Saturday, 8 November 2014
The Notification Center’s Today view is the new Dashboard. It started with iOS 7 and made its way over to Yosemite. We’ve told you what widgets in iOS 8 are and how they work. It’s the same story on Yosemite.
Dashboard widgets on OS X used to be (and for some, still are) a way to integrate small web objects, scripts or windows that give on-the-fly information. With Yosemite, that responsibility is being passed on to Notification Center widgets. How can you get synced lyrics from the song you’re playing in OS X or iOS right in the Notification Center? Read on to find out.
How To Enable Widgets in iOS 8 and Yosemite
Widgets are not standalone apps. When you download and install the apps listed below, the corresponding widgets will be installed as a result.
To activate a widget, scroll to the end of the Today view in the Notification Center and tap Edit. You’ll see a green ‘+’ button beside the newly available widget. Tap it and the widget will now be live and running.
How To Get Lyrics on iOS 8 with the Default Music App
We’ve talked about MusiXmatch’s awesome FloatingLyrics plugin for Android. There’s something similar, although with limited availability for iOS 8 now. Download the app and activate the widget as stated above.
Now go to the Music app and play a song. MusiXmatch’s widget will scan the currently playing song and show the synced lyrics.
How To Get Lyrics in Yosemite with iTunes
The app we’ll be using to get lyrics in the Yosemite’s Notification Center is Lyrical. It costs $0.99 and is available on the App Store. An alternative called iTunes Lyrics Widget is available for free but it did not work for me.
The app we’re using is merely an interpreter for saved lyrics. Unlike MusiXmatch on iOS 8, it will not look for lyrics from a database online.
This means that you’ll need to embed lyrics for every single song in your iTunes library for this to work. On the flip side, it will work even when you’re not connected to the internet.
Using Singer Song Reader To Save Lyrics To iTunes
Singer Song Reader reads the current song that’s playing and lets you embed the lyrics in iTunes.
Open the app and switch between the sources from the bottom row. When you find the lyrics for the song, press the shortcut Cmd + S to save the song to iTunes.
I know what you’re thinking. What if you have thousands of songs in your library? If you’re a bit tech savvy, you can install AppleScripts to do the automation for you. The details are discussed in this Reddit thread.
There’s also a manual way to add lyrics. Right-click on any song and click Get Info. You’ll see a lyrics panel. Paste the lyrics there and hit OK to save.
Once the Lyrics for the songs are ready to go, all you need to do is enable the Notification Center widget.
Lyrical will look for embedded lyrics and display them along with basic playback controls like play/pause, next/previous, volume slider, and star rating.
How Do You Usually Check For Lyrics?
What’s your preferred way of looking up lyrics on your phone or desktop? Let us know in the comments below.
