Songbird 0.2 released

Filed under: Audio, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Mozilla, Open Source

Songbird 0.2 released

by Jordan Running Oct 20th 2006

We've been keeping a close eye on Songbird since its debut, and the open source Mozilla-based music player has proved somewhat of an enigma. Everyone agrees that the concept behind Songbird is really awesome, but so far it has seemed kind of like a rough sketch of a music player. But with Songbird 0.2, which was released on Wednesday, I'm happy to report that Songbird is actually starting to look like a beta, or at least late alpha, of a music player. Now, let's not get ahead of ourselves--Songbird still isn't ready for prime time. For one thing, it's an incredible memory hog, it still has plenty of bug, and some features are missing. But it is usable--if you have lots of memory to spare, that is--and some of that great vision that thrilled us when we first heard about Songbird is starting to shine through. The way Songbird integrates the web into your music experience is phenomenal. I just love surfing to a music blog and seeing all of the MP3s it offers pop up in the bottom pane with the option to listen, download, add to my library, or subscribe to its feed. I was also impressed with how fast it imported my tracks and playlists from iTunes, though our own Amber Rhea had some trouble with this feature in a pre-release version a few weeks back. It also has a Watched Folders feature that makes it automagically import new media as it appears in particular folders, which if I'm not mistaken is a much-beloved feature of Windows Media Player. I'm particularly excited to see that Songbird is now actively supporting extensions a la Firefox add-ons and already has a few under its belt (wing?), including Audioscrobbler (Last.fm), Wikipedia, and Shoutcast extensions.

I almost certainly won't be using Songbird 0.2 as my full-time music player right now, but while my interest in Songbird was waning before this release, it has just made a full recovery and I have a feeling that when Songbird 1.0 makes its appearance, it just might end up staying on my desktop for a good long while. If you want to try it out for yourself, hit Songbird's download page where you can get it for Windows, Mac, or Linux, or check out the release notes. If you just want to take a closer look, take a peek after the jump for a pretty screencast (courtesy of the Songbird web site) and some screenshots of Songbird in action.

Songbird in Action (hi-res version)

Songbird setup
Setup screen

iTunes import

The Welcome screen

Surfing music blogs

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Steven said 3:02PM on 10-20-2006

They need to change the layout. Ripping of iTunes' layout 99% is not a good idea.

Bob Jones said 3:44PM on 10-20-2006

Its based on Firefox, you gotta expect it to be a memory hog.

Danny said 3:53PM on 10-20-2006

I am getting about 1/5 of the memory usage with songbird compared to itunes 7.

Fox Mulder said 11:11AM on 10-22-2006

I was kind of looking forward to 1.0 myself. Recognizing the snails pace at which development is proceeding, that should be somewhere around the tricentennial. I agree that it looks like a neat capability but I am concerned that if the development is proceeding this slow (what has it been two years now?) then improvements and fixes will be similarly slow. Since I tried it first, I have been spending most of my time running Linux and using Amarok as my player/manager. Most of the features touted in the article are already available in Amarok. I am a Firefox user (on 2.0 now with Kubuntu Edgy) so I am interested in a player that is built on FF. I will probably wait until they get to 1.0 and compare with the state of Amarok at that time. I am not optimistic that will be soon, but we shall see. Don't get me wrong, I am not dumping on their development team and I applaud there efforts, but it seems that the code delivery to hype ratio is a bit out of balance. For windows I primarily use XMPLay and Quintessential. Both are awesome and I have been able to run XMP under Linux using Wine. Don't know about QCD/QMP. Thanks for a good article.

nawcom said 7:08PM on 10-29-2006

About the layout...
RTFA - http://www.ipodnn.com/articles/06/09/01/itunes.lawsuit.settled/

there was already a suit over the itunes layout, where apple were the ones being sued. They came up with a "confidential agreement" which closed the case. this usually means the defendant paid a nice chunk of change to the plaintiff. If apple was able to get the case dismissed, there would of been no secrets and it would of openly made the papers.

So to all apple whores, now you know why apple isnt suing the developers of songbird; they don't own the layout design at all.

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