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If you’re a frequent iTunes user, you’re probably looking for some helpful tools that will allow you to get more out of the software. If so, you might want to check out Yahoo Widgets. They’re simple, fast applications that run on your desktop to provide a little more functionality than you’ll find in iTunes itself.

To save you from doing all the footwork yourself, I’ve compiled a list of some really neat Yahoo widgets that extend the functionality of iTunes. Let’s check them out.

Music time

iPhones: If you’re wondering what the top songs are on iTunes at any time, iPhones is for you.

iPhones is designed like an iPhone. It displays the top 10 albums and songs, as well as new releases, featured content, and more. When you click on one of those options, you’ll be brought to the song’s individual listing page in iTunes. There’s not much more to the app than that.

iPhones shows off all the top content on iTunes.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

iTunes Alarm Clock: If you want to personalize alarms and reminders with your favorite songs, try out the iTunes Alarm Clock widget.

iTunes Alarm Clock is what you might expect: an alarm clock that uses your music to wake you up or alert you to an event. In the app’s preferences, you can set the alarm, choose any song you want from your catalog, and have it play at a specified volume. It’s an extremely simple app, but I found it useful.

iTunes Alarm Clock is what you might expect.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

iTunes Bar: iTunes Bar is simple: it adds a taskbar to your desktop, allowing you to control iTunes without opening the application.

When you start using iTunes Bar, the app will display a particular track’s artwork. Above that, you’ll find a bar that displays the track’s singer and name. You can turn the volume up or down, change songs, shuffle tunes, access your playlists, and more. It’s like having all the most often used features of iTunes with you when it isn’t up. It’s highly useful.

iTunes Bar gives you control over your favorite songs.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

iTunes Companion: Unless you purchased a track in iTunes, finding the album art for all those other songs can be time-consuming. But with the help of iTunes Companion, all those headaches go away.

iTunes Companion analyzes the song you’re playing and automatically finds its album art on Amazon.com. If it can’t find the album art, you can search for it yourself and drag-and-drop the image into the widget. That drag-and-drop option worked beautifully, in my experience. The app also features song lyrics. All that content can be quickly downloaded into your iTunes library, making the art and lyrics available anywhere you listen to the song. It’s a great app.

iTunes Companion is a really helpful app.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

iTunes Remote: If you’re having trouble controlling the songs in your iTunes library, iTunes Remote is the tool to use.

Once downloaded, the widget displays a remote that lets you play or pause songs, skip through tracks, or shuffle tunes. There isn’t much to it, but thanks to the ability to place it over any window on your computer, you can quickly play the songs you want without much trouble.

iTunes Remote helps you sift through songs.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

SongWidget: SongWidget is easily one of the most capable widgets in this roundup. It allows you to do much more than simply control iTunes.

SongWidget recognizes all the tracks you’re playing in iTunes. It gives you the option of playing or pausing songs, and skipping to find the song you want. But where SongWidget shines is in all the extras. The app provides a direct link to the track’s Amazon MP3 page, customer reviews, and (my favorite feature) YouTube videos of the songs you’re listening to. When you click on that option, the video is automatically played in your browser. If you like a particular track, you can even search for the artist on Google. I really liked SongWidget.

SongWidget displays all kinds of useful information.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

My top three

1. SongWidget: With so many neat features, SongWidget is a must-see.

2. iTunes Companion: iTunes Companion makes finding album art and lyrics much easier.

3. iTunes Alarm Clock: iTunes Alarm Clock is simple and easy to use. I like it a lot.

See more here:
Yahoo widgets for the iTunes fanatic

(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)

One of Apple’s smaller announcements at Wednesday’s music-focused event was that you’ll be able to share your deepest iTunes hopes and dreams through Facebook and Twitter.

Well, more specifically, you’ll have “Share on Facebook” and “Share on Twitter” options in a drop-down menu on album purchase pages in the iTunes Store to broadcast which music in which you’re interested.

Basically, this means that you can show off your music taste or attempt to convince friends to buy albums for you. The links in Twitter tweets and Facebook posts will likely go straight to the option to purchase the album, potentially driving up sales.

An example of what you can get when you ‘Share on Twitter.’

(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)

This is a pretty standard practice likely accomplished through implementation of the social sites’ APIs rather than a formal partnership–the latter of which was probably required when Apple brought Facebook Connect to the iPhoto desktop software.

The more interesting part? It looks like this officially proves that an extremely dubious set of screenshots that hit the Web last month–showing buttons for Facebook, Twitter, and social-music site Last.fm integrated directly into the iTunes app–are indeed fake.

Disclosure: Last.fm is owned by CBS Interactive, which publishes CNET News.

Originally posted at News – Apple

View post:
Facebook-Twitter integration comes to iTunes

(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)

One of Apple’s smaller announcements at Wednesday’s music-focused event was that you’ll be able to share your deepest iTunes hopes and dreams through Facebook and Twitter.

Well, more specifically, you’ll have “Share on Facebook” and “Share on Twitter” options in a drop-down menu on album purchase pages in the iTunes Store to broadcast which music in which you’re interested.

Basically, this means that you can show off your music taste or attempt to convince friends to buy albums for you. The links in Twitter tweets and Facebook posts will likely go straight to the option to purchase the album, potentially driving up sales.

An example of what you can get when you ‘Share on Twitter.’

(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)

This is a pretty standard practice likely accomplished through implementation of the social sites’ APIs rather than a formal partnership–the latter of which was probably required when Apple brought Facebook Connect to the iPhoto desktop software.

The more interesting part? It looks like this officially proves that an extremely dubious set of screenshots that hit the Web last month–showing buttons for Facebook, Twitter, and social-music site Last.fm integrated directly into the iTunes app–are indeed fake.

Disclosure: Last.fm is owned by CBS Interactive, which publishes CNET News.

Originally posted at News – Apple

Excerpt from:
Facebook, Twitter integration comes to iTunes

Don’t worry, you can always write your own.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

The original Yelp for iPhone was a skeleton of its online self when it first debuted. Since then, Yelp has been layering on the muscle. The improvements in Yelp for iPhone 3.0 plump the app even more, bringing both important functionality from the Web version and some mobile-friendly enhancements.

Deal-seekers will notice a new category in the Nearby search screen for sales and other offers, listing happy hour deals, coupons, an even specials just for Yelpers. (Ooh, free beverages at the 4.5-star Creperie Saint Germain!) This makes a lot of sense in a mobile app, and could help Yelp boost revenue sales if this form of location-based mobile advertising catches on with Yelp’s community. Registering offers through Yelp is currently free for businesses.

Frequent Yelpers will also appreciate the ability to mark reviews as useful, funny, and cool, just like you can online. Compliments have also arrived from the online version, letting you give a reviewer additional kudos. If the suggested text is too cheesy for your tastes, you can clear it or add your own.

Movable maps are another addition. Instead of seeing a static image when you click to map a business, Yelp presents you with a map you can scroll with your finger. If you’ve searched and then scrolled around, the button “Redo Search Here” will apply your search terms (like special offers) to the new location.

There are more welcome changes beyond these community features. Yelp has finally (finally!) integrated a browser into its app–no longer will tapping a business’ URL kick you out of the app and over to the Safari browser. If you misspell a word (and completely ignore search suggestions,) Yelp 3.0 will pop up a notification within the app to ask if you meant “restaurant” instead of “restarant.” Yelp has also heeded user requests (ours included) to be able to e-mail a business’ details and Yelp.com page URL to a buddy. This will help facilitate lunch and dinner invites.

Combined, these changes add up to a familiar, useful, and full-featured tool for on-the-go business-seekers. The major lasting complaint we have is that Yelp still offers only hacks for composing reviews, not a straightforward solution to write freely as you would online.

Yelp for iPhone 3.0 is available for free from the iTunes app store. You can also get started downloading it via your computer from Download.com.

Originally posted at The Download Blog

Read the original here:
iPhone Yelp gets happy hour deals, moving maps

(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

The arrival of push notification in Apple’s 3.0 iPhone software whipped up excitement, though its real-world application still left users wanting more. On Monday, Tiverias Apps released GPush (iTunes link), a small (0.3MB), 99-cent application that fills in a gap with push notification for your Gmail account.

GPush alerts you to incoming Gmail messages with a red icon badge, a chime, and a semitransparent alert window that reads the sender’s name and the subject line. (You can change these in the Notification settings.) The application interface itself does little, apart from collecting your log-in information once, and manually reregistering your credentials. All the rest works behind the scenes.

How did GPush do? Fair, in our tests, but not worthy of the hype we’ve seen elsewhere. Many alerts for incoming e-mails came through, either after sliding the phone to wake it from sleep, or while actively using the iPhone. However, many other messages lagged or weren’t passed down from the server at all, though they still showed up in the Mail box.

GPush’s developers said in a phone call that there could be issues if the phone frequently switches between Wi-Fi and 3G data and loses the data connection. During these moments of instability, GPush will queue the new messages for notifications. When the iPhone regains its service, GPush sends out only the most recent notification, an Apple limitation to keep alerts from flooding your screen.

If you rely on Gmail, GPush is probably worth the dollar for the risk, particularly if it’s not your habit to incessantly check your in-box. PushMail ($4.99) is a competitor, another third-party workaround in the iTunes App Store, though it differs. Pushmail sends along any e-mail redirected to your “dopushmail.com” address, not just inbound Gmail messages. It takes more setup and maintenance work since you’ll need to forward messages to a different account e-mail, but for those who crave privacy above all else, avoiding giving up your password and log-in may be worth the extra cost and setup.

GPush is available now in the iTunes store for 99 cents.

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

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Gmail push on iPhone? Meet GPush