Bowtie, the iTunes Controller with Class
Who else loves iTunes controllers?
Looking at the music you’re listening to on your desktop has become all the rage lately. For some, gazing at an album cover on your screen provides a certain level of satisfaction — a sense that the bytes that make up a digital album have a somewhat “realistic” feeling to them — akin to, say, a physical CD.
It’s time to add another player in the competition for controllers, however: Bowtie. Created by Matt Patenaude (in partnership with Slightly Pretentious Software), the little app does one thing and one thing well: controlling iTunes. It’s the user interface that makes Bowtie interesting though, by providing a completely themeable UI to achieve the kind of hyper-realism people like me are attracted to in controllers.
And with that out of the way, let’s go to the real purpose for this post: Laurent Baumann, Bowtie’s designer, has put out 11 fantastic themes for the app to sway you over. It’s an assortment of various kinds of approaches to the controller aesthetic, ranging from faux-desktop icons to my favorite: the animated, super-detailed vinyl sleeve (above image, modeled by London Calling). Get the download and enjoy; as far as free goes, Bowtie and its themes are about as good as you can get.
November 19th, 2008 at 8:01 am
It would be nice if they’d spend their time finishing Facade instead of this kind of thing, especially since they promised “coming in October.” At this rate, it’s “coming in 2010.”
November 19th, 2008 at 8:56 am
Have you done something to speed up the process? Please do stop whining about Facade not beeing out yet. That is a no-no for all the developers out there when people complain non-stop.
I know if it were me, i would just delay it on purpose
November 19th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
@Tim
for your information, bowtie is at this stage almost for two months, way earlier before they even started to talk about façade in public.
It has been on a private beta stage since then, and due to public demand it has been “released”
dont come whining and try to put people down when you have 0 information about what you’re talking about.
nice Article Austin!
November 19th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
I like it, very nice. There are a couple things I’d like to see:
- Expanded shortcut options
- a toolbar icon (with the ability to ditch the dock icon)
Looks good so far!
November 19th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
I definitely need Leopard. All those great Apps and the goddamn Tiger can’t handle them. Still, I’ll probably wait for Snow Leopard.
And some on topic: Great app! Love the idea of theme-changing, finally a developer who knows what we want for iTunes on our desktop: beauty.
November 19th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
So, you honestly believe that because one person complained, a company is going to deliberately delay its revenue, in this economy? If MacThemes is going to get me hyped up on a product, and the company is going to get me hyped up with an “October” announcement, and then there’s not a single word about release thereafter, then yes, I am going to complain. That is not how you do business. And if there was such a huge demand for public release of a Bowtie beta, why can’t there be a public release of a Facade beta?
November 19th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
@Tim true, they shouldn’t set a deadline when they werent sure they would be able to deliver, they explained and apologize, it was wrong? yes, but should they be crucified for that? no.
About betas of façade, it’s not up to me, the issue here is bowtie and about that is simple
They had it in their computers for two months, why not release it? it wont stop or delay by ANY chance the development of ie. façade.
My reply to your comment was strictly toward the ” why care about this when you have work to do ”
They do have work to do, but this is not holding it, it’s being nice to public to let them use this software they kindly created for us, for FREE.
bottom note, as far as i know MTF is one thing, Façade is not an official application by MTF, but SPS, they are two different things
* everything writen above is just my opinion about this issue *
November 20th, 2008 at 7:04 am
Well i’m trying it and i’m impressed!! Bowtie is an awesome app. I’ll use it instead of coversutra
November 20th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Awesome app, love the simplicity.. However I’d like to see a search function intergrated..
November 29th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
tim, no way developers work on a single program all of the time. It would drive you crazy.
December 2nd, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Prog (almost) perfect! But have a little problem: The cover (in all themes) does not change when next song is playing (first cover keeps all the time). Does anybody have a idea about? Thanx, Steve (Switzerland)
December 5th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
@dave, Astute observation.