One of my gripes regarding the current state of my computing experience has been in regards to multimedia applications. Windows Media Player 11 can no-longer keep a library on my Windows XP machine. Plus, I’m not thrilled regarding the lack of a media browser ala iTunes. iTunes cannot stream WMP or Real feeds. WMP has no built-in-support for podcasts, and Microsoft’s RSS platform is woefully underwhelming. Linux has Banshee – which is missing library browsing and corrupted my iPod. Rhythmbox lacks a coolness factor and doesn’t sync podcasts to my iPod very easily. GTKPod works syncing with the iPod (screws up podcast titles) but is clunky and sucks as a general media application. Amarok seems to work well syncing with the iPod, and podcasts – but I can’t get over the way it’s organized. It’s going to be my media app of choice on my Ubuntu 7.10 laptop for a while. Amarok is Linux only, until 2.0 for now. Which leaves us with Songbird on XP. I hate the black theme. I’m using it for now, but we’ll see how long it stays.
GigaOM has an interview with Rob Lord regarding songbird: http://gigaom.com/2007/12/08/lord-of-the-birds-songbird/