Take the pain out of searching the iTunes Store

There’s plenty to like about the iTunes Store--it’s a one-stop shop for DRM-free music, loads of TV shows and movies, and more apps than we could ever want to use. There’s even tons of free stuff. But the thing that really irks us is the store itself, which you have to search using iTunes, a process that’s cumbersome, sluggish, and often downright infuriating. The idea behind Tunesque is to search the iTunes Store outside of iTunes, making the process far more efficient.

Tunesque’s iTunes Store results are split into neat sections, each of which has a shortcut.

The app sits in your Mac’s menu bar, although you can also activate it using a keyboard shortcut. You enter your search text in a Spotlight-like field, and a results list builds as you type. The list is clearly split into sections (songs, apps, artists, podcasts), each of which has a keyboard shortcut, letting you jump to that section using the keyboard, and then clicking the arrow keys to get to the result. Sections can be toggled in the app’s preferences if you’re not interested in certain types of media (audiobooks, for example), and you can also define which country’s store you want to search. Best of all, Tunesque scours the iTunes Store (including the iOS App Store) as well as the Mac App Store--one search utility to rule them all.

Our favorite thing is how Tunesque searches the iTunes and Mac App Stores.

The search list shows a reasonable amount of information about each displayed item--pricing, artist and publisher details, platform--and there’s also a preview option. You still need to access an item in iTunes for audio and video previews, but you’re able to access descriptions and ratings for apps and podcasts.

The bottom line. Really, our biggest criticism of Tunesque is that we can’t use it for more, and that’s no bad thing. As it is, the app’s an essential download for anyone who regularly searches the iTunes Store. You’ll quickly wonder how you ever did without it.