I like iTunes and Songbird for their massive load of features.
But while coding I need something small that does not distract me or eats tons of system resources. So I wrote PicoPlay that basically plays iTunes playlists, without iTunes running.
It’s free as in free beer and you can download it here: (Sorry only Leopard atm)
PicoPlay
enjoy coding with lean sound!
[update]
Wow, that got a little more exposure than I thought 
So I’ll put some more love in it. Bug number one is that it only works, if the iTunes library sits in it’s default place. Hope to release the new version this weekend. Streams and Tiger are on the list, too.
Txs for all the feedback!
Mike –
I like the idea of a less resource-intensive player than iTunes, so I use Audion (http://www.panic.com/audion).
I have a bunch of playlists in Audion that iTunes doesn’t know anything about …! Would it be possible to set up PicoPlay so that it supports Audion playlists as well? Drag-n-Drop between the iTunes playlist and the Audion playlist would be a great feature too.
Of course, I won’t be able to test it until you port it over to Tiger ….
–gdw
Comment by G.D. Warner — June 3, 2009 @ 19:46
[...] The contestant allows you to garner some listing you’ve created in iTunes from a drop-down menu, has the accepted play, pause, and road skipping, and offers reordering functionality. That’s it. It’s trim, but if you don’t requirement the flooded iTunes functionality intake up wanted resources, it’s a pleasant lowercase player. PicoPlay is a liberated download, Mac OS X only. PicoPlay [via Mike Kronenberg] [...]
Pingback by PicoPlay Is a Lightweight, Minimalist Audio Player [Downloads] | Reviews Manual — June 4, 2009 @ 23:42
[...] The player allows you to pick any playlist you’ve created in iTunes from a drop-down menu, has the standard play, pause, and track skipping, and offers shuffle functionality. That’s it. It’s trim, but if you don’t need the full iTunes functionality eating up precious resources, it’s a nice little player. PicoPlay is a free download, Mac OS X only. PicoPlay [via Mike Kronenberg] [...]
Pingback by PicoPlay Is a Lightweight, Minimalist Audio Player [Downloads] · TechBlogger — June 4, 2009 @ 23:44
aww can you support smart playlists? they need lots of love too.
Comment by ajs — June 4, 2009 @ 23:49
[...] The player allows you to pick any playlist you’ve created in iTunes from a drop-down menu, has the standard play, pause, and track skipping, and offers shuffle functionality. That’s it. It’s trim, but if you don’t need the full iTunes functionality eating up precious resources, it’s a nice little player. PicoPlay is a free download, Mac OS X only. PicoPlay [via Mike Kronenberg] [...]
Pingback by PicoPlay Is a Lightweight, Minimalist Audio Player [Downloads] @ NerdNewz.Net — June 5, 2009 @ 00:21
[...] The player allows you to pick any playlist you’ve created in iTunes from a drop-down menu, has the standard play, pause, and track skipping, and offers shuffle functionality. That’s it. It’s trim, but if you don’t need the full iTunes functionality eating up precious resources, it’s a nice little player. PicoPlay is a free download, Mac OS X only. PicoPlay [via Mike Kronenberg] [...]
Pingback by free PicoPlay Is a Lightweight, Minimalist Audio Player [Downloads] | 82123 — June 5, 2009 @ 00:58
[...] a nice little player. PicoPlay is a free download, Mac OS X only. PicoPlay [via Mike Kronenberg] Share and [...]
Pingback by Mash123 » PicoPlay Is a Lightweight, Minimalist Audio Player — June 5, 2009 @ 01:58
Wonderful Job,
Saw this on [url=http://lifehacker.com/5279253/picoplay-is-a-lightweight-minimalist-audio-player]Lifehackers[/url] and decided to check it out. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. As you say above, it’s clean, crisp and simple. Which I like.
What I’d like to see though, it the ability to add this to the Menu Bar, I’d rather have it there than have it in the dock. Aside from that, it’s a nice twist on the iTunes.
~ Matthew Ruiz
Comment by Matthew Ruiz — June 5, 2009 @ 02:04
PicoPlay crashes while trying to access internet radio stations from my playlists. Do I need to tweak something?
Comment by Tom Smith — June 5, 2009 @ 02:57
Congrats, I love it!
I am using it right now!!
Thanks for this app!! =P
Comment by Daniel Andrade — June 5, 2009 @ 04:58
[...] The player allows you to pick any playlist you’ve created in iTunes from a drop-down menu, has the standard play, pause, and track skipping, and offers shuffle functionality. That’s it. It’s trim, but if you don’t need the full iTunes functionality eating up precious resources, it’s a nice little player. PicoPlay is a free download, Mac OS X only. PicoPlay [via Mike Kronenberg] [...]
Pingback by PicoPlay Is a Lightweight, Minimalist Audio Player [Downloads] « Coolbeans — June 5, 2009 @ 11:42
@ajs
Smart playlists are a little bit harder. The thing I want to add is spotlight- support maybe I can duplicate certain smart playlist with this feature.
@Matthew Ruiz
Think I will add Statusbar support. I already made it the height of the Titlebar, so it does not shadow window content… but with the Safari 4 beta it covers the tabs.
@Tom Smith
Looking into streaming now.
Txs for all the feedback & enjoy
Mike
Comment by mike — June 5, 2009 @ 15:36
The two features I’d most love would be global hotkey support and growl support.
At the very least, rather than implementing global hotkey support, add applescript support. That way I can make my own hotkeys with Spark. Plus, assuming iTunes-like support for current track/album polling, it could work with Growl.
Also, seconding menu bar support. That’d be grand, especially with global hotkeys.
Great app already. Thanks much for making this.
Comment by Flyne — June 6, 2009 @ 02:36
Nice beta. Some warts:
1. App automatically starts playback when opened. Bad Idea, especially when you have headphones on and system volume on max. Needs fade-in
2. // for shuffle, — for no ordered playback. Needs some onmouseover?
3. No indication of PicoPlay’s output level. Needs some onmouseover?
Comment by Ujin — June 6, 2009 @ 05:27
[...] The player allows you to pick any playlist you’ve created in iTunes from a drop-down menu, has the standard play, pause, and track skipping, and offers shuffle functionality. That’s it. It’s trim, but if you don’t need the full iTunes functionality eating up precious resources, it’s a nice little player. PicoPlay is a free download, Mac OS X only. PicoPlay [via Mike Kronenberg] [...]
Pingback by PicoPlay Is a Lightweight, Minimalist Audio Player [Downloads] | Misr IT Reader — June 6, 2009 @ 06:10
Lovely app. Just one kvetch: play/pause doesn’t toggle. If I pause during a track, the only way to restart is selecting either previous or next track.
Add another vote for an Add to Menu Bar option.
Thanks!
SJ
Comment by Simon Jowett — June 6, 2009 @ 11:08
I agree with the others. Lovely app, just needs global hotkey, fade in on startup and add to menu bar option.
Just like Simon said, play button does not resume from a pause.
Thanks,
sc8tty
Comment by sc8tty — June 9, 2009 @ 22:56
Mike..
Please take a moment and see if you could offer any advice?
June 04th I downloaded ” Pico Play Music Player” http://www.kronenberg.org/picoplay/
I learned of your download from the Lifehacker article:
http://lifehacker.com/5279253/picoplay-is-a-lightweight-minimalist-audio-player
It has worked well until today June 10 when I pulled up iTunes to sync my nano ipod – my entire iTunes library, playlists, all gone..
It’s now like a blank new empty iTunes – I had iTunes 8.0..
Is this something you have had happen fromm anyone?
Any help would be appreciated thanks..
Matt
Comment by matt — June 11, 2009 @ 07:44
This is awesome, just the cure for my sluggish G4 i’m squeezing the last bits of life out of.
It’s just about perfect as is, consider an additional vote for global hot key and/or Applescript. I’m a spark user too, and I love being able to have a hot key for itunes to play/pause & next
Comment by Jason Rodrigues — June 12, 2009 @ 16:45
Hi Matt,
iTunes stores it’s files in two libraries: “iTunes Music Library.xml” and “iTunes Library”.
iTunes itself lives on “iTunes Library”, which is a binary database. “iTunes Music Library.xml” is just a copy in human readable form. It’s intended for iLife apps and other apps like PicoPlay that want to access iTunes files.
PicoPlay just reads out “iTunes Music Library.xml”. Then uses the audio files directly, so no working on the main Itunes database.
Guess that something else broke your iTunes lib. A pretty common case is that the library was moved outside the default path, and some app creates a fake library in the default path.
Mike
Comment by mike — June 12, 2009 @ 21:28
Hey Mike,
Thank you, for this great little app. Sits nicely next to my dock in the bottom of the screen
However, for almost all my tracks it shows “Unknown” instead of the artist and track title. I can’t see any patterns there.. you might wanna look into that. Also the “Play previous track” button, doesn’t seem to work properly. Most of the times it just restarts the current track.
I’m using iTunes 8.2 and PicoPlay 1.1.0
If you want other info about my system, let me know.
Comment by Anders — June 17, 2009 @ 08:56
[...] The player allows you to pick any playlist you’ve created in iTunes from a drop-down menu, has the standard play, pause, and track skipping, and offers shuffle functionality. That’s it. It’s trim, but if you don’t need the full iTunes functionality eating up precious resources, it’s a nice little player. PicoPlay is a free download, Mac OS X only. PicoPlay [via Mike Kronenberg] [...]
Pingback by PicoPlay Is a Lightweight, Minimalist Audio Player [Downloads] | Techno Portal — July 19, 2009 @ 23:51