Twunes

So you’re a Twitter AND a music addict? Ever wanted to know what your (“I’m a Mac”) Twitter buddies are listening to on iTunes? Always looking for musical inspiration to widen your musical horizon?

Well, good news: here’s Twunes, my free Mac OS X application that tweets the current iTunes track’s title, artist & optional album that you’re listening to. And this is how it looks:

Maybe you like my Twunes tool
and like to support further
development with a few bucks?


Key features include:

  • You can hashtag the artist name so that it’s clickable in Twitter clients and you can find other people tweeting about the artist you’re listening to.
  • You can add the hashtag #nowplaying which has become quite common. People on Twitter use it to tweet about the music they’re listening to.
  • You can add the hashtag #fb to crosspost your tweet to Facebook, too! (Use the Facebook application “Selective Twitter State” to make this work.)
  • You can add an iTunes Music Store (iTMS) link for your song — if it’s available. Twunes tries to find a match.
  • The cover art of the currently playing song is shown if possible. If it’s stored in your iTunes library it’s taken from there. Otherwise Twunes tries to find a matching cover art from the iTMS. If it finds one you can click on it and preview the album in the iTMS.
  • You can select from a few phrases to start the tweet with. Like “I’m listening to” or “My iTunes plays”.
  • You can choose whether to include the album name or not.
  • As a convenience you can remotely control three key iTunes functions: play, pause and next track.
  • Your Twitter credentials are stored safely in Mac OS X’s Keychain.
  • Twunes can optionally stay on top of all other windows.

New in 2.1.0:

  • Last.fm support: now you can choose whether to include a link to the iTunes Store or to Last.fm in your tweet.
  • Dynamic Dock menu: you can tweet even if Twunes is minimized or hidden by using Twunes’ Dock menu: right-click (or ctrl-click) on the Twunes icon in the Dock to see what’s playing in iTunes, to tweet, to play/pause/nexttrack iTunes.
  • New prefix #nowplaying. So your tweet can now start with the hashtag #nowplaying. If the “Include hashtag #nowplaying” option is selected AND you chose the #nowplaying prefix the additional #nowplaying won’t be included, of course. If you select another prefix and the “Include hashtag #nowplaying” option is still on it will be included again.
  • New keyboard shortcut: use the spacebar to toggle play/pause in iTunes if the Twunes tab is visible. Note: doesn’t work if your iTunes currently shows the iTunes Store. (Clicking the toolbar icon doesn’t work in that case either.)
  • Auto-Update. From now on you’ll be able to update Twunes from within Twunes. Starting with the next version after 2.1.0.

New in 2.2.0 (2010-09-01):

  • OAuth/xAuth support
  • Bug fix for annoying crash after you clicked the red close button
  • Unfortunately, I had to make Twunes a 32 bit application for now (for some technical reason related to the OAuth support).

To be nice to the Twitter servers and all your followers there’s no “auto-update” feature. The only way to tweet about what you’re listening to is to do it manually by clicking on the “Tweet it!” button.

The guys at Twitter officially approved my application and officially assigned the unique source parameter “Twunes”. :-) So that means if you use a Twitter client that reads out this parameter you’ll see this now if it was Twunes:

System requirements

Starting with version 2.0 Twunes works on OS X 10.5 and 10.6 and is a Universal Binary (so it runs on your Intel and your PPC based Mac).

Download

Download the current version here: Twunes 2.2.0 (Release build 913).

Revision history

  • Version 2.2.0 (2010-09-01): OAuth support
  • Version 2.1.0 (2010-03-07): Last.fm support, auto-update, dynamic Dock menu & more.
  • Version 2.0 (2010-02-20): Totally new user interface and lots of new features (listed above).
  • Version 0.93 (2010-01-21): Release build. Added credit for Matt Gemmell and his MGTwitterEngine I use! No new features.
  • Version 0.92 (2009-11-10): universal binary now. :-)   (still debug build!)
  • Version 0.91 (2009-11-10): no longer polling iTunes via AppleScripting Bridge but instead use the Notification Center. Added (optional) album name and (optional) Twunes support.
  • Version 0.9 (2009-03-08): first public release, still considered beta.

Thanks

Thanks a lot to Matt Gemmell’s excellent MGTwitterEngine for Cocoa which I use here, to Stig Brautaset for his JSON Cocoa framework, to Christoph Wilcke for the Twunes icon and to Brian Amerige for the EMKeyChain classes.

Contact

If you want to contact me: I’m @metawops on Twitter. Have a look at the About page in Twunes for more options. Also follow @TwunesApp on Twitter and become a fan of Twunes on the Twunes fan page on Facebook.