Move over iTunes - Mozilla’s Songbird is Here

[Cyrus_the_virus]

By Mark O’Neill


As a big fan of Firefox, I am always interested in any other projects that Mozilla might be dabbling in. Yesterday I began testing Songbird which is Mozilla’s open-source version of Apple’s iTunes [FONT=Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]music [/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]player[/FONT][/FONT]

*www.makeuseof.com/images/songbird-music-player.gif

Songbird has the same basic design as iTunes but it’s black (default skin) and with added functionality. As with iTunes, you can import your music, subscribe to podcasts, create playlists, rate each song, synchronise your playlists with your computer files and so on.

But let’s take a look at what makes Songbird different from iTunes.
First, as with Firefox, you can download extensions to make Songbird look and act the way you want it. In fact, this is Songbird’s biggest advantage as far as I can see - the open-source platform. I’ve still to delve deeper into the lengthy extensions list but right off the bat, I downloaded an extension that displays the Wikipedia page for the band you are playing, as well as extensions for iPod support, and the ability to play protected Windows Media files and Quicktime files. The extensions box is virtually identical in design to the Firefox version :

*www.makeuseof.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/songbirdoptions.png

Secondly, again taking a leaf out of Firefox’s book, you can have tabs open up for web browsing within Songbird so in theory, you could look at your favourite webpages while playing songs (particularly useful if you need to [FONT=Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]search[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]online[/FONT][/FONT] for lyrics while a song is playing, for example).

Third, you have a choice of three music stores which gives you the chance to download new music. But what makes this different from iTunes is that here, you can choose between iTunes, Amazon’s MP3 store and eMusic. So you are not limited to one file format.

*www.makeuseof.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/songbirdmusicdownload.png
Fourth, and this is a neat one - you can shrink it to a basic version!
*www.makeuseof.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/songbirdmini.png

Other features include:

• Play Anything : MP3, AAC, OGG, FLAC, WMA, and more.
• Multi-lingual: Comes in 39 languages.
• Integrated Web Search
• Style with Different visual skins
• Runs on Mac, Linux and Windows.
• Play the Web
• Play web pages as playlists and view any web page as a playlist.

One problem I have found is that you cannot run [FONT=Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Tunes [/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]music[/FONT][/FONT] files on both iTunes and Songbird at the same time. So if you want to run iTunes music on Songbird, you must first de-authorize and uninstall iTunes from your computer. This is the hated DRM copy protection at work, not the fault of Songbird.

Just to be clear, Songbird is not yet at the stage where it can be called an “iTunes killer” (the project is still very much in beta development) but it’s looking extremely good so far. As I’ve said, its biggest strength is in throwing open the source code and inviting developers to make new features and improve existing ones. Can you imagine Apple doing that with iTunes? I don’t think so!

Source: Here

 

[skeletor]

It is looking damn awesome. Here is the main website: *www.songbirdnest.com/

 

[gary4gar]

ITs the firefox of media players
simple awesome!
so how stable it is now?
whats its memory footprint?

 

[drgrudge]

Looks good - these Mozilla people are great developers and web designers. All I remember is the FX - Campus Edition, nothing but 3 extra extensions added. It came with a cool icon/badge and kiddos loved it. Their site is very very well designed. I love their sites, if not the products.


I'm not sure why people want to use iTunes and like it also? Unless you got an iPod around, iTunes is not for you in Windows. I keep hearing that iTunes/Safari in Windows is not the same as in Mac where it's completely integrated and works fine. I used to miss Foobar but now I'm slowly liking iTunes.


Personally I don't see it any innovative and it might meet the same fate as Thunderbird.


Nevertheless it's good to have choices.

 

[Cyrus_the_virus]

It's still a developer edition. More than anything else, what this is going to bring to linux is a media management software which is lacking at the moment. There are lot of players out there at the moment, but none with so much media management capabilities for linux as well

 

[drgrudge]

^^
Ahh...very well then. I didn't think of *nix. In windows also, I'm not sure about other music management softies other than iTunes in Windows.

How you guys manage iPods in *nix? I thought it needs iTunes to do stuffs...

 

[Faun]

yup installed it a long ago, it was lacking extensions support back then

 

[RCuber]

Looks better then the last time I saw it. But to play my purchased music I need to deauthorize and uninstall iTunes? .. strange. Also Not much details about M4P and M4V protected formats. It will be a good player but sot sure this will be a hit with people who have already purchased thousands of dollors worth of music and videos via iTunes store. I guess it plays only iTunes Plus music which is DRM free.

I have about $100 worth music and videos bought on iTunes.. I wont be using songbird till it plays my purchased music and videos.

 

[The_Devil_Himself]

How you guys manage iPods in *nix? I thought it needs iTunes to do stuffs...

there are millions of softy's and plug-ins for managing iPods but none for zune(yet).

 

[it_waaznt_me]

Boy it looks more bloated than WMP ..

 

[amitava82]

Been keeping a tab on it since 0.2.5 beta... Posted here once too.
Get the iTune Cover Flow extension too from here

 

[Hitboxx]

Yup, been using it for sometime now and am quite satisfied actually.

*www.imgx.org/pfiles/5167/Screenshot-%20Dazed%20And%20Confused%20-%20Led%20Zeppelin%20%5B1%3A22%20%5D.png

Edit: Oh, in case you're wondering about two pause buttons, its not Songbird. This is a skin issue which the author might have rectified now, haven't checked in. He mistakenly used the same image for both the functions.

 

[koolbluez]

The guyz r goin the Google way... but.... FREE...

 

[MetalheadGautham]

one year old news ? No better job ? This is still in alpha state, meaning that there are no performance tweaks implemented and feature requests are still being handled, like ignoring the word "The", "A", etc from song name when sorting in alphabetical order, importing profiles, etc. Don't touch it unless you are a beta fan like praka123(he runs debian sid).

and yes, this also uses the GStreamer and VLC backend for playback. The engine architecture has not yet been completely implemented, nor has file format recoganisation, and the win32 plugin input support. There is lots to be done on this baby, so don't cry if you don't like it.

 

[r2d2]

check out the mashTape plugin, really cool!

 

[ray|raven]

It's still a developer edition. More than anything else, what this is going to bring to linux is a media management software which is lacking at the moment. There are lot of players out there at the moment, but none with so much media management capabilities for linux as well

Dude, did u try Amarok ?
Its got the best media management IMO.
Can you view your library and playlist at the same time in Songbird or iTunes?
Heck if you want the same look and feel as iTunes go for Rhythmbox.
It manages files same way iTunes does.
What media management feature are you missing anyway?

Regards,
ray

 

[abhinandh]

^+1
amarok rocks.it completely changed the way i listen to music.
loads of useful features.
thats one of main reason i abandoned windows.

 

[Cyrus_the_virus]

one year old news ? No better job ?

The software itself is old allright, but the reason I posted it was because they had recentrly released the new 0.4Alpha.

Dude, did u try Amarok ?
Its got the best media management IMO.
Can you view your library and playlist at the same time in Songbird or iTunes?
Heck if you want the same look and feel as iTunes go for Rhythmbox.
It manages files same way iTunes does.
What media management feature are you missing anyway?

No one is complaining about amarok, what I meant was, this could be something similar for those winboys who have been cribbing about no software for media management and not finding amarok attractive. For those who know me here know what I'm talking about, just search around in the open source section and you'll find many threads about media management software questions. Everyone knows amarok ROKS! But try telling that to the win and mac addicts/converts

 

[hellknight]

Downloaded it! Looks awsome, but it is highly unstable, I'm eagerly awaiting for the stable release!! Also check out atunes

 

[ThinkFree]

Thanks for the news