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Winamp Media Player To Return as a Platform-Agnostic Audio Mobile App Next Year; Desktop Application Receives an Update (techcrunch.com)
The charmingly outdated media player Winamp is being reinvented as a platform-agnostic audio mobile app that brings together all your music, podcasts, and streaming services to a single location. From a report: It's an ambitious relaunch, but the company behind it says it's still all about the millions-strong global Winamp community -- and as proof, the original desktop app is getting an official update as well. For those who don't remember: Winamp was the MP3 player of choice around the turn of the century, but went through a rocky period during Aol ownership and failed to counter the likes of iTunes and the onslaught of streaming services, and more or less crumbled over the years. The original app, last updated in 2013, still works, but to say it's long in the tooth would be something of an understatement (the community has worked hard to keep it updated, however). So it's with pleasure that I can confirm rumors that substantial updates are on the way.
"There will be a completely new version next year, with the legacy of Winamp but a more complete listening experience," said Alexandre Saboundjan, CEO of Radionomy, the company that bought Winamp (or what remained of it) in 2014. "You can listen to the MP3s you may have at home, but also to the cloud, to podcasts, to streaming radio stations, to a playlist you perhaps have built. People want one single experience," he concluded. "I think Winamp is the perfect player to bring that to everybody. And we want people to have it on every device."
"There will be a completely new version next year, with the legacy of Winamp but a more complete listening experience," said Alexandre Saboundjan, CEO of Radionomy, the company that bought Winamp (or what remained of it) in 2014. "You can listen to the MP3s you may have at home, but also to the cloud, to podcasts, to streaming radio stations, to a playlist you perhaps have built. People want one single experience," he concluded. "I think Winamp is the perfect player to bring that to everybody. And we want people to have it on every device."
From the article:
"What I see today is you have to jump from one player to another player or aggregator if you want to listen to a radio station, to a podcast player if you want to listen to a podcast — this, to me, is not the final experience,” he explained. It’s all audio, and it’s all searchable in one fashion or another. So why isn’t it all in one place?"
Kinda the reason I use WinAmp is because it is not this.
http://progressquest.com/spoltog.php?name=Son+Of+Son+Of+DarkRookie
Anybody who wants a simple lightweight music player that just works and not a bloated "music library manager" one.
...it's going to be 2.1 gig d/l, require a credit card to sign in (we will never charge you, ever!), and gather every single personal data point resident on your system.
And still won't perform the basic function of playing mp3s as well as 2013 version.
-Styopa
But I have foobar2000.
I loved winamp, and would love to get it back. I don't really have faith that this won't be a terrible cloud heavy version with the old Winamp name. But, here's hoping it's a lightweight music player that doesn't connect to the internet unless I direct it to.
Audacious, a descendant of XMMS (which was a clone of Winamp), works wonderfully. Its "Winamp Classic Interface" looks exactly like Winamp and even (iirc) supports Winamp skins.
That said, I do miss the old (original) Whitecap visualization (one of the very few in which you could really see the music in what was still a visually stunning display), which only works on Winamp on Windows. (...not that Winamp's return would allow me to run this again.)
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
We're all glad that this amazing truck with crane in the back works for you.
Most people however do not need a truck with crane in the back, even if it's really convenient for you heavy mover. Most people just want a basic sedan with good mileage.
"People want one single experience."
A lot of software has gone down to tubes because of this idea. People don't want one single experience. They want different experiences for different circumstances. They want software with features optimized for how they listen to music, how they listen to streaming radio and how they listen to podcasts. Combining them into one app is both unnecessary and creates undesirable side effects.
The same thing happened with social media apps tried to be the be-all and end-all of all media, when users want to keep things nice and compartmentalized.
I'm still using Winamp 2.95 for music, and there's nothing that needs to be updated about it. It plays music, has a playlist, volume control. There's also a "browser" which thankfully can be turned off. I suspect this new version will have even more amazing shiny new features that need to be turned off, so basically, if it ain't broke don't fix it.
As one of those people who helped build the WinAmp ecosystem and watched its subsequent AOL implosion I have to say, "Good!", and "It's about time, Radionomy." So, ya know, if you need the original sources for the 2.65-ish build... I still have them hanging around somewhere on an old CD. Justin and Tom were always messy and I was always cleaning up after them. But, by all means, I hope you improve on it somehow. I still rock out with WinAmp sometimes.
Winamp is a tool. It does the job. And things like iTunes aren't really a substitute, and weirdly even on my multi-GHz system iTunes likes to spin and wait at random times.
The only thing that stopped me from using WinAmp was my move to Linux. I'd still be using XMMS if I could...
Winamp never went anywhere. Unlike most modern software, it didn't require to check in over the Internet to work, so it still works just fine today. I've been happily using Winamp for a few decades, and hopefully, I'll continue to use it for the foreseeable future. The last version is version 5.666, and it was released as a final "thank you, goodbye" with *all* of the "pro" (formerly paid) features, and none of the crapware. I use it for playing all of my media, for ripping and burning CD's, and all sorts of neat stuff.
Sometimes, software works as intended, with no problems, and simply doesn't need to be "upgraded" any more. I think this is one of those cases.
I don't respond to AC's.
You don't use XMMS? Because you basically just described it.
It's also great when you only do things that don't go beyond playback because it's the least cluttered. The difference is that its advanced features (eg. tag editing) do not require extra tools as it was with Winamp.
Important power features work better when provided by the main package because it's much easier for users to support and help each other. You don't have to install them if you don't want to.
There's no such thing as "too powerful". As long as the interface is easy to use for new users, power options is always good to have as long as the package is small. Foobar has a smaller installation package, despite all its available power and its easier to use than winamp because it uses standard operating system controls instead of tiny graphics (at least as it was the case with Winamp when I left it).
Winamp was good in the 90s. It was awesome. But once it was sold to AOL, it was done. Foobar was last updated a week ago.
Anybody who wants a simple lightweight music player that just works and not a bloated "music library manager" one.
Foobar2000. Winamp is no longer relevant in a market with better options that meet all your requirements.
Yeah, I went on a search for the "winamp of linux" years ago. The original xmms was the answer for some years, but it was eventually replaced by xmms2 and I didn't like it. I found and still use qmmp, which I really like because it's simple, has an EQ, does everything I want, and works well with my dir structure of music, plus it has playlists. It has visualizations too, though I only ever use the default "analyzer" because I don't care about that. It will also take the winamp theme files.