Congratulations to the team behind Songbird, the Mozilla-based music player that hopes to be the Firefox to iTunes' Internet Explorer, for finally getting a 1.0 version out the door.
(I miss all the old logos, though. They were cute.)
Songbird music player [GetSongbird.com]
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Whew hew! I love this app and recommend it all the time to friends.
I must agree, the little blackbirds were part of its charm, and what I remembered best about the app when I tried it out.
The current logo is reminiscent of some 'Praise Him' record label. Ugh.
Bring back the birds!
I was really excited about this release. Installed it yesterday and it proceeded to eat my 80GB iPod. The player is amazing. I wish a bit more time had been spent on device support. Hopefully an update is forthcoming.
Why does open source stuff always have to be a copy? I looked at the screen shot and thought it was iTunes at first. Why go to the trouble to make an application that's supposed to not be like iTunes and then make it look as much like your competition as possible?
From their "Features" page:
Automatic Updates
Always stay up to date using Songbird's built-in automatic updates.
Iiiiiiiiiiiick. No thanks. Until that's gone, I'm outta here.
I concur with knife sp00nie (#3).
Design-wise it seems like iTunes with a flickr feed and a web browser of questionable necessity tacked on. Perhaps my view is colored by my background as a painter (excuse the pun) but the first word to spring to my mind was "forgery".
two things:
@ #4 automatic updates can be turned off, just like they can be in firefox, as Songbird is built using Mozilla.
@ #3/5 yes the default UI looks like iTunes but the fact is a) this is open source (woo yay) b) you can actually change the layout of it, and apply themes, unlike itunes which is a resource hungry hog of a beast, (well, on the PC it is).
I've been playing around with Songbird all day, after importing 100gb of mp3s and it didn't break a sweat once. The MashTape feature is nice, although i doubt i'll be using it 24/7, but what impressed me most is the community support and addons that are available to customise your Songbird UI.
My summary: give it a try, and expect good things from it going forward.
p.s. i miss kjofol :(
How does this compare with Amarok? I have Ubuntu and an iPod, so I would like syncing and so on.
No birds?! WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?!
>>How does this compare with Amarok? I have Ubuntu and an iPod, so I would like syncing and so on.
I am wondering the same. Their device page says "sync" but I wonder what that really means.
I am trying to get rid of my windows machine and itunes syncing my ipod is the last hurdle. I am tryign to use Amarok, but I don't really like it. I only use itunes for organizing my music collection for the ipod. I never listen to music on the computer. All I want is a quick sync with all my music back and forth and smart playlists. Amarok can't do that it seems, atleast not without much hassle.
I will give songbird a try tonight.
I'd like a simple page on the site that calls out which portable (or types of) devices it's compatible with. I don't want to install yet another media suite that doesn't work with my iPhone.
I love my iPhone but freaking despise iTunes. In fact, I hardly use my iPhone for music (except the Pandora app, which rules) because my Pioneer car deck lost support via USB with the 2.0 firmware, and I hate iTunes so damn much that I'd just rather not sync my music to it, since the work I have to go to to get iTunes not to jack up my library has to be quintupled across my five computers and still the damn thing wants to wipe the music and videos on the phone every time I sync from a different one of those computers unless I go around copying iTunes db files from one PC to another. Not to mention the lack of Linux support. Balls I say!
I'm tired of RythmBox and Amarok - starting a music app should not render your system unresponsive for several seconds, especially not a quad core system with plenty of ram that is doing nothing much else.
So I'm giving this a try straight away.
Still no "Watch Folders" functionality. Hope you don't want to add music to your collection after the initial scan - otherwise you have to rescan your entire collection each time
knifie_sp00nie is right. Whether or not the UI can be themed/skinned/whatever, this just screams MeToo-nes.
The extra giggles come from all the Linux users who will use this UI while bitching that about iTunes and in the same breath demanding support for their proprietary gadgets.
I must say the thing that most caught my eye was Girl Talk playing! For me, the interface was the only thing iTunes had going for it. I think I'll check this out.
Good choice listening to Girl Talk though. Bravo there.
I tried this out and it still sucks up 100MB of RAM, so I might as well be using iTunes on my horrid work iMac (G5, 512MB RAM). Are there any lightweight, no-library, playlist-supporting MP3 players for PPC OS X 10.4?
There used to be Macast and MacAmp and Mint Audio, but I can't even find them anymore.
@#14
Most UI are copied from others. There's a lot of overlap between Apple, Windows, and Linux. People want to see familiar things. Whatever.
I do agree with the thing about Linux users and wanting support for proprietary gadgets. That's why I bought a Cowon Media player because it plays non-proprietary formats, and shows up as an extra drive when I plug into my computer. The big problem with it is that Rhythmbox doesn't support these kind of players well (it won't let you make playlists with them, among other things), and Amarock kinda supports it, but not great. I've been using Listen Music Player, but think I'll give Songbird another try, if just for the mashtape feature.
I installed it last night on my linux box and so far all is well. It syncs easily and quickly to my 5gen Ipod, which is basically all I want. It is too much of an itunes copy for my liking. If your going to spend so much time developing something, give it your own touch.
Looks like I can now be windows free...
@17, MacAmp Lite can still be downloaded from here, and they give you a registration code, just don't expect any updates, ever.
Re the iTunes-ness of the UI:
The main reason that it's the default design is because it won't win over many converts otherwise. You need a UI that looks familiar, or you're only every going to bring over the Linux geeks.
Plus the fact that some designs just work. OpenOffice, while is some ways much better than MS Work underneath, still looks just like Word, because that's what a logical document editor looks like. Likewise, this design just works.
There are many other skins -- and skin designers are given a ridiculous amount of control, from window shape to positions of every component (we're not just talking about camouflage themes here) -- but most most of them just feel gimmicky. None of them are as intuitive to use as the regular skin.
Been using it for a couple days now and find it light years beyond the Beta's I've been using for the last year +. Birds, Shmirds: It doesn't crash (like iTunes does) and is waayyy faster than previous versions.
@ #21 - Tcah!
Word has a simply -horrible!- interface. Aspects of it are OK but it's entirely muddled. I'm constantly clicking on one side of my screen only to move my mouse all the way across to the other side in order to complete step two. The menus are a nightmare of tangles and needless submenus. And enough with the wizards! I don't need tasks broken down into such small steps.
People assume that word processors should be laid out like Word because they are used to Word - not because it's the best or most logical UI for word processing.
iTunes is popular largely because the interface is intuitive, direct, and clear. I've seen children and grandparents settle into it in moments with astounding ease. It's possible to do that with another interface - unless you are suggesting that intuitive design can only be achieved in one way.
I'm not a believer in one UI to rule them all and I doubt most people are either. Presented with something as simple and intuitive to use as iTunes people might well swap in a heartbeat. As it is, most people will look at it and, seeing little difference, will simply wonder why they should bother switching.