Songbird
I have a love-hate relationship with iTunes. It really is the most effective, robust music player out there, but I hate that it’s so ubiquitous. Everybody uses it. Everybody’s got an iPod. Well I have much more midwestern stubborness than Apple could penetrate and I want something different.
It seems that my prayers have been (or are being) answered.
The good folks over at DAPReview.net, a great resource, by the way, for digital audio player news, clued me into what they termed the “iTunes killer”: Songbird. Others have called it merely black iTunes, but I have high hopes for this little beast. It’s currently being beta-tested, but you can download the Proof-of-Concept version now.
What appeals to me about this player, besides its not being iTunes, is that you can open any webpage in Songbird and the player will find all available mp3s on a page a
nd give you the chance to play, download, or add them to your playlist immediately. I tried it out last night opening WithoutSound in Songbird and plucked the two Tapes singles Seamus posted a few days ago. It was pretty cool. However, I also tried opening Team-Love’s website to download some of those Jenny Lewis tracks, but Songbird couldn’t find any mp3s. This has more to do with the way Team-Love has scripted the page, though.
So there are some bugs to pick out of Songbird’s feathers, but it’s to be expected with a beta version. Songbird is open-source, based on Mozilla (like Firefox), so expect a wealth of improvements. Also, Songbird plays almost any audio format, including Ogg Vorbis and FLAC. Whoo-hoo! If you find the time to download and test-drive the player, let us know what you think.
