When you’re heads-down and working hard on something, you might have some music playing on your computer. When that happens, you don’t necessarily want to stop what you’re doing and switch to the app that’s playing the music just to skip tracks. Mac users known that you can simply tap F7 or F9 to go back and forth between tracks, and F8 to pause or play a song, but there’s no graphical representation of what’s being played, until now.

Skip Tunes is a super simple app for Mac that’s $0.99 and gives you a more robust option to just tapping the F keys, and less of a pain than switching to the app that’s running.

The app sits in your OSX menu bar, and without taking up much space at all, lets you take a look at the track information that’s being played in Rdio, Spotify, or iTunes.

Tiny app, big help

Once I’ve got my Spotify playlist going, I would rather not go back to the app until I’m ready to either switch to another playlist or add songs to it. In other words, I want to forget that I have the app open at all. Skip Tunes gives me a lightweight window into what’s playing, and conveniently keeps itself in the menu bar until I want to click it.

Skip Tunes shows you the album art and name, track title, and artist name in a compact window. It even tells you how far along you are in the track. The app also lets you switch shuffle on and off if you like.

When I’m typing, like I am with this post, I don’t want to have to stop to make sure I’m pressing the right key to switch tracks, so for me, the graphical interface for this is the key. I can now forget that I have my apps running in the background at all, especially iTunes, because I personally can’t stand its interface.

➤ Skip Tunes for Mac

You might remember that some time ago Apple launched its first attempt at a social network with “Ping“. When it launched, many thought this would be a perfect spot for Apple and Facebook to partner by sharing and selling music on Facebook’s platform.

That turned out to not be the case, and many stories surfaced about how Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg didn’t see eye to eye with then Apple CEO Steve Jobs. No deal was done, no partnership between the two were made. That fact however, hasn’t stopped Apple from utilizing Facebook for marketing purposes, just as other companies do on the platform.

The folks on the marketing team for Apple’s App Store and iTunes have found its Facebook pages as a great way to promote new apps and music available, and interact with people who are doing the buying.

Its Facebook page has 4,087,987 Likes and currently has 99,795 talking about it in status updates and comments on the social network. Its iTunes page is doing even better with 19,391,307 Likes and has 460,070 talking about it.

What’s more interesting than the numbers is what Apple is doing on its pages. For example, on the App Store page, the company is playing word games with fans by scrambling up the name of an app and letting people guess which app it is:

The iTunes page is currently taking advantage of Madonna’s Super Bowl halftime performance by promoting her new album:

While Apple’s Ping product has proved to be a serious loser in its attempt to becoming a huge music-focused social network, it looks like Apple hasn’t taken the lack of partnership with Facebook personally at all. So while no deal could be made between the two companies, Apple wasn’t willing to run away from the social network, because without Facebook, Apple would have nowhere else to turn to socially pimp its wares. Facebook knows that, and ended up getting Apple to use them just like everyone else.

You can spend hours checking out new apps, books, and music on iTunes. Some of the time you spend requires you to click through to these items when doing searches.

Macstories spotted a feature that gives you a “quick preview” which happens when you hover over a search result. The desktop feature may have been around since last month, but has gone unnoticed. When you hover, a tiny “i” will show up and when clicked, you’ll be shown a preview pane with most of the information you’d see if you were to have clicked through to the actual item. This is a huge time saver if you’re just browsing your way through the store.

While you still have to click on the little info button, you don’t lose your place during a search and you can simply click the close button to get rid of it. Sure, you could click the back button after you’re done checking out an app, but it felt clunky and Apple agreed.

This quick preview feature isn’t just for apps, and includes all items on iTunes. It appears that the preview includes most information except user reviews, but it does show you the current rating for the item. Apple’s attention to detail comes through again with this minor, yet welcomed feature.

I’m a big fan of simplistic design and when it comes to web apps, I want to know important things up front without having to click around a lot. If you’re a fan of minimalist web app design, and also a movie buff, this app might be exactly what you’re looking for.

WhatsOutt pulls in all of the latest movies that have hit theaters or are available for purchase on DVD and Blue-Ray. While the site could use a little bit of polish, I’ve found it to be quite helpful over the past week.

I’ve bookmarked the page as my default “I’m bored” alternative when there’s nothing to go out and do. I’m a big movie fan, so knowing what flicks are in the theater is important to me.

What’s out?

When there’s nothing left to do other than go to the theater for some popcorn and a (hopefully) mildly entertaining Hollywood movie, the question that you ask your friend or spouse is usually “What’s Out?”. This app lets you take a look two weeks in advance, and links you directly to Fandango for ticket purchases and Apple’s site for movie trailers.

Additionally, WhatsOutt will tell you what movies are available for purchase on DVD, Blue-Ray, or iTunes. Similarly, the app gives you the quick links to buy them just by hovering over the movie’s tile. I’m not a fan of using iTunes on the desktop so this is super helpful for me. I’d love to see the developer pull in Netflix’s latest titles for streaming as well, as it would make this app perfect for me.

I find that sites like Fandango and IMDB are extremely crowded when all I want is a tiny bit of information to help me make a decision, so when apps like this pop up they’re an automatic bookmark for me.

➤ WhatsOutt

The best part about music on the internet is that it’s available in quite a few formats. If you’ve spent the last few years buying up a lot of music on Apple’s iTunes, then you might feel a little left out when it comes to streaming services like Spotify and Rdio.

Developer Jacob Budin decided that you should be able to easily port any playlist you’ve created on iTunes over to Rdio.

And I do mean easily, as in two simple steps that almost anyone can figure out. He calls the service “Trnsmit“.

Export and Upload

When you land on Trnsmit, you’re asked to log in with your Rdio account to authorize the app. Once you’ve done that, all you have to do is export any playlist that you created in iTunes.

To export a playlist, just click on it in iTunes, then click File > Library > Export Playlist. Be sure to choose the XML format and then save the file.

Once you’ve exported the file, click browse on Trnsmit and choose the file. The larger the file you upload, the longer it will take to process. Once it’s complete, you’re given a link to your new Rdio playlist.

It’s almost like magic. Here’s what the translated version of your iTunes playlist will look like on Rdio. I only used one song for demo purposes, but all of the songs that are available on Rdio will show up.

A simple service like Trnsmit helps you get more out of your music, and more importantly makes sure that you don’t have to replicate all of the work that you’ve put into making your killer party and workout playlists.

➤ Trnsmit

It’s not that finding music is hard these days thanks to iTunes and Spotify, it’s really about presentation at this point. On iTunes, you can listen to 30 second clips of music before buying, or listen to the whole track on Spotify with a subscription.

Both services have similar desktop apps that are meant to run in the background when interacting with the music you want to hear.

AllSongsBy uses the iTunes and YouTube APIs to make music listening a more visual experience than that. It’s like watching a TV station made up of your favorite artist.

I want my music TV

AllSongBy is a super slick app that lets you search for music by artist or track, then compiles a playlist of videos based on what it finds on YouTube. You don’t have to leave the service at all, everything plays right there.

Once you’ve searched for an artist, for example, the entire catalogue of music by them is shown below the video playlist. You can listen to iTunes previews, or click the link to purchase them on Apple’s platform. For those who really like getting into the entire catalogue of a musicians, AllSongsBy lets you sort by views the video has, title, or what album it’s on.

A search for The Rolling Stones created a playlist of 116 songs, as well as 7 hours and 32 minutes of video footage.

Wow.

I wish the app had direct links to tracks on Spotify, since the platform has its own API too. Understandably, the affiliate links to iTunes might make the developer a few dollars, but this type of music portal could really catch on if it mashed up tracks and data from different services.

Since AllSongsBy taps the YouTube API for its searches, you can find pretty much any artist in the world, even if they don’t have tracks on iTunes.

So why not sit back and queue up over seven hours of The Rolling Stones music? You’ve got the time, right?

➤ AllSongsBy

With the launch of Google Music, and iTunes upgrading its solution with a new feature called “Match“, the stream your music vs. buy each track debate rages on.

It’s truly a personal preference, but some artists aren’t interested in having their music streamed just yet. Numbers out of Sweden might have them thinking otherwise though.

According to a report from Swedes And The Internet (PDF), Spotify usage has surpassed that of instant messaging, blog reading, and playing games online in Spotify’s native country. Since Spotify has been available for some time in the country, it could be a tip-off to the type of usage we’ll see in the United States and other countries.

Spotify allows you to pay a premium fee to stream all of the music you like, on any of your devices. The service is built to be social by nature, as it is only available to Facebook users. Tracks are shared on your wall and shown in the Facebook ticker, causing your listening habits to instantly go viral among your friends and family on the service.

Spotify beats IM

Here are some of the stats that Swedes And The Internet unearthed during a survey:

• Just over half (57%) of the Swedish people listen and download music via the Internet.
• The percentage of file sharing (21%) have never been greater.
• But the proportion who listen to streaming music using Spotify is even greater.
• Amongst those aged 16 to 25 years, almost 9 out of 10 (85%) are on Spotify and half (55%) listen daily.
• The older people buy CDs and pay per song, while the younger subscribe, share files or listen to Spotify.
• If we compare file-sharers with those who do not share files, we find that there is no difference in how often they buy CDs. However, a larger percentage of file sharers pay to download individual songs than those who do not share files.
• One in three people (37%) listen to Spotify during a month, which is twice as many as file sharing (18%) and many more than those who buy a CD (9%) or pay per song (4%) during a month.
• In Sweden, Spotify usage is even running ahead of use of community sites, IM, blog reading and game playing.

The past, and the future

Spotify launched in Sweden back in 2008, so it had a three-year head-start on the United States. National music revenue grew by ten percent in Sweden at the end of 2009, showing that Spotify indeed has staying power and could be a good thing for artists and record labels.

Will these trends show themselves in the U.S.? It’s too early to say, but traction on Facebook after the f8 partnership announcement has been massive. The Spotify app on Facebook has risen to the top, and surpasses all other music apps by far.

The key for Spotify, I believe, is that it’s not just a music streaming service. It’s a platform that other developers can build apps on top of. That type of platform has never been witnessed on the Internet before, and could drive huge revenue for bands and labels if they just stick with the service and not turn on it. Apps need music, and musicians need distribution. It’s a match made in heaven.

Do you prefer to buy or stream? Perhaps a mix of both? Personally, I prefer to stream all of my music, and if an album is good enough, I go ahead and purchase it. I also spend a lot of money on concert tickets, and that’s where artists make a huge chunk of their money. Maybe Spotify will start offering streams of live concerts, that’s something I’d pay extra for.

Trending topics on Twitter are a great way to see what’s hot right now on the mini social network. However, the topics that trend aren’t always all that interesting to everyone, and can be cluttered with shout-outs to athletes, Justin Bieber, or merely consist of the meme of the day.

Tweets including things like “#ThingsICantLiveWithout” are great for social interaction, but don’t give you a lot of information on what everyone is talking about right this second.

Twitter Music Trends, which was created at Music Hack Day Barcelona 2011 by Adam Lindsay, shows you which music artists are trending in real-time on Twitter.

The app listens to music-related tweets worldwide, using an API from The Echno Nest, which looks for artists being talked about on Twitter.

The first thing you’ll notice is that the design is extremely simplistic, resembling that of a computer terminal command. The green on black isn’t necessarily the most gorgeous display of data I’ve ever seen, but the data is the key.

Twitter Music Trends splits data up between “Today,”Trending”, and “Latest”. The data from “Today” is a list of trending artists in aggregate over the past 24 hours, “Trending” is happening in real-time, and “Latest” shows artists as they’re tweeted about, in more of a raw streaming format.

The trending page will refresh itself every one second, with the other pages refreshing every two seconds. It’s kind of interesting to sit and watch the tweets roll in about musicians.

Even though Twitter Music Trends was a hack, Adam Lindsay may be on to something here. If the app provided information about the artists, or direct links to iTunes and Spotify tracks, the service could become way more useful than Billboard’s charts, which only points you to MySpace music players. This is the type of information that Twitter holds close to its vest, and could one day become that elusive business model that everyone asks so much about.

Music discovery is something Apple has done a great job at with its desktop version of iTunes, historically. The company has turned it into a Billboard charts for digital music. The iOS version is quite boring though, and the desktop app has seen better days.

In steps Wall of Sound for iOS, which makes music discovery a little more random and entertaining. With a gorgeous design and tiled interaction, it makes you wonder why Apple hasn’t done something this for its own iTunes iOS experience.

Discovering Music

Wall of Sound brings in artists of all different genres. You can pick and choose the genres or artists you’re interested in, and individual tracks will come up as tiles that you can tap on. There’s no recommendation technology behind it, but the app displays random popular tracks based on iTunes charts.

If you choose a song that you own, it will play the full track from your device. Otherwise, a 30 second preview will play and give you a one click option to buy it from Apple’s iTunes.

In the way that Apple TV‘s interface makes it seem like not a big deal to pay $3.99 to rent a movie, Wall of Sound’s serendipitous display of music makes buying tracks seem equally quick and simple.

iTunes needs an overhaul

Both the desktop and iOS versions of iTunes are in a dire need of an overhaul. The desktop version hasn’t changed much, and getting people to search for tracks to buy, or click on the top downloaded songs simply won’t cut it anymore.

Spotify has done a wonderful job with its app and partner Facebook to show you what your friends are listening to, in a way that Apple has failed with its Ping service.

For all of the talk with how Apple likes its products to be beautiful, simple, and magical, iTunes feels like a relic from 2001 compared to music discovery services like Pandora and Rdio.

To buy music, there needs to be more than the artist and mass appeal to make me put down my 99 cents. The way in which music is displayed, presented, and discovered gives me a closer attachment to the track I’ve found, making it more likely that I’ll purchase it.

Apple has some work to do, but luckily Wall of Sound has made the companies job a bit easier with its app.

Apple fans in Korea have even more reason to be cheerful — other than the imminent arrival of the iPhone 4S — after the government lifted a ban preventing Apple including games in the country’s App Store this morning.

Korean Apple can users now get their hands on games which had been blocked for almost two years due to concerns from the country’s Game Ratings Board about the content of games. To get around the block, many users opened US or other international iTunes accounts but now they are able use the regular, Korea-based store.

More significantly, the block was an obstacle for Korean game developers many of whom claimed that the government was holding back the industry in a nation of gamers.

Currently there is not a huge selection of games made in Korean for the domestic market apart from a few in the ‘entertainment’ section of the App Store, but that will soon change. Now that the block has been lifted, competition is expected to heat up between mobile developers, some of who have already prepared products for the store when rumours of a lifting of the ban emerged recently.

The news comes at a significant time for Apple in South Korea as the iPhone 4S is due to be released in the country on November 11.

Additional reporting by Jon Russell