Filed under: Audio, iTS, Video, Widget Watch
Widget Watch: Check new releases by artists in your iTunes library with newTunes
Tired of browsing the (often late) New Release emails from the iTMS to find out whether an artist you actually care about has released a new album? Sick of adding an 'Artist Alert' for each of the hundreds of artists cataloged in your vast library? Well pound those keys no more, frustrated iTMS shopper, for the newTunes widget has arrived. This widget tells you when new music you actually care about has been released by watching for new and upcoming work from the artists already in your library.
Don't you love it when computers actually do the work for you, instead of creating more work for you to do? newTunes is freeware and can be had from Apple's Dashboard downloads section.
Get a WordPress.com Blog
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Nicholas said 8:19PM on 7-09-2006
has anyone else found apple's 'artist alerts' to be absolute rubbish? sometimes whole ALBUMS have been added and they can't be bothered to tell me.
Reply
Veken Gueyikian said 10:44PM on 7-09-2006
why apple's own itunes doesn't do this is just dumb. it's a no brainer that adds value to the user and increase sales at the ITMS.
Reply
Tan The Man said 1:23AM on 7-10-2006
It's not cool, it's super cool!
Reply
Matt J said 4:01AM on 7-10-2006
Great functionality, ugly widget.
Reply
Brikeh said 5:03AM on 7-10-2006
That is one ooogly widget.
Reply
C. Ford said 8:05AM on 7-10-2006
Anyone else have trouble getting this to import your artists? I only have approx. 375 artists so I wouldn't expect it to be an issue, but this thing just said it was retreiving artist info from iTunes for hours. I finally uninstalled it.
Reply
D to the J said 8:42AM on 7-10-2006
Yea... mine has been "loading" for the past day or so... it's on the verge of a shortened life span, sadly.
Reply
C. Ford said 9:46AM on 7-10-2006
I don't think AppleScript can handle large amounts of data - I've tried to run a few Applescripts on my iTunes library of 15,000 or so songs before and they never get through it...
Check your running processes, "D to the P", and you'll see the import script for this plugin isn't running any longer.
Reply
veronica said 1:15PM on 7-10-2006
I must say, whoever used that widget in the shot above has excellent music taste!
Reply
duker said 1:43PM on 7-10-2006
It almost works for me. I have about 400 artists in iTunes and it only imported about 3/4 of them (alphabetically, into the R's).
I also noticed that it tells me about albums that I already have. For instance I have the new Pearl Jam but it still lists it under the new albums. Maybe in a future update it could ignore the stuff that you already own.
Reply
Oliver Bothwell said 7:09PM on 7-16-2006
I think if Apple built this technology into iTunes customers would complain that Apple are abusing their position in the market and exploiting people's privacy. Unless of course they made it an option you can turn on - I would love the Just for You feature to be based on my rated music - not just the songs I buy online.
Reply