DeskTunes: See Your Music

Posted by Zach Sims on 04/9/07 in Applications, Audio, Music

iTunes is an application with an almost infinite amount of extensions. Paul DeBoer recently ran down a list of his favorite iTunes add-ons here on MacApper, and most of them are very good at what they do. He mentioned several visualization aids like Clutter and Jewelcase. Both apps help users expand their visualizer, both on the desktop and within iTunes itself. Steve Streza, a Mac developer, however, was looking for something simple and elegant to display iTunes album art on his desktop. After coming up short in his search, he decided to code DeskTunes, a deceptively simple application that does exactly what he wanted.

DeskTunes Screen Capture

DeskTunes is a beautiful addition to any desktop. It takes the currently playing song and displays the album art, your rating, the song, and its author and lays them transparently on top of the Desktop (all while preserving the Desktop background). It’s an eye-catcher, both for you and for other users of your Mac. The aesthetics of the application are absolutely beautiful and they provide relevant information on your Desktop. Best of all, DeskTunes takes up little to no CPU resources. It launches when you turn your computer on and runs quietly in the background as a process - without a menubar icon or a dock icon.

DeskTunes is a worthy extension to iTunes and a terrific addition to anyone’s desktop. Get it for free from Steve Streza’s website.

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4 Comment(s)

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Marvin Sum said on

April 9th, 2007 at 6:20 am

Great app, but is there a way to change its on-screen position? It’s partially blocked by my dock right now.

Flynn said on

April 9th, 2007 at 9:23 pm

This looks exactly like GimmeSomeTunes, which does have a draggable window with variable translucency.

Michael Ramm said on

April 10th, 2007 at 10:54 pm

I downloaded and installed it from reading about it here and I absolutely love it. I had GrowlTunes doing this, but it never stayed up for more than 4-5 seconds. This is always visible on the desktop and is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks, MacApper!

Zach Sims said on

April 10th, 2007 at 11:01 pm

I’ll address some of the above concerns.

@Marvin: Unfortunately, I don’t think you can change its on screen position. The below mentioned GimmeSomeTune enables you to do that but something as simple as DeskTunes does not.

@Flynn: If you look at Steve Streza’s site, you’ll notice that many readers mention the same thing to him on his blog, along with referencing other apps like SizzlingKeys.

@Michael: I have GrowlTunes doing it too, but I also think it’s nice to have something on the desktop. It’s a great addition, and it’s really quite simple.