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simplicity posts

Filed under: iTS, Software, Freeware, iTunes, Deals, Music

Doubletwist introduces in-app music store powered by Amazon

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Oct 8th, 2009

We posted about Doubletwist earlier this year -- it's a pretty innovative music app (developed in part by Jon Lech Johansen, otherwise known as DVD Jon) that not only plays you play whatever you like, obviously, but even lets you share and send music off to anyone, even other people who don't have the app itself. Now Doubletwist is stepping up even more closely to becoming an iTunes competitor: they've announced a partnership with the Amazon music store to sell music directly from within the app. No TVs or movies -- just music, purchased directly within the app, and then able to be sent out to any devices or social networks as usual.

TechCrunch says the store's simplicity is actually a selling point -- iTunes has ballooned up to do way more than just sell music, and in Doubletwist it's much more straightforward. Here's the other bonus for Mac users: while we originally had to wait for an app release, the music store is currently only available on the Mac version of the software. A PC version is coming soon.

It's doubtful Doubletwist will replace iTunes for many people, given all of the various things iTunes does for a Mac user. But then again, if you are using the Amazon MP3 store with any frequency, Doubletwist is probably worth a look: it's a free download on the website.

Tags: amazon-music-store, doubletwist, movies, simplicity, techcrunch, tvs

Filed under: Freeware

Dateline - add a linear calendar to your Mac's desktop

by Jason Clarke (RSS feed) on Jul 10th, 2009

DatelineI love simple utilities, and Dateline certainly fits that bill. This small application puts a linear calendar on your screen that shows a dot on the current date, and will jump to a given date in iCal if you double-click it. That's pretty much the full extent of what Dateline does, but in this case simplicity equals elegance.

Considering its functionality, Dateline contains a reasonably complete set of preferences that control how it is displayed. You can choose the colors and opacity for each visual element, the size of the overall date line, the window level (as Gruber points out, setting this to Desktop icons seems to be the most reasonable setting), whether or not to show the month's name, and the option to hide the app's icon in the dock.

After trying it for only a couple minutes, Dateline immediately went into my list of applications that automatically open at login.

Tags: date line, date-line, DateLine, desktop icons, desktop-icons, DesktopIcons, elegance, opacity, simplicity

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