BoxyTunes is a $2 App which puts Google’s Music Beta service to shame.
If you’re wondering just what is the point of Google’s Music Beta service, which lets you store all your music in “the cloud” and then stream it to any device, then you may want to take a look at BoxyTunes instead. It is arguably what Music Beta should have been, and it is also a native iOS app.
BoxyTunes does one thing: plays music that you have stored in your DropBox folder. But like DropBox itself, this simplicity — along with a great implementation — is its strength. But first, why does Google Music suck?
Google’s Music Beta lets you take all the music you already own, slowly upload it to Google’s severs over days, weeks or months depending on your connection’s up speed, and then stream it whenever you’re connected to the internet. If it seems easier to just press play on your Android phone or your iPod, then that’s because it probably is.
BoxyTunes also requires an upload, but as it uses DropBox, this may not take so long. That’s because DropBox will create an MD5 hash of every file you upload, and if it is already on DropBox’s servers, it doesn’t bother with the upload itself. It just points your storage at its existing copy. Also, other people can upload things to your DropBox, which means you could listen to a friend’s music in BoxyTunes.
Thirdly, because DropBox acts just like any other folder on your computer, you don’t need to do any weird uploading. You could point your DropBox at your music folder, and whenever you add new music to iTunes, it will be mirrored in the cloud.
BoxyTunes plays MP3, M4A, WAV, AIFF, MP4, CAF and AAC files. That is, anything supported by iOS. It also works with Airplay, displays cover art, lets you skip and scrub and also jump 30 seconds back in a track. This last hints at a neat use for BoxyTunes. If you link your iTunes podcast folder with your DropBox, you will have instant access to your new podcasts as soon as they are downloaded to your computer.
Finally, BoxyTunes will let you arrange playlists, and will play in the background, and downloads tracks for offline listening. Who even needs the iPod app any more?
BoxyTunes costs $2 and requires a free DropBox account.
BoxyTunes app page [iTunes]
