Ever since iTunes was introduced in 2001, Apple has continued to tinker with it, updating how it works and how you access and play music. iTunes 11 has introduced some interesting new interface components, the best of which is the new album view. This presents a grid of albums, and clicking one expands a track listing. However, although this feels simple and elegant, simplicity and elegance within iTunes are only skin-deep. The app remains a complex, frequently unwieldy beast, primarily because it now has to deal with managing all kinds of media on your Mac, including books, TV shows, movies, and apps. At best, you can sometimes hide the clutter, but iTunes is no longer an app with a razor-sharp focus, and even accessing music can be done in several different ways, which can cause confusion.
The purpose of this group test, then, is to explore alternative apps that focus on the single act of playing music. Ideally, we wanted to find apps that would enable you to work with your existing music, but that would have more straightforward interfaces and fast search functions. We also wanted any potential replacement to have multiple ways of viewing the app (like the iTunes mini player does) and to be stable and reliable.
Of the six apps we selected, there’s a surprising amount of variation in terms of design. Although some tend to resemble earlier versions of iTunes, others are more akin to iOS apps, and one oddly has the visual appearance of a real-life piece of hi-fi equipment, complete with a massive volume knob. It’s a testament to the dedication of developers that any such apps even exist—it can’t be easy convincing people to try a competitor to one of the best-known and commonly used pieces of software on the Mac. But if you’ve found iTunes to be frustrating or unfulfilling, one of these other options may offer just what you’re looking for.
Test One: iTunes Integration
How does it handle your existing music?
All apps in our test except Album Flow and Ecoute can manage their own libraries of music, with Enqueue also providing the means to monitor specific folders. However, there was variation in the way each app dealt with existing iTunes content. Ecoute and Fidelia get it right, directly accessing iTunes library files, the former also optionally enabling you to write metadata back to the library on quit. Album Flow ostensibly also has the right idea, in working directly with iTunes, but, bizarrely, it requires iTunes to be open in order to access its music.
Ecoute uses your existing iTunes library, so it’s immediately ready to rock.
Test Two: Ease of Use
Is the interface any better than iTunes?
Sonora feels like the app iTunes wants to be. Its album-centric view is reminiscent of iTunes 11’s and is just as usable. Albums can be reordered alphabetically, chronologically, or by popularity. The app is fast and responsive, and we liked its track-queuing system, from which you can save mixes.
If Sonora’s iTunes import was as good as its interface, it’d be a winner.
The remaining three are very different. Album Flow resurrects Cover Flow but is oddly clunky. There’s no way to jump to an artist or album using the keyboard, making it tiresome to navigate large collections. Fidelia’s main view resembles a real-world hi-fi, but the library is a separate window; both feel fiddly. Ecoute takes an odd column-based approach; it’s initially strange to use, but we warmed to its iPad-app-like charms.
Test Three: Music Search
How fast can you find favorite songs?
Album Flow is almost surreal with its search. It’s very slow, and on those instances it does provide results, they’re terrible. Given that there’s no other easy way to navigate, this is a particular letdown. Fidelia’s looks like magic by comparison, despite having only a basic list that can be filtered. Having to first select a library to search seems old-fashioned.
Enqueue’s search enables related tracks to be stashed, ready for playback.
Ecoute is more impressive, its search field rapidly providing results grouped by album, artist, composer, genre, and track. However, it’s beaten by Sonora, Swinsian, and Enqueue. Sonora’s search is similar to the one in iTunes 11, but significantly faster; in a snap, you get album, artist, and track results for your search term, and you can also use the sidebar to navigate to specific artists. Swinsian is also extremely speedy, and live-filters all its views (browser, list, art grid) at once. Enqueue is perhaps a touch better in this respect, although it’s somewhat slower; selecting a track from a search result loads all related tracks into the sidebar, ready for you to browse.
Next page: Additional features, the winner, and solutions for streaming music online.
Test Four: Useful Features
What further goodies do the apps offer?
With the exception of Fidelia, all of the apps we tested respond to media keys on relatively modern Apple keyboards, and can go full-screen in Lion and Mountain Lion. Ecoute, Enqueue, and Swinsian also offer definable system-wide shortcuts for important actions. Sonora and Swinsian support Notification Center, and all except Album Flow and Fidelia will scrobble played tracks to Last.fm.
The Fidelia mini-player looks nicer than the overly bulky standard interface.
Going beyond the basics, Album Flow pulls in artist biographies, and Enqueue has nicely integrated top artists/songs bar charts. Ecoute and Swinsian have a desktop info window (the former also boasts themes), and Enqueue, Swinsian, and Fidelia have mini-players—Fidelia’s being particularly welcome, since the remote-like mini-player is far more appealing than the default hi-fi interface. Fidelia has “high-def” leanings, which involve optional AU plug-ins, processing, and resampling, although activating them all costs over a hundred bucks through in-app purchases. Its lack of more basic features is therefore baffling.
The Winner: Ecoute
In an ideal world, we’d be praising Sonora. The application is elegant and simple, and certainly in a manner iTunes will never be. However, with its inability to import iTunes libraries with any degree of success and development having stalled, we’re forced to look elsewhere for our winner. Enqueue, also broadly impressive, similarly stumbles badly regarding importing iTunes data.
Of the remaining apps, Ecoute almost wins by default, largely in being able to seamlessly work with existing iTunes content rather than messing up an import, and additionally through having an interface that’s not only pleasant to use but that’s also not trying to clone iTunes in some manner. That it’s also free to use doesn’t hurt, either.
Bonus Section: Stream Music Online
Although many people like owning music, many listeners increasingly rely on online streaming, either from paid subscription services or music-oriented social websites such as Soundcloud. Tomahawk is an ambitious attempt to pull together sources and services into a single player, but the result is a miserable experience. The interface is confused and cluttered; it’s too easy to get "lost" and, by comparison, it makes iTunes appear to be a bastion of minimalist design.
Spotify can play its catalog as well as your iTunes music.
By contrast, Rdio is sleeker, although it feels very non-native. The streaming service has a large catalog, which you can subscribe to for $4.99 per month ($9.99 if you also want smartphone access), and it aims to match your collection. This also proved disappointing, omitting many items and flagging others as unavailable, despite displaying the same album immediately afterward, fully accessible. Spotify is a better service in this regard. It costs the same as Rdio and the interface is a bit messy, but it reasonably seamlessly merges what’s available online with everything you already have in your local iTunes library.
