Digital Lifestyle > All Reviews > Software > Songbird 1.0 review

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 Songbird 1.0 review

What can Songbird offer that Apple can’t? Quite a lot it turns out.

Karl Hodge

Manufacturer: Songbird
Pros: Organise your digital music library, find free tunes, integrate with Last.fm
Cons: No CD burning or video playback
Price: Free
We rate this 4 out of 5.Star rating:

iTunes has pretty much everything you’d want from a media library. Like the iPod, it’s a design classic, adopted by both Mac and Windows users as their player of choice. Songbird is clearly inspired by iTunes in both looks and functionality – with player controls and media library top and centre, while a sidebar on the left gives you access to the program’s many features. You can import iTunes’ existing library or search for songs on any connected drive. The program plays tunes in most audio formats.

A closer look reveals that Songbird has advantages over iTunes. Its open architecture means that plug-ins can be used to extend the basic features of the application. In fact, there’s a plug-in bundle included in the default download that adds MP3 player support, Last.fm connectivity and more. Favourites of ours include the ability to connect to concert ticket search service Songkick and inline connectivity with The Hype Machine.

Using The Hype Machine – an online service that aggregates music blogs and free MP3 sources – reveals one of Songbird’s most powerful features. It scrapes music links from web pages (rendered using the built-in Mozilla browser) and lets you download them. It’s a great way to find free music – and it also connects to Amazon, iTunes Store and eMusic to offer commercial tunes.

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