Iphone Updates

I’m a big music fan, and I spend a good portion of my day listening to an iPod or iTunes because music helps me concentrate and stay motivated. I have a pretty extensive music collection, but I also enjoy streaming music services like Last.fm and Pandora to find new music, listen to a mix of related artists, or just play something random. My problem with streaming services is twofold: I don’t like having to have a web browser open and I like to be able to easily switch songs, pause playback or even go back to iTunes. For Pandora, the excellent PandoraJam that Scott covered a few years ago is a great option, but until today, I hadn’t had any luck finding a good Mac Last.fm client.

SweetFM is a new Last.fm client that offers up a seriously sexy way to listen to your favorite Last.fm stations on your Mac. Here are some highlights:

• You can pause songs mid-stream and resume playback
• Unlimited song skipping
• Compatible with both the Apple Remote and the media keys on your Mac Keyboard. I love this because it makes it really easy for me to skip ahead, stop or pause without having to pull up the app window.
• Album art support from both Last.fm and Amazon.com
• Mark songs as loved, banned or add them to a playlist
• If you subscribe to one of the Last.fm pay plans, you can play your loved tracks
• Easy access to tagged stations, artist stations and your library
• Direct access to buy songs
• Export tracks to iTunes: you can do this with all tracks or just tracks you “love,” and the MP3 file that is coming from the Last.fm server is automatically added to a specific iTunes playlist.
• Acts as a regular iTunes controller when not streaming

I’ve been playing with the app on and off all day, and I’m really, really impressed. One of the things that annoys me about Pandora is that I can’t see what songs are next in the queue. Sometimes you just want to skip ahead. With SweetFM, I can see up to 4 upcoming tracks from the menu bar. That’s seriously nice.