iTunes vs 'The Firefox of Media Players'

Don't know if this is wide knowledge yet but there's a new program touted as the Firefox of Media Players called Songbird....

It's probably got it's perks i'm sure...

Take a look at this site: http://www.songbirdnest.com/roblord/blog/songbird_vs_itunes
and you can see it's drastically similar to that of iTunes. They go on to defend it's looks by comparing it to Web Browsers that all look the same, they're just improving on iTunes low points. That's all good and fine that they take a layout for an entire player and just tweak it but then they have the audacity to say that if someone was to copy or tweak they're idea it would be cheating.... Sounds a little hypocritical to me....

One minute it's.... "Songbird's UI and VisDe draw upon iTunes' strengths and fix its many wayward missteps. iTunes 6 arguably remains superior to its current peers but is a gathering menance long overdue for refactoring."

The next minute it's.... "We're confident that Apple and other media player developers are going to recognize — and "steal" — Songbird's User Experience Design innovations. Catch us if you can. "

Thought it was pretty funny.

Sorry but iTunes rules. Apple is often the innovator, rarely the immitator.

Bottom line. It doesn't look as good as iTunes. What people seem to no understand is the fact that what's so great about iTunes is it's complete intergration with the iPod and Mac. It's not just a music jukebox. No other program can match that.

I'm looking into Songbird because my new MP3 player probably won't be an iPod. (For a variety of reasons I'll probably be buying a Meizu M6) Since iTunes refuses to play nicely with any player but iPod I won't have a choice but to switch. However I've yet to figure out if Songbird uses the right playlist file format (M3U) for the Meizu.

tandaina said:

Since iTunes refuses to play nicely with any player but iPod I won't have a choice but to switch.

Click to expand...

That's not completely true. I know some of the Rio players still work. My now ancient Rio 600 still works in the latest version of iTunes even.

EDIT: I downloaded Songbird to have a look at the "hype".

1) If the splash and instal screen are what the GUI looks like, it's hideous.

2) It constantly crashed when trying to read my iTunes library.

3) Nuff said.