omPlayer: (Mac) Best Desktop Control for Pandora / Google Music

An article by chrisbellman    2 Comments

Tonight I decided to find a solution for something that’s bothered me for a long time : Pandora and Google Music feel too…cloudy. The built in media keys (pause, play, etc) don’t work. There’s no easy way to pause, skip songs, or keep track of what’s going on without switching finding my browser window and finding the tab and then pausing.

Solution:

omPlayer! ($.99) in the Mac App Store.

How It Works:

So omPlayer sits in your Mac Menu Bar after you open it. If you click the icon, you get the drop down shown below. Basically, you click “Show omPlayer Window” and then log into whatever media service you want. You can then close that mini-browser window and the music keeps playing. Hit the pause key. Paused. Hit the next track key. Bam. Keyboard shortcuts work – same as if you were using iTunes. MAGIC.

You can set up keyboard shortcuts for many of the applications functions if the default media keys aren’t enough / aren’t working for you.

This app works great for both Pandora and Google Music. Give it a try!

(Yes, I did intentionally create a Disney playlist for this review).