Filed under: Software, iTunes, Beta Beat
Beta beat: TuneUp plugin gets your iTunes straightened out
The MP3 is an astonishing invention; who would have thought, in the days of LPs and 8-track tapes, that someday you could keep a houseful of albums on a gadget the size of a Zippo? Unfortunately, with power and convenience comes managerial effort and housekeeping chaos -- duped files, missing cover art, and overall aggravation. Keeping your music clean and neat can seem like a full-time job.
I've long relied on Chaotic's vintage and versatile MP3 Rage (now Media Rage 3, $30) utility for organizing my music, and it does fine (although it can't resolve the one big issue I still have -- a smattering of very old MP2 files that need to be converted to MP3 or AAC before syncing to an iPod, and there's no good way to search for them... rrgh) but I'd love to have a plugin for iTunes that could handle some of the same chores.
It turns out, there already is such a plugin, but (silly Mac user!) I didn't know about it because it's only available in the Windows version of iTunes. TuneUp will happily sit in the iTunes sidebar and kick into gear on request, cleaning your song filenames, adding album art, pointing out concert dates and YouTube videos for your favorite artists, and more. The tool comes in a free version (limited to 50 art downloads and 500 file cleanups) or a paid Gold version ($12 US annual subscription or $20 lifetime license) with unlimited art and cleaning power.
If only there was a Mac version... ah, there's the fun part. The Mac beta for TuneUp will be starting shortly, and we can help you move to the front of the line. Send an email to with your full name as the only thing on the first line of the email -- the first 100 respondents will be automatically added to the beta list.
Happy cleaning!
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Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
Gabe Adiv said 4:29PM on 10-24-2008
Gabe Adiv here, CEO of TuneUp. Thanks to TUAW for the great post and thanks to all of you for your supportive comments!
I write this from my MacBook Pro and am an avid Apple fan, so my apologies about the delay on the Mac version. It was due to a tech hold up with one of our partners.
Good news is, a bunch of the bugs have been worked out from Windows land so you guys will be getting a faster and cleaner version of the software than what was released for Windows in July.
Looking forward to getting your feedback!
Thanks,
The TuneUp Team
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Dan said 5:12PM on 10-24-2008
Looks interesting! Just hope this doesn't break as often as most of the other iTunes plugins...
Usually things go wonky everytime Apple releases an update, which is a bit of a pain...
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GRicha said 5:29PM on 10-24-2008
count me in for the mac beta
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hobbster said 5:50PM on 10-24-2008
Beta me please!
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K said 6:15PM on 10-24-2008
So, all I put in the email is my name, such as Steve Jobs? That's it?
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Tom said 7:19PM on 10-24-2008
Beta me also, please!
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rich said 7:53PM on 10-24-2008
I've used the windows version of this program- it crashed a lot, and didn't do a very good job of dealing with my 120G of CD rips. Lots of wrong album covers and other tagging errors.
They also signed me up for an automatic annual renewal via paypal - I didn't expect or welcome that.
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Gabe Adiv said 1:43PM on 10-26-2008
@Rich- Gabe Adiv here, CEO of TuneUp.
First of all, thanks for taking time time to try TuneUp for PC. Sorry to hear that you had issues with the application. WOuld be great if you could let us know which version of TuneUp you're running. We generally don't have issues with TuneUp crashing, so we take issues like this pretty seriously.
In terms of TuneUp not finding the right tags and album art for your music, I would recommend making sure that you have the right metadata in your library before you run Cover Art. TuneUp's not able to pull the right cover art unless the metadata is close to correct. We're at 95% accuracy with Cover Art, provided that at least some of the id3 tags are correct.
Finally, giving users the option to opt out of automatic renewals is definitely in the works. Apologies on the oversight on that. By the time it comes time for you to renew, you'll have plenty of time to avoid automatic payment.
Many Thanks,
The TuneUp Team
Todd said 1:18AM on 10-25-2008
Love to help make it even better for the Mac...Count me in please.
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Steve said 7:49AM on 10-25-2008
I would love to try it as well.
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vinniev said 9:43AM on 10-25-2008
This would be a godsend to many! Lemme try it :)
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dave said 10:37AM on 10-25-2008
Here's a fun plug-in called sideTunes. www.nutsie.com/sidetunes
(Windows iTunes only though)
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Darren said 4:32PM on 10-25-2008
I would love a beta invite. This is just what I've been looking for.
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Devin said 6:22PM on 10-25-2008
Does it do genre? And if so, is there a way to tell it to only do genre? I've always kept all my artist, title, album, track, album art, etc in line, but I've never dealt with genre. I'd even be willing to do it manually, if I knew a good place to find genre. I tried Wikipedia, except sometimes they list more than one genre, which doesn't work that well for iTunes, where you only give a track one genre.
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albinoGrackle said 3:57PM on 10-27-2008
Sign me up for the beta, too. My collection is a mess!!!
dani said 10:30PM on 10-26-2008
would love a beta invite also, been on the beta list for a few months now except i have yet to receive an invite :(
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justin said 10:31PM on 10-27-2008
Sign me up for the beta please
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