21st December 2022
After over a year of development, we're so excited to announce the launch of the second major version of Sleeve, our super customizable "Now Playing" desktop accessory for macOS.
Since we released the original version of Sleeve back in May 2021, we've seen several thousand downloads, hundreds of emails with requests and feedback, and been featured in publications including 9to5mac, cultofmac and more.
Sleeve 2 builds on everything you love about Sleeve with a host of new features and more options than ever before for customization —
Let's dig in to the fun stuff.
From day one we heard that you loved the customization and flexibility in Sleeve, allowing you to create all sorts of styles for your desktop.
In Sleeve 2, we're introducing Themes to make personalizing and customizing even easier. To kick start your creativity there are 7 built-in themes that ship with Sleeve, all of which can be used as a base for creating your own customizations.
As you build your theme, you'll get instant feedback in the new Preview pane, where you can also toggle environmental settings to see how things will look with Dark Mode enabled, or when hovering over the artwork.
Once you've created your perfect theme, you can export it as a file that can be shared with any other Sleeve users. Themes also now sync automatically via iCloud, so you can use the same theme across multiple Macs.
With all the new customization options introduced in Sleeve 2, and the existing interface struggling to fit everything, we set out to redesign the Settings window from the beginning.
We've obsessed over the new interface to ensure it scales with Sleeve as we add new features, and spent hours on the fit and finish to make it at home on your Mac.
At the core of the redesign is our new Settings window, featuring —
One of our most requested features, for the first time ever you can record and use custom global keyboard shortcuts to control Sleeve, along with your music playback. Instantly "Like" tracks with a simple keyboard shortcut. Use another shortcut to bring Sleeve to the front for a moment.
To work with the new keyboard shortcuts feature, we've built a new, custom HUD for instant feedback when you use your shortcuts. So now, even if your desktop is cluttered with windows and Sleeve is out of view, checking what's playing is quick, easy, and won't interrupt what you're doing.
Alongside all the major new features, there's lots more smaller ones, and nearly all of them have continually been among the most-requested from customers —
In Sleeve 2 we've also added a Spotify Web API integration that means you can (finally) "Like" tracks when using Spotify. The only requirement is a Spotify Developer account and less than a minute of setup to get going.
The big news is that for everyone that's purchased and supported Sleeve, whether it was on launch day, or just last week, Sleeve 2 is a free upgrade. "Check for Updates" in the app right now and you can upgrade straight to the latest version.
For new customers, Sleeve is also available right in the Mac App Store for the first time, and of course we'll also continue to sell directly from our website, just the same as before.
No subscriptions. No in-app purchases. Requires macOS 11 Big Sur or later.
We're super proud of this release and we can't wait to hear what you think.
Al & Hector
