There is a possibility to get x-Tunes working on an Intel Mac, though the preference pane won't work anymore.

Simply control-double click the preference pane "X-Tunes.prefPane" (Show Package Content) and navigate to 'Contents/Resources/X-Tunes Daemon.app'. The application "X-Tunes Daemon.app" is the core application of X-Tunes and runs fine even on an Intel Mac. To have it opened automatically simply drag and drop it to your Login Items (Menu command: System Preferences... -> Accounts -> Login Items".

Anything else like the help etc. needs of course also to be accessed the same way (control-double click the preference pane "X-Tunes.prefPane" - Show Package Content, 'X-Tunes.prefPane/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/Help.rtf').

To avoid inadvertent opening of the preference pane, simply don't keep "X-Tunes.prefPane" in the usual location, i.e. '~/Library/PreferencePanes'.

Customizing preferences is of course the most tricky part and requires to edit '~/Library/Preferences/X-Tunes Preferences.plist'. I don't have the time to go into that and alternatively suggest to stick to the default preferences and then to make sure that no other system preference is stealing away the main trigger for X-Tunes, i.e. Command-Space_Bar. Check it out that this is not the case by menu command "System Preferences... -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Keyboard Shortcuts". Uncheck any application such as Apple's "Input Menu", which steals away the default shortcut of X-Tunes.

This should do to bring back to live one of the niftiest little tools to control music listening.

Andreas Fischlin