecoute is another great alternative for managing iTunes in a minimal, simplified way.
When the developers of Skip Tunes contacted me, I was intrigued by the app’s menu bar interface. For quick access to simple music playback controls, it doesn’t get much better than this.
Skip Tunes is gorgeously designed. I love the look of the drop-down window, and the app’s simple feature set suits it well. Some will find the lack of customizability dissatisfying, but the good thing is that Skip Tunes will only take you about 60 seconds to figure out.
Clicking the little music icon in the app’s interactive menu bar icon will open the playback window where you can see what you’re listening to, toggle shuffle mode, and access your settings. Album art is displayed above each track, and you can play/pause/skip with the two tiny buttons next to the music icon. Simple.
One of Skip Tunes’ biggest pros is that it can be used to control not only iTunes, but Spotify and Rdio as well on the Mac. If you have either third-party music app installed, you can toggle which source to use in settings.
The Skip Tunes devs have told me that keyboard shortcuts and Growl support are the top two feature requests for future updates. Expect more great things from this little app. You can get version 1.0 now in the Mac App Store for an introductory price of only $0.99.
