Slashdot Mirror
iTunes On OS X Finally Has Competition
mallumax writes "The truth is, iTunes is an average music player. Though the UI is simple and good like most Apple products, it has lagged in features compared to music players available on Linux and Windows. A feature as basic as monitoring a folder and adding the latest music files to the library is unavailable in iTunes. There are no plugins or themes. Despite the many faults, many of us continued to use iTunes because of the lack of options available. But today the wait is finally over. Not one, but two music players have become credible contenders.
Songbird: An open source music player which has been in the works for more than 2 years has finally released its 1.0 Release Candidate builds. The team behind Songbird has members who previously developed for both Winamp and the Yahoo Music Engine. It has support for extensions and themes ('feathers' in Songbird parlance).
Amarok: The undisputed champion among Linux music players is finally coming to OS X, thanks to KDE 4 being ported there. Amarok developer Leo Franchi has been able to run a Amarok on OS X natively. So we can expect a reasonably stable Amarok to hit OS X in a few months' time.
Hopefully these players will gain traction among OS X users, which will finally force Apple to either step up in terms of features or open up iTunes for extensions."
"The team behind Songbird has members who previously developed for both Winamp"
Ah, I was wondering why 'skins and themes and monitoring a folder for new music' were considered missing features. Now I know the answer.
No thanks, guys. I consider simplicity a feature in a music player, not spending 3 minutes wondering where the 'Play' button went on some new skin made to look like Batman's tool belt or something.
... pay a crap load of money for this barren an OS (which is inseparable from the hardware) while superior choices exist for free OS'es (that run on more hardware) and even Windows. Always thought apple users were status wh***s with a pathological desire to look hip to the frat boy/meaning of life empty-talk crowd with a complimentary membership of the Steve Jobs cult (while looking monumentally stupid to the technically proficient or even people with any common sense). This is just more evidence.
Starting an argument by claiming that "iTunes is an average music player," then linking to an alternative that looks like a pixel-for-pixel rip-off of said application is a very poor way to make a point. Seriously.
The only "real" advantage I see here is support for Vorbis, and even still -- the reality is that 99.99% of users do not care -- or even know what it is, for that matter.
And as for Amarok... I don't know how much "sexy" there was in there previously, but if I was willing to put up with this sort of mess, I wouldn't be using a mac in the first place. A for effort, but I think I'll stick with iTunes, thanks...
Carry on.
But found the interface chunky and slow. It uses twice the RAM of iTunes and sounds like crap (when playing the same file in both).
But then we cant sort it for you, or prevent you from using it illicitly, or suggest other things we think you should listen to (like the latest Britney single)...
Without us to show you the way, you would be forever lost, my child.
-The Man
I use it because I have to to sync my iphone, but otherwise I wouldn't let iTunes near my computer with a 20 foot pole. It runs processes all the time in the background, has like 3-4 different ones going at once. It's ridiculously bloated -- 10 times the size of winamp with 1/4th of the features (and many people would consider Winamp bloated). Its got a clunky, non-intuitive UI, isn't extensible to work with new codecs (can't make it play DivX for instance).
It's an embarrassment to Apple and flies in the face of the image they market by being the opposite of everything they say they stand for. I could rant on all day long about reasons why I can't stand it, or how I absolutely hate being forced to install quicktime with it, and being forced to use it to sync any ipod because a hard-drive mode is apparently too convenient.
Spoken like a true mac-user!
-Mac user not given useful widely used feature.
Solution? Argue that the feature obviously wasn't needed in the first place. "Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black". Why want things when you can be told what you want?
It's not their fault that developers don't think about why most of the people are using iTunes when they are trying to compete with iTunes.
I'm sure glad that they don't.
I know some people actually like iTunes but I really have problems wrapping my brain around it. One thing they tend to have in common is limited experience with good media players like Winamp and Amarok. Even Windows Media Player stomps all over iTunes in terms of usability.
And THIS is why I will not use iTunes on any machine: Because I will not destroy the entire OS by installing Quicktime. Consequently, I have never bought or regularly used an ipod. mp3 cd players are $20, and do most of what an ipod will do provided I'm not jogging or something gay and yuppie like I never do anyway.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.