I Love Stars - iTunes Ratings Made Easy

I know distractions aren’t really en vogue these days, what with all the GTD nonsense that we’re subscribing to. However, some (or the majority of us) enjoy listening to music while we work, so iTunes controllers are somewhat essential.

I Love Stars is a free application from Potion Factory, and it’s designed to do one simple thing. It simply shows up inconspicuously in your menubar and provides you with a simple interface to rate the current track.

It’s not a fully-fledged iTunes controller; it won’t allow you to control your music or display snazzy album art. All it does is one thing, and it does it well. The interface simply consists of 1 to 5 stars, arranged nicely and unobtrusively. Sure, you can assign keyboard shortcuts to an app like Quicksilver to control the ratings, but it would be nice if you could see it, right?

I think utilities like these are really helpful because it reduces distractions. Having to switch to iTunes just to rate music is annoying and somewhat distracting. Though you originally planned to just tag a song, in no time, you’ll end up browsing album art, looking through the iTunes store, and actually buying some music. It’s simple utilities like these that get the job done, and done fast.

For extra goodness, launch System Preferences > Accounts > Login Items and add it to the list. The app will launch automatically when you login. I Love Stars is available for free from Potion Factory.