Songbird: Out of BETA, into the real world

The add-ons wizard, showing some of the many add-ons available.

The Songbird application, looking more and more like iTunes instead of Firefox.

Songbird - the long awaited application set to rival the likes of iTunes and Windows Media Player, has finally come out of BETA and has entered a new stage in it's life. Yes the application has been in BETA for some time, and many people have downloaded the application, but the new release adds some new and interesting features.We decided to take it apart, piece by piece and see just how it stacks up against the competitors.

Installation - Songbird was a breeze to install. After downloading the application from the Songbird website (here) for a mere 11.7MB, the exe ran quite smoothly and installed Songbird normally. Then, as Songbird was opened for the first time, the Songbird Setup wizard began. After welcoming you to the program, it firstly begins by asking you where you would like to import media, such as music from. Simple enough, and nothing new. However, it's the next screen which brings in something new, at least different from competitors such as iTunes. It's addons, and is a hot feature of Songbird. Recommended addons include iPod Device Support (which we found to be flawless in working with iPods) and Windows Media Playback, but there are quite a few to choose from. Last but not least it gives you the option to send usage statistics to the Songbird team, and sign up for the newsletter for updates on the software. Overall a well devised setup wizard, but apart from the addons, nothing really new.

The Program - Songbird has a similar look and feel to that of iTunes, but like Firefox can be customised to suit your needs, with themes available. The same can also be said about addons, and really is a Firefox for music. In an interesting twist, Songbird can now become your browser, as you can open a new tab and the world wide web is all yours. With too many tools to name, Songbird has now moved away from the Firefox feel and has devised more of a iTunes feel - for the better, or so we think. It has more functionality than most other music apps, and combined with the addons available as well as the themes, make it a music app worth looking at.

Features - Songbird has some very attractive features, including built in SHOUTcast radio, Last.fm built in support, the ability to discover local concerts for people you like in your area and a built in web browser, making it a very likeable application. Some features missing however include the ability to export music to CD's and in what is a real problem at the moment for Songbird, the ability to watch videos in the application. It is soon to be addressed, but at the moment it creates a real problem - so no videos for Songbird yet. Drag and drop features also need to be utilised, to make the user experience better. However, once these features are added, it will be a high quality application.

Overall - Songbird has the potential to be something great - and maybe do what Firefox did to Web Browsers. Until however, they add in video support it is not going to get far competing with the big names in music software such as Apple and Microsoft. It has great features for audio, but not really anything we haven't seen before apart from the theming abilities, and of cause the wonderful addons. When these expand, a new style application will be born. My advice - hold off on utilising Songbird full time until video support is enabled, but by all means download it and give it ago for your music libraries.

Songbird 1.0 is now available for download at the getsongbird.com website.

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