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With an array of new features and major improvements under the hood Songbird has finally become a worthy iTunes replacement.
Version 1.1 of Songbird — a free, open source media player built on the same technologies underlying the Firefox web browser — includes bug fixes and many requested new features, like support for watched
folders, automatic album art downloads and an integrated store feature (courtesy of 7digital, which unfortunately isn’t the most comprehensive online music store).
But the best news is the huge
performances gains, which reduce memory use with a large library by
40 percent. CPU usage is also down in this release. In my testing Songbird 1.1 proved much faster than its
predecessors — on par with and often surpassing that of iTunes and
Amarok.
That isn’t to say that Songbird is blazing fast with a large
library (mine weighs in at about 200GB). The new version is a remarkable
improvement, but there’s still room to do more on the performance end.
And the closing of the gap may not last terribly long: Apple is said to be on the verge of releasing version 8.1 of iTunes which, TUAW reports, “is said to have significant speed improvements for dealing with large
libraries ….”
Also worth noting is a new protocol handler (songbird://), which means other apps can easily open audio files in Songbird. For instance, an enterprising Lifehacker reader created this handy bookmarklet for your browser to send a URL to Songbird:
javascript:document.location="songbird:open?url="+escape(document.location);
Just make a bookmark out of that URL and next time you’re browsing
the web and find an audio file you want to add to your library, just
hit the bookmark and Songbird will take care of the rest.
Of course there are still some shortcomings to Songbird. The two
biggest missing features are support for the iPhone/iPod Touch and
support for Podcast feeds. If either of those are must-haves for you,
then Songbird in its current form is not the jukebox software you want.
But for the rest of us Songbird makes a very capable iTunes
replacement and thanks to its myriad of plugins, like Firefox, Songbird
is capable of just about anything you’d like it do.
See Also:
- New App Helps Songbird Rock the iPhone
- Songbird Plays the Musical Web - Webmonkey
- Why Songbird Will Change Your Life
- Songbird 1DOT0 Poised to Rule the Jukebox Roost - Webmonkey
Source: Scott Gilbertson
