It’s been a while since I did an Appdate, but here is number 11.

Today’s pick is called NicePlayer and it is as they say themselves “Quite simply, the nicest media player for Mac”. In the backend NicePlayer uses Quicktime and all available components to playback media, but in the frontend there is a major difference.

The frontend look is very fresh and exactly what I needed. First of, the entire app can be made to “float on top” which is a major issue if you like to watch video on your 13-inch MacBook while doing some other work. Quicktime doesn’t support this and that has bugged the hell out of me for years.

But even then, if you manage to get Quicktime to float on top with some third party plugin, you’re still stuck with that bulky Quicktime interface. The NicePlayer interface though, is border-less, buttonless, and therefore only uses the minimal screen estate needed for playback. The look is a lot like those embedabble flash players you find on video sites like Vimeo, but instead it is an actual desktop app.

NicePlayer is open source, free as in beer, and only 2.8mb to download. And with joy I can say that it is my new default media player.