There is a new iTunes replacement in town – Songbird.
I have written a few times before about iTunes replacements and Floola seems to be a good one, but Songbird looks like it will blow it out of the water. They have a video of it in use on their front page, very slick. The program is way to much for my needs but I am sure lots will love it. You can use an iPod, USB device, play tracks from the iTunes Store and Yahoo! Unlimited. And , of course, it it cross platform so Linux (eJabs 🙂 ), Mac (Coach 🙂 ) and PC ( the rest of us 🙂 ) lovers can use it
They say “Songbird is a desktop Web player, a digital jukebox and Web browser mash-up. Like Winamp, it supports extensions and skins feathers. Like Firefox, it is built from Mozilla, cross-platform and open source.” The team behind it are the ones that did the great player WinAmp.
Check it out. BTW, if you are after a job they need a few people.
goldcoaster 
Wow… I was using this pesky pigeon when it first came out… For some reason I can remember a bike with some weird contraption on it…
This project has been around for a long while and is part of a little group, the other media player plays video streams from the internet, mainly for video podcasts. Can’t remember the name of it.
Songbird is only cool if you like surfing the net for free music, other wise it’s a bit too cluttered.
lol…
Thanks for the link GC (however, it didn’t show up on my WordPress Dashboard, I only came across it by visiting your site…weird).
Anyway, I’ll have to check this out because I’ve had a lot of friends complain about iTunes software. Personally (don’t stone me) I don’t have an iPod!
There I said it okay…I don’t have an iPod~!!!!~~!!~
😉
Looks good GC although I am pretty much sold on mediamonkey. It handles large collections really well. I’ll definately check this one out though – can’t resist new software.
I’d like to add my personal choice of music management application to the list. Helium Music Manager is what I use to manage and play my files. Used it for years.
helium-music-manager
Thanks George – Helium isn’t free though is it. Foola is quick, free, doesn’t need an install.
You might as well use iTunes than helium.
I don’t see why you call Songbird an iTunes replacement. It’s a Windows Media Player replacement.
The sole purpose of iTunes is to transfer music to an iPod. Anybody who uses clunky, resource-hogging, counterintuitive iTunes for any other purpose needs his head read. Songbird can’t see an iPod and doesn’t seem to think that’s important. And to its developers maybe that isn’t important. But it is the only reason to use Apple’s horrid application. A replacement needs to do that better. Which should not be difficult. It could hardly be done worse.
Paul Keating, thanks for the great comment. I actually haven’t used Songbird as an iTunes replacement for a long while.
It is not just a windows media manager as it is available for Linux and Mac as well.
When I tried it I could use it with my iPod – and looking on their site this iTunes replacement can still connect to iPods but not the touch screen ones. Just look for the plugins that Songbird write and you will find it- it was updated 4 days ago so it is still valid.
I must agree iTunes is terrible and almost anything is better – especially for windows users. Sometimes I think Apple does it on purpose. I have heard 8.1 iTunes is much faster than 8.0 but I haven’t updated. Itunes just gets bigger and bigger and isn’t just music anymore, they have added just too much and gone over the top.
Hey everyone!
Thanks for the heads-up. Songbird looks nice, I’ll give it a try (mostly because of the add-ons) although I always get tired of them … it’s like firefox, I have so many things added to it I can’t even remember why 🙂
Anyway, not sure it will make me change from CopyTrans Manager but who knows … it’s just hard to do better then those guys when it comes to simplicity and speed…
Pete
I actually was not at all looking for this kind of news but thought I could should say thanks…
… Ok back to what I was up to now -> me goes find a review of the new Terminator movie 🙂
See you
Yeah, Pete, Songbird does look and work pretty good as an itunes replacement but I still think the best itunes replacement is Foola.
Forgot to add, you wont find a good review for the terminator movie. Look at http://www.7milesdown.com/2009/05/25/terminator-salvation-theaters/ for a great review.