Sharing your music with others is a great way to get into new music and also reveal what awesome/terrible taste you have.

The good thing is that this has become much easier with the advent of WiFi which allows you to effortlessly stream your music to other users connected to your network. Simplify Media is designed to help you do this with the minimum of fuss allowing you to share music via iTunes. In effect, it means that you can enjoy and share songs with your friends wherever they are as long as you have an internet connection.

Simplify Media works like an instant messenger client enabling you to send and stream music and tracks to your friends. In a glance, you can see what your friends are listening to or invite them to listen to the same tune as you. Simplify Media also works with Winamp or Rhythmbox and you can ensure that your little group of friends are the only ones that can see what you are playing. This is a truly cross platform and cross device app allowing you to share music with users on PC, Mac and Linux as well as iPhone and iPod Touch.

Simplify Media is a great tool for anyone who simply can't be without their music collection or is constantly on the move but loves sharing their music with others.

Download Simplify Media 1077 in Softonic

I must admit I'm not very fond of audio editing tools. Mixing music has never been my cup of tea, so when it comes to testing an audio editor, chances are I end up more confused than satisfied. However, this isn't the case with Audacity. To begin with, this editor is free source and supports MP3, two features which usually don't meet in this kind of application. Secondly, it's easy to master, even for newcomers. And finally, there's a wide range of filters and special effects you can apply to your music so that you easily achieve the desired effect.

Audacity doesn't stand out for its interface. At first sight one wonders if this program is really going to be that easy to use. In fact, the interface sometimes makes it really hard to work with your tracks, especially when you zoom in on them for a more comfortable editing session. Besides this, I found myself constantly right-clicking on the working area and the tracks too, waiting for some handy context menu to appear but nothing came out.

After these few first minutes struggling with the interface, it's time to begin having fun. You can open as many tracks as you want by just dragging and dropping audio files onto the program's interface. Use your mouse to select the fragment you're interested in and begin working with it. You can perform the basic editing actions (cut, copy, paste) or apply effects to it. The zoom tool helps a lot when selecting small areas, as well as the chronometers found at the bottom of the program's window. Obviously, you can use the integrated player to check how your work sounds before saving the project.

Audacity features quite a large selection of filters and effects. Each one has its own setting options to adjust it to your liking. But what I loved is the possibility to preview how the filter will look on the audio track. This preview function allows novice users to test each filter before actually using it and also configure it with great accuracy.

On the downside, Audacity doesn't have much more to offer. After a few days playing with the program, you soon grow tired of selecting audio fragments and adding effects, and you feel like you need something else. In other words, the simplicity of the program makes it easy to learn, but at the same it makes it too basic and requires a lot of creativity on the user's side to obtain ear-catching results. Anyhow, Audacity is still a perfect choice to take your first steps in the music mixing world and then perhaps move on to another more professional tool.

Download Audacity 1.3.5 d in Softonic

Every productivity geek's dream, Quicksilver has become one of the essential applications on Mac.

For those of you not familiar with Quicksilver, it's an application that lets you reach any program, folder or file in a few keystrokes. You don't have to go searching through your files, you don't have to worry about how your folders are arranged. For many, Quicksilver was a godsend in the pre-Spotlight Mac era. Although it's lost some of its importance with the new powerful search and Finder features in Leopard it still remains very much an excellent Mac application.

The search function is very quick and powerful and once you've found what you're looking for you can apply a number of actions like simply launching it, emailing or moving. What's more Quicksilver adapts to the file it's found, so if it's a document you'll get to modify or send it, and if it's an email you'll get to email or copy it. Quicksilver users also like the fact that the application learns from what you search to bring up what you search for or use most.

Quicksilver wouldn't be what it is without its large library of plugins though. This includes everything from dialing a phone number to interacting with iTunes or image and text manipulation. This means you can really customize the application to work according to your needs.

The only downside is the stability issues that Quicksilver seems to have. The application is noted to crash every once in a while.

Despite this stability issue, Quicksilver remains an incredibly intuitive and powerful multi-application launcher for Mac. Recommended for productivity geeks.

Download Quicksilver 1.0 b54 in Softonic

Radioshift is a unique tool to browse and listen to any radio station in the world straight from your desktop. The interface, a mix between iTunes and a news reader, makes it easy to browse and subscribe to new radio stations. You can find shows by using the search window or simply browsing through the categories. Shows are divided into three main sections: spoken, music and sports but you can also search for stations geographically, thanks to a map included in the interface.

Radioshift offers a good deal of extra features like the lists of favorite and popular shows. Once you subscribe to a song (by clicking the + button) it'll be added in the list on the left side of the interface. You can also edit show information, although in a limited way. In terms of usability, Radioshift includes an intro movie and a help manual to get first time users going.

Radioshift is the application of choice for any radio or podcast addict.

Download Radioshift 1.1 in Softonic

DRM Dumpster will allow you to remove the digital protection from your DRM tracks in iTunes.

Although it looks like DRM will probably be abandoned in the future you may still have purchased DRM tracks in the iTunes Store. You might want to remove the DRM so that you can play these tracks on any device and make your own copies. The simplest way would have been to burn them to a CD and rip them to an unprotected format, which can be a bit of a hassle.

DRM Dumpster takes tracks in groups of 10 to 20 and automatically removes the DRM without you having to worry about it. It automatically goes through the protected tracks and performs the erase/burn/rip cycle for you, saving you a lot of time and effort.

DRM Dumpster still remains pretty expensive, with a current price of $40, given that it only performs one specific action. Also, we found that the trial itself doesn't even let you try out removing DRM from a track, so you're basically forced to dish out $40 to see how it works.

DRM Dumpster is limited to iTunes, which is a bit of a shame as you might also want to remove the DRM from protected tracks bought on another website or stored elsewhere.

Despite being a little expensive, DRM Dumpster offers an effective way of quickly remove the protection from DRM tracks.

Download DRM Dumpster 3.2 in Softonic

Syncopation from Sonzea provides a hands-free solution to keep your iTunes music collection synchronized across multiple computers running Mac OS X. Once installed on two or more Macs, Syncopation goes to work, finding music that is on one computer but not the others, and automatically transfers the songs between them so that they both contain your complete music collection.

Leave it running in the background and it will keep your iTunes libraries up-to-date. When you make changes to your song files on one computer, Syncopation updates your other computers with those changes. If you add files to one of your computers, Syncopation replicates the new songs to your other computers, whether they are iTunes Music Store purchases or tracks ripped from your own CDs. Syncopation works over your Ethernet or wireless network.

Download Syncopation 2.1.3 in Softonic

Floola is a freeware application to efficiently manage your iPod or your Motorola mobile phone (any model supporting iTunes). It can be run directly from your iPod and needs no installation under Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. Floola supports all most common used features including podcasts! Take a look at the feature list to find out what it can do and feel free to suggest anything that might be missing.

Take a a look at what Floola has to offer:

• Cross plattform
• Completely Portable
• Copy songs to and from iPod
• Manage, import and export playlists
• Support for Last.fm
• Support for podcasts
• Available in different languages
• Lyric support even on older iPods (3G and above)
• Search for duplicates
• Search lost files
• Add artwork to your songs easily
• Videos can be added to iPod
• Export iPod contents to HTML lists
• Manage notes
• Play iPod's music

Download Floola 3.6 in Softonic

Managing large music collections is never easy. iTunes is one of the best programs out there for this sort of thing but it's not great for controlling music in motion. TotalTunes Control basically gives you total control over your music reproduction in a way iTunes can't. TotalTunes Control sleeps in your taskbar until required when it presents you with a compact window to control everything in iTunes. It can be recalled or closed at any time and crucially, lets you assign keyboard shortcuts for iTunes.

The shortcuts consist of the normal play/pause/forward and rewind functions although they are not easily configured. You also get the progress and volume sliders and toggles for repeat and shuffle and a source menu from which you can change between the library and any of the playlists you might have. The main problem is that you have to accept the program's default settings which is not ideal but at least better than what iTunes can offer. All in all, this program offers a much easier way to manage iTunes in motion.

Download TotalTunes Control 2.4.8 in Softonic

By now everyone who’s ever used a computer surely knows about Peer to Peer file sharing and the controversy it’s stirred up since the days when Napster rocked the music industry. Although it’s still illegal and you run the risk of being taken to court if you’re caught with substantial copyrighted material, there are still plenty of file sharing networks and clients you can use to obtain free music, video and files if you were so inclined.

Using the eDonkey network, aMule stands out from most of its rival P2P clients in the fact that it is open source. The great thing about this is that you’re free of pesky spyware and adware, leaving you free to get on with your downloading in peace. What’s more, the program doesn’t rely on one central server like many older clients. By using a multitude of different servers, the network is virtually impossible to shut down, and proves very robust and secure.

aMule is a cinch to use thanks to the simple layout of the user interface. This doesn’t mean it lacks depth though, and its features are some of the most advanced we’ve seen in a P2P client. For instance, you can view all manner of information on machines you’re downloading from, call up charts outlining downloading stats and check download status through an advanced progress bar.

The fact that aMule uses a large network of servers means the search results are abundant, but there’s one major annoyance with the client – it’s very slow at downloading files. This is largely because of the way it handles download priority, which takes into account the number of servers you’re connected to, the connection speed, and size of the file. It also relies heavily on a ‘credit scoring’ system, whereby people who use the service a lot are rewarded with faster downloads. While some may champion this as being in the true spirit of file sharing, the system makes it awfully frustrating for new users who are penalized with ultra slow downloads.

Having said this, it’s not difficult to see why aMule has become the most popular P2P app, and if you’re prepared to break the law and download music over a network it makes for the perfect accomplice.

Download aMule 2.2.2 in Softonic

Unlike other iPod software to copy songs off the iPod, iPod.iTunes checks which tracks and playlists on the iPod are not in the iTunes music library and only adds those seamlessly to the iTunes library, avoiding duplicates, saving your time. Beside playlists, iPod.iTunes can also transfer song dependend data like "My Rating", "Last Played", "Play Count", album artwork, etc...

• Simple one click synchronization (Screenshot)
• Option to choose tracks manually if you don't want to synchronize them all. You can listen to tracks before you choose to transfer them.
• Tracks and playlist entries can be synchronized together or separately. If the tracks on the iPod are already in the iTunes library and you only want the iPod playlists, you can use the playlist synchronization alone.
• With every track synchronization iPod.iTunes creates a date&time stamped playlist in iTunes containing the tracks which were transferred. This gives the option to easily add those tracks to existing playlists or to create new playlists from the transferred tracks.
• Support for the iPod's "On The Go" playlist.
• Copies by default seamlessly to the iTunes music folder and creates a folder structure based on artist/album, as in iTunes (with options).
• File naming based on track number and track name, as in iTunes.
• File formats: MP3, AAC/MP4, Protected AAC (iTunes Music Store), Audible audio books, Podcasts, Apple Lossless.
• Support for Windows-formatted iPods.
• iPod.iTunes can run directly from the iPod, so it's always there when you need it.
• Registration is independent of the computer. You can just connect your iPod to any Mac without registering every machine.

iPod.iTunes can be used to:

• Keep music and playlists on different Macs up to date
• Do a full restore of tracks and playlists - i.e. after a hard disk failure or if you buy a new Mac
• Revert accident deletion of tracks and/or playlists in iTunes, if these are still on your iPod
• Clone an iPod
• Transfer an entire music library from one Mac to another via the iPod

Download iPod.iTunes 4.1 in Softonic

Build better iTunes™ and iPod™ playlists using beaTunes. By analyzing the songs in your existing library beaTunes is capable of finding songs that simply match. Could your last mix CD's song order use some improvement? Let beaTunes re-arrange your playlist for you!

Always wondered how you could take advantage of the BPM (beats per minute) field in iTunes? Let beaTunes fill in the blanks and help you while DJ'ing at your next party.

Here are some more examples of what you can do with beaTunes:

• Automatically determine BPM (beats per minute) and store the result in iTunes
• Manually determine BPM and store the result in iTunes
• Sort existing playlists so that matching songs succeed each other
• Create matchlists, i.e. playlists based on one or more sample songs
• Browse songs from your music collection that match the currently selected song
• Discover albums that aren't in your music collection, but would complement it
• Keep up to date through Amazon™ album charts
• Automatically set start and end times of songs based on their volume
• Categorize songs by their sound color
• Build playlists per drag and drop
• Create blog entries on blogger.com with your favorite playlist or songs
• Inspect and fix your music library
• Add tags to your songs

Download beaTunes 1.2.14 in Softonic

Bitpim allows you to transfer and edit data from your mobile device to your computer and back. The application works with most CDMA phones but will interact best with specific models from brands like LG, Samsung or Motorola.

Once your phone is connected to your computer simply select the option to synchronize the device. A little pop-up window will allow you to select what data to choose from your phone. It normally lists everything, from your calendar to contacts and messages to music and wallpapers. Transferring is fairly quick.

Once the data is uploaded to the Bitpim program you can edit it and make any changes. Send it back to your device and Bitpim will ask you whether you want to replace or add the information.

I did find Bitpim's interface a little sparse and didn't really like how it opened numerous windows at startup.

Bitpim will not always work properly via Bluetooth, so its best to connect your mobile phone via a USB cable.

Need to transfer and edit data from your mobile device to your computer? Bitpim should get the job done.

Download Bitpim 1.0.7 in Softonic

Mojo not only allows you to share iTunes library with others, but it will also let you download tracks from other people's libraries.

With an interface reminiscent of both iTunes and a messaging client, Mojo is easy to work with. It will display all libraries, that is if you have found others to connect with, in a list. Clicking on a library will bring up an iTunes like interface from which you can see all your tracks (in grey), protected songs (in red) and your contacts' songs. You can also see other iTunes sections like shows, movies or podcasts and even subscribe to others' playlists. Changes will be automatically downloaded to your library so you are always up to date.

Mojo offers a basic playback function at the bottom left to listen to the tracks and you'll notice you can download tracks via the button on the bottom right. The process is fairly quick with an audio file but can take more time with video. Mojo is very enjoyable to use but unfortunately it can be difficult to find other users also connected to Mojo. Both of you will have to agree on the port to use to share songs.

Despite some difficulties in finding other users to share libraries with, Mojo is an enjoyable program to listen to other iTunes libraries.

Download Mojo 2.6.7 in Softonic

iGadget allows you to realize the full potential of your iPod. With iGadget, you'll be able to transform your iPod into much more than a simple music player. Here are the features you'll get with the purchase of iGadget:

Songs and Playlists

Transfer songs and playlists from your iPod to your computer and/or into iTunes while preserving play counts, user ratings and last played dates

Driving Directions

Never get lost again! Put driving directions right onto your iPod

Outlook

Get rid of your PDA and put all your Microsoft Outlook data onto it including email, appointments, contacts, tasks and notes

Weather Forecasts

Never get caught without your raincoat by keeping your local weather forecasts on your iPod

Movie Showtimes

Get the movie showtimes for your local theaters stored onto your iPod

RSS News Feeds

Get the latest news headlines on your iPod for reading at your leisure

Backup

Backup any set of files and/or folders from your computer onto your iPod for safe keeping

Daily Horoscope

Get your daily horoscope readings on your iPod

Music Listings

Create listings of the music on your iPod in various formats (HTML, CSV, plain text). This could then be used to post on a website or to print out a listing of all your songs

Library

Keep a library of text files on your iPod for reading on-the-go - these could be e-books, recipes, bible verses, anything

Download iGadget 2.5.2 in Softonic

Pandora is one of the best online music services you'll come across and, thanks to PandoraJam, you'll be able to enjoy it straight from your desktop. The application is fitted with a nice interface which displays a list of your stations, the basic playback buttons and a handy search bar. You can set the autoscrobble feature to submit your songs to Last.fm and use Growl to get popup updates on new songs in your list. PandoraJam will show status updates in Skype, Adium and iChat but not other IM clients.

PandoraJam is much more than a simple desktop application for Mac though. The program adds wireless streaming to Airport Express, which although unstable every now and then, should work well if you have a good wireless connection. You'll also be able to record songs playing in PandoraJam to play them in your iPod or iTunes. Unfortunately, since Pandora.com is now only available to the UK and US, lots of users will shy away from it and turn to Last.fm, which also provides a good desktop playback client.

PandoraJam is a desktop application for the online music service Pandora, with nice advanced features.

Download PandoraJam 1.3.251 in Softonic

MAC M4PConverter can de-encrypt iTunes music and convert them into MP3 files. With MAC M4PConverter you can convert protected songs and audio books you purchased from the iTunes store to unprotected MP3 files with music tags preserved.

This may sound a bit dodgy but it's all perfectly legal and a great way to get rid of annoying restrictions imposed by Apple. MAC M4P Converter can deal with a range of DRM-protected formats including M4P, AAC and M4A. MAC M4PConverter also provides you with a simple piece of burning software to help you burn your unprotected files to disk. It does this via a virtual CD-RW which works pretty well as it converts to MP3 and rips on the fly.

Unfortunately, MAC M4PConverter can't always remove the DRM from files so what is converted, either sounds like a mess or it simply won't convert at all. However, in the majority of cases, it does a surprisingly good job.

MAC M4PConverter is a great solution if you want to remove DRM or protection applied by iTunes to music files.

Download MAC M4PConverter 4.1.7 in Softonic

For me, the feature which best sums up the PlayStation's impressive multimedia capabilities is its membership of the DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance). This means that the PS3 can communicate and share content with a large number of other networked devices. And although Apple aren't members of the DLNA, several companies have been working to enable streaming of multimedia content from Macs to the PS3. Nullriver's MediaLink is the newest kid on the block.

MediaLink works in a similar way to its competitors, acting as a file server which allows you to stream multimedia files, including your iTunes and iPhoto libraries across your home network. Your PS3 detects the server, connects and the shared content shows up in the XMB (PS3 menu).

When compared with its competitors, notably Elgato's EyeConnect, MediaLink performs very well. I experienced no cuts in transmission or delays, and I was impressed to see better handling of iTunes artwork as well as video previews. Some DivX files which worked with other media servers weren't detected by MediaLink, which was disappointing. I think this was due to the files having the '.divx' format and I expect that this issue will fixed in time. That said, video playback generally works without issues, though image quality was not always as good as when using EyeConnect.

Browsing photo and music libraries is a breeze with MediaLink, though there are some interesting differences with competitors in the way that it presents the iTunes library. I noticed that EyeConnect always displays the iTunes library exactly as iTunes would (select an artist, then an album and you'll see tracks by that artist which feature on that album), while MediaLink seems to use a different indexing system (select an artist and then an album and you'll see all the tracks on that album, irrespective of artist) - this suggests that MediaLink is building its own index of files rather than relying on your iTunes library file.

MediaLink is a robust, reliable media server option for sharing content from your Mac to your PS3, and compares well to other apps in its class. Recommended.

Download MediaLink 1.59 in Softonic

One of the coolest features of iTunes is the album browser which really makes your music collection feel tangible rather than just a load of MP3 files.

CoverFlow has taken this concept and aims to add the same aesthetic to music collections of you'll find in iTunes. CoverFlow allows you to browse your albums artwork using a variety of sources on the Net via your MP3 tags. These include Synergy, Clutter and of course, Amazon.com so you've got a good chance of finding the artwork for your particular album.

CoverFlow genuinely makes looking through your music collection much more fun and intuitive without the need for iTunes. And like iTunes, if the album cover is not in any of the databases, you can add your own album cover from your JPG collection. It would have been nice to have a bit more album info attached with the album covers but it's no big drawback.

CoverFlow gives non iTunes users a real iTunes feel without the bloatedness of the classic music app and breathes new life into your music collection.

Download CoverFlow 0.92 in Softonic

You'll get more out of your favorite songs if you know the lyrics - or at least, you'll stop singing the wrong lyrics and looking like an idiot.

If you're a big iTunes user, then you'll need DesktopLyrics to deliver lyrics directly to your desktop as songs play without any effort on your part. However, the lyrics are delivered in a Window that doesn't automatically appear on top of everything else so it can remain hidden. It would have been useful if the developers had somehow added an option to set the DesktopLyrics window on top but as things are, you'll have to minmize other windows to see the lyrics.

DesktopLyrics can also be a bit hit and miss as regards the lyrics it selects. Usually, you'll get the right song but occasionally it will either select something completely wrong or worse, nothing at all, leaving you with just a blank box. It seems that Desktop Lyrics doesn't use a wide range of databases to retrieve info which is why this occurs.

There are probably better lyric finders out there although DesktopLyrics is fine for anyone with a pretty mainstream music collection who doesn't mind minimizing windows to see it.

Download DesktopLyrics 1.0.6 in Softonic

iTunes is the best music player out there, but don't you wish you could control it without interrupting your task at hand? Now you can. Control iTunes. Whether it's to pause the player, adjust the volume, skip a track or rate a song, you can do all that and more with simple customizable keystrokes.

Why bring up iTunes just to see what track is playing? SizzlingKeys features a floating window that shows you the current song name, artist and more. Place it anywhere you wish on the screen by simply dragging it. Having all the features you can imagine is useless if the app is difficult and confusing to use. That's why we make ease-of-use our top priority. Customizing SizzlingKeys cannot be easier.

What SizzlingKeys lets you do:

• Control iTunes player
• Rate songs
• Select a playlist (searchable!)
• Search for songs
• Shows you the current song

Download SizzlingKeys 3.2.6 in Softonic