[tweetmeme]In a market overflowing with iTunes controllers, developers have now taken to making iTunes alternatives. iTunes alternatives are music players with a tiny memory footprint, minimal interface tailor cut to playing music, tapping into the iTunes database for song info. Actually I’ve pretty much described Ecoute by PixiApps, which I got my blessings in a glowing review. However choice and diversity is good, and here’s another iTunes alternative Everplay by Snarb, made by the same developers who brought us CoverStream, an iTunes controller.

Everplay is in many ways like Ecoute. It’s small both in size and memory usage, and comes with all the features that Ecoute has. While Ecoute was driven by the list view style on the iPhone, Everplay is the iPhone turned sideways—Coverflow. Which is not surprising considering Snarb’s other app CoverStream is pretty much all about Coverflow. So you flip through covers, double click the cover to load up the track lists on the side, and hit play to, well, play.

Everyplay does 1up Ecoute in certain areas. It’s got a Last.fm radio feature, which not only scrobbles your tracks, but can also tune into radio stations. There’s a whole lot of this ‘social music’ stuff that I personally can’t quite wrap my head around.

Everplay comes with one brilliant feature which I totally love. It’s called the Jukebox mode. You’re playing a song, and when that song ends, you want it to play another song of your choice, and another, and so on. Just keep double clicking tracks and they get added to the queue. A jukebox scene is possible with iTunes, but you have to consciously start playing a song from within a playlist, or you have to start over again.

I do have one big bone to pick with the app. And that’s the user interface. I’ve been told it’s been designed by Laurent Baumann, and while Baumann’s pixel work is generally pleasing, navigation is a pain. Coverflow is not a good user interface for primary interaction. It’s just there to pretty things up. With Everplay, you’re basically looking at everything in Coverflow save for the track names. Push it to fullscreen, and you’re faced with Coverflow madness again.

Everplay comes with a trial version and $20 thereafter. If Last.fm integration is what you’re looking for, I’d suggest SweetFM, which not only is a more focussed application, it’s also free. And if it’s an iTunes alternative you’re looking for, Ecoute is better, and cheaper at just $10. Lastly, iTunes since version 9.0.2 has been behaving quite nicely for me, so I use Ecoute only when I need all the memory I can get.