Stop Googling Lyrics with Strophes
/When given the choice between a native app and a web app, I will invariably choose the former. I don't see the appeal of opening my browser, navigating to a website, and logging in instead of just tapping an icon on iOS or launching an app with Alfred in OS X. Native apps reduce friction.
Take Twitter, for example. I very rarely use twitter.com because I can launch Tweetbot in two seconds with a tap or keystroke. Logging into twitter.com is cumbersome by comparison.
However, there is one task for which I've always had to rely on my browser, and that's searching for lyrics.
I love music, so I look up lyrics on a regular basis. Fortunately, Alfred removes considerable friction from this task: ⌘ + Space to bring up Alfred, type "[name of song] lyrics", hit Enter, and boom — instant Google search.
But, I still have to wait for my browser to open, and then I have to click on one of the search results. And really, that's way to much work for 2012.
Strophes is a lyric reader for your Mac.
Why do you need this? Because it loads the lyrics automatically. That's right; no searching required.
Open Strophes, and the lyrics to whatever song is playing in iTunes, Rdio, Spotify, or Radium will automatically be displayed. Changing the song changes the lyric. You don't have to do a thing. If Strophes can't find lyrics, you can click a button to search Google instead. You can also search for lyrics within the app, and it offers Last.fm bios for the artist you're listening to.
Strophes has a few preferences, including three themes, the ability to translate lyrics into five languages, and a Safari extension you can use to display lyrics for YouTube videos. The selection of typefaces is poor (Noteworthy, Bradley Hand ITC TT, and — fortunately — Helvetica), but I'm willing to overlook it because of just how handy Strophes is.
Launching the app is faster than searching Google, and if you frequently find yourself looking up lyrics, you'll love Strophes.
See Federico Viticci's review for more.
Get Strophes for $4.99 on the Mac App Store.
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