Streaming radio apps for the iPhone/iPod touch are exploding in 2009. TUAW favorite Pandora was updated to 2.0 a couple of weeks ago, but it's hardly the only game in town. Back at Macworld, Chris Pirillo showed me StarPlayr for the iPhone, which lets Sirius and XM Radio subscribers access stations via the iPhone. The app isn't available right now, but it'll hopefully be in the App Store soon.

Chris demoed the app extensively on his own site and having seen it in person, it is really impressive. Even with the crappy 3G signal we had on our trip to Cupertino, the stations streamed in at nice quality and there was an option to buy a track or album directly from iTunes. XM and Sirius both offer some great stations for talk radio and sports fans, and to me, that's where these types of streaming apps really shine.

Pandora and Last.fm aren't the only streaming radio services around, AOL's SHOUTcast Radio [iTunes link] app debuted in the App Store a few weeks ago and it'll stream your favorite SHOUTcast stations in up to 128k streams (go to Settings on your iPhone, select SHOUTcast and select "allow high-bit streams"), favorite radio stations, search for artists (though the currently-playing artists is a bit delayed) and peruse the extensive SHOUTcast index.

More below...

Mobile Scrobbler is the Last.fm client developed for the iPod touch and iPhone. In its upcoming 1.4.0 recent release, Mobile Scrobbler will allow you to query its metadata database by searching on track and artist from the command line.

To do this, you need to access the MobileScrobbler executable inside the application bundle on your iPhone and issue a command along the following lines:

./MobileScrobbler -track "Shimmer" -artist "Fuel" -album ""

The developers write, saying the album string will be optional--you can pass an empty string as shown here.

This is a great little feature that shouldn't be overlooked by anyone who has command-line access on their iPhone or iPod touch. For a further preview of Mobile Scrobbler 1.4, check out this screenshot tour.

I'm a big fan of CoverSutra, Sophia Teutschler's sexy and incredibly useful iTunes controller. It gives you global keyboard shortcuts to skip and pause songs, display album artwork in a jewel case in popup notifications or permanently on your desktop, and it can even interact with the Last.fm music community to share the list of songs you're listening to.

CoverSutra is easily a good deal for its standard $20 price tag, but for today only, software discount outlet MacZOT is selling it for just $9.95. Get it while it's hot.

I haven't gotten into social music database Last.fm much, mostly (I'm ashamed to say) because I'm worried about some of my musical guilty pleasures being browsable by the Internet audience at large. Also, because I listen to my music in all kinds of ways, not just simply through iTunes.

One of those ways, of course, is my iPod, and if you've been trying to figure out how to get your iTunes listens scrobbled into Last.fm, worry no more: Scrobblepod is here to save the day. It's a go-between for iTunes and Last.fm, and allows you to sync your iPod listens up with Last.fm before your iTunes listens get entered, ensuring everything gets listed just fine. Now, people will be able to see that you've listened to Mamma Mia whether it's on your iPod or your iTunes install.

Of course, I still haven't seen a way to track the other way I listen to my music-- I keep all my actual music files on my Powerbook, and share them directly to my desktop through iTunes. That way, I have access to my music no matter where I take my laptop. Unfortunately, neither iTunes or Last.fm treats listens through shared libraries as if they were "real" plays, so no matter how many times I listen to that Timberlake Justice remix, it'll never show up on my "Recently Played" list, or in Last.fm.

But anyway, my problems are complicated. If all you want to do is track your iPod listens into Last.fm, Scrobblepod's got you covered.

Ollie Wagner sends word that he has release both of his Spencere apps, Menuet and Art Collector, as careware. Over on his site, you can get both of the apps for free, as long as you promise to donate to the charity of your choice (he's listed eight good choices if you don't have a preference).

We've covered both before-- Menuet is a pretty iTunes controller with a few other features built in, including Last.fm support, themes, and a sleep timer. Art Collector grabs artwork from Amazon for your iTunes library-- it's a little useless, because iTunes now does this for you, but if there are a few covers iTunes can't find, maybe Art Collector can.

Together, they used to run around $13 (although Art Collector separately was $7, and was originally bundled with Menuet). If you've seen these before and never gotten a chance to try them, here's it is, and hopefully you can help out a charity as well.

Shaun Martin drops a note that Cog, an open source audio player that plays pretty much every format you'd want to play (I don't know if I'd ever need to play anything in Monkey's Audio but sure enough, it's there) has hit version .06. The release features a brand new UI (with two pullout drawers-- one that browses the filesystem for music, and another that pops up to show info on the playing file), plugin support, preferences (including builtin global hotkeys, which I really enjoy), and everything else you'd expect in an audio player-- Growl support, Last.fm support, gapless playback, and more.

The only little flaw I can find is that there seems to be two Help menus-- maybe the Cog guys just want to be extra helpful. At any rate, if you're looking for a quick and free little open source audio player as an alternative to Apple's iPhone Activator, Cog will probably turn your gears.

It's been a while since we first mentioned Sophia Teutschler's CoverSutra, a new iTunes interaction and manipulation app, and it's come quite a ways since its v1.0 debut. From the start it's offered things like global keyboard shortcuts for controlling iTunes (including one for toggling Shuffle), Apple Remote integration and album artwork that can live on your desktop underneath all your other windows (for that nice Exposé peek-a-boo effect), but recent developments have brought two major new features. The first is integration with the increasingly ubiquitous Growl notification system of which we're big fans, but the second big new feature finally made me decide to buy a license: integration with the Last.fm music community. For those who haven't seen it, Last.fm can watch what music you're playing (on both Mac OS X and Windows) and upload what is more or less a history of all the songs you listen to (it doesn't upload the songs themselves; it isn't the next Kazaa/LimeWire). From there you can share your playlists and discover new music through both friends and strangers who also use the site, and even embed your Last.fm playlist in a website or blog. It's a great service for any music enthusiast, and now it's built right into Sophia's excellent iTunes controller app. Consider me sold.

A demo of CoverSutra is available from CoverSutra.com, while a license sells for €9.95 or roughly $13 USD.

We told you about a closed alpha of The Filter back in December, and now a beta is available for download. Basically, The Filter is a little program that interacts with iTunes automatically to create playlists based on your mood. The first time you run it, it analyzes your iTunes library, comparing your tracks to its online database of 4.5 million songs. Then you just select a few (it recommends 3) tracks in iTunes, and hit the 'F' in The Filter's window. It will then create a playlist drawing from your personal iTunes library based on those songs. For each song it will put up a nice translucent window with the album art and the All Music Guide entry on that artist. In addition, you can use The Filter to generate appropriate playlists for your iPod based on mood or activity (e.g. high tempo music for working out).

The Filter FAQ says that "the music recommendation engine that is continually learning the listening tastes and choices of tens of thousands of music lovers. This huge collection of information is combined with your own likes and dislikes to create a personal understanding of what songs from your collection you will like to listen to and when." It sounds a lot like Pandora or last.fm but using your own music library. I haven't used it enough to decide if it's accurate, but I think this might be nice alternative to using the randomly generated Party Shuffle. One thing that is unclear to me, however, is their business model since it does not seem to be advertising supported.

The Filter for Mac is in beta right now and available as a free download.

[Via theappleblog]

It would seem that today is the day of incremental software updates, and oh what a special day it is. Last.fm, a social music collective (their words, not mine), has updated their Mac client to 1.1.0. Details are scarce on the site as to what this update includes but the interface has been overhauled and it is a welcome change from the former interface. This app requires Tiger.

[via Download Squad]

Menuet 1.1b1 has been released and it sports a feature or two that are worth pointing out. Firstly, this version of Menuet incorporates Last.fm, which is an online way for you to share what you're listening to with others, and gather statistics about your listening behavior.  The site also recommends music that you might like based on what you have listened to and what other who seem to share the same taste like.

The new Sleep Timer lets your 'set it and forget it.' Simply tell Menuet when you would like it to stop playing music and go about your business (perhaps trying to fall asleep). Menuet will then stop iTunes at the appointed time, ensuring that you will not be startled awake by Pink lamenting 'stupid girls.'

Menuet costs $12.95 for a single user, and $29.95 for a 4 pack.