My favorite cross-platform music manager Songbird is now on its 1.0 release!! I’ve written about Songbird before and it is fantastic to report that finally the first full release is available.
Why do I like Songbird so much?
- it is open source;
- cross-platform (Linux, Windows, MacOS X)
- built on top of the same framework as Firefox, it allows me to navigate through other websites and easily get songs that are embedded in these websites;
- also inheriting from Firefox is the ability to have add-ons so its functionality can be greatly expanded.
Using GStreamer for playback means that Songbird can easily play several music formats, and do it well. Also improved for the 1.0 release is the performance (using much less system resources), faster to startup, some cool add-ons that come bundled with the software, a nice way of handling iTunes library migration, and more.
The UI looks very much like iTunes but you can easily change that by picking another theme (what Songbird calls feathers), or change the layout of some modules.
Now listening to music has become a richer experience with a logical integration between your songs and the entire web.