Speaky MiniPlayer For Mac

Radio may slowly be going the way of the dodo, but I have a feeling it'll never be truly gone. Among its many quirks, one of the most useful is the information provided by the speaker whenever a song starts playing, which gives you useful context if you are not familiar with the track.

Sure, we can now look up any song in seconds, but what if you're busy and don't want to interrupt your workflow just to figure out what you're listening to? Well, in that case, Speaky MiniPlayer has your back.

We'll talk about the app's other features in a minute, but let's get into what makes it special — the robotic announcer. Whenever a song starts playing, a computer voice tells you the track's title, artist, and which album it's from. A desktop notification is also displayed, but you can disable that if you wish.

Since the announcement is made right at the beginning of the song, it normally doesn't cover up anything important. However, if you're skipping tracks quickly, the speaker will not be interrupted, so you will still have to listen to the whole thing even if you've already skipped the song. It's also worth noting that no alternative voices are available.

The mini-player can be moved freely across your desktop, and it comes with some basic playback controls. The window background consists of the current track's album art, which you can download by clicking the disc icon.

When the window isn't in focus, the interface becomes translucent, which is especially nice if you've also configured it to remain on top of other windows, since it will still be visible without hiding whatever is behind it.

When a song is playing, its title, artist, and album are also displayed in the main window. If you click any of these links, you will be taken to AZLyrics for the song's lyrics, and to AllMusic for the artist's info and the album's review.

Speaky MiniPlayer's standout feature—the radio speaker—is definitely not for everyone, but the app is a very capable Spotify mini-player even without these announcements. If you miss listening to classic radio stations, though, this app was practically made for you.