Winamp Pro for every Android FTW (?)

If Winamp really meant to upgrade us all to Pro for free, presumably for using Android, and perhaps realizing they'd have to cripple standard to make Pro worth buying, then I am happy boy.

As a long time supporter of Winamp on desktops (among non-open source competitors), I am psyched to have the equalizer feature on my Evo 3D.

Will it roll back to standard tomorrow? I hope not. They should capitalize on this. Winamp is the best music player on Android, integrates flawlessly with the desktop client, and has no bloated or inutile features.

I support whipping the llama's ass in spite of being vegan (I hearken to the economics and sustainability arguments the most, and free upgrades are coherent with this).

So, at the end of the day, it's a great app in the lite/free version. Pro support for no apparent reason is rad.

Try out Winamp on your phone, maybe you'll get the full version.

squarespace has an Android app!

finally some posting on the go. rad.

songbird RETURNS, and yes it's lost a lot of weight

click an' git itSo I saw that Songbird has released a little one for android phones. And my current library of Winamp crashed. Or it won't recognize the library, or something foolish like that.

In response I took the opportunity to update Songbird to the latest 1.9.3 release to see where they were, and if it would make a good platform for hosting portable devices.

To re-hash, "scrobbling was broken on songbird, queries are taking forever to load, library filtering feels clunky" (on either an i7 or my laptop).

I cannot test the scrobbling support since my current [i'm tethering my phone isp] doesn't do secure log ins well. however, they seem to be going through fine. normally it would just spin and spin. now new names pop up live on last.fm "scrobbling from songbird"; it is marking 'loved' songs. {tentative +2}

Queries are zippy. I did my usual tweaking in the about:config (to make it write id3/rating changes to the file), and checked on the SQLite settings. they seem to be operating at about 75-85 meg footprint, no addons, after playing for an hour. Once i loaded up about fifteen (!!!) of my closest addons, and let it run for about 45 minutes its up to between 122-128 meg (i actually had 6 additional plugins I uninstalled because they were no longer compatible). Not bad, at least when I'm on a machine with 6 gig. {+2 until some bad happens}

Library filtering was less responsive before than it is now. there were delays when you scroll through filters, or apply them, or CTRL+apply them. now it seems to filter through them with ease. {+1}

So on the whole, initial impressions are good. songbird is getting back into shape. its not so flaby as it was. at least my install isn't. I'll be happy to have the meta-data management tools songbird offers. and not to be running a last.fm background app (eesh creepy). one caveat to this review: this is only covering a songbird library around 30-some gigabytes in size (315 artsts | 585 albums | 5772 tracks)

I will follow up with android songbird beta review once i get in some testing. Desktop: 5/5

Update on 4:00PM by mfg

noticed after a while of listening, loading album art, and running a smartypants playlist it was up to 150meg. honestly, im not worrying until it tips in over 300 meg like it was previously.

Winamp Review Follow Up

Here were my reservations from my original review:

• winamp remote integration (there are apps out there; ie where my phone can control the winamp desktop client)
  • still none
• podcast/streaming/shoutbox support
  • search for shoutbox stations is an option, but without (wifi) better streaming of podcast links from other sites a bit of a non-plus
• video?!?(meh)
• event listings; like cubed, last.fm, songbird (by extension) have
  • still none
• track ratings (that integrates with desktop on sync), love track on last.fm
  • still none
• track tagging, fuller integration of id3
  • still none

oh noes did i wipe my hard drive, or my phone?!

So updates have been made. None addressed what would have made Winamp better than what is already on the market. None have been done to bring the flavor of Winamp desktop to my phone aside from the queueing.

That said, I have fallen back in love with the desktop client of Winamp, now on version 5.6. It has Android syncing. I haven't pushed that very far yet. So, in advance, I prepared these questions for what I would want my desktop<>mobile winamp solution to handle.

• What files does it sync? it does a smartypants style sync with the auto-fill feature where it will push a quota of your device's storage space based on songs with the most plays and highest ratings
• Does it sync ratings, playcounts? <dunno yet>
• How does it support playlists (i.e. single directory only, meta data)? the playlists work, but i havent been able to pinpoint how....

The autofill feature seems to be working well, albeit slowly. it's pushing ability, along with its level of smartypantsishness will need to wait for another day. This isn't so mucha review then of the Winamp app, or the desktop client alone; but the <> of the suite. One the whole, for Win7 & Android, 3/5: too many knobs, too little clarity.

Google Reader & Winamp!

*Update: I dont know if some updates have sneaked by, or if i have just become accustomed to the UI, but I am really beginning to enjoy the app over the web version. It's more predictable, and after a bit of using it browsing the folders seems much snappier, headers seem to load faster. 

Someone decided to go and make me smile. Im an avid google reader reader... user. (Check out the box to the right.) 

There's a Google Reader app from Google on the Android market. I don't know if you know but thats awesome. The app itself isn't amazing on 3G, but once i got it home on wifi it was most everything i wanted.

When you tap an item, it pops up its own page. This isnt a negative for a 500 word post (*ah, i have since found that this is where they put ads), but for a twitter feed you end up with a big blank scrollable space (that makes you think theres more to the post). There are arrows at the bottom to go to the next/prior post, which make flipping easily. But i would rather have saved the real estate and use swiping. Also, I have become accustomed to the web based reader, which is surprisingly less laggy in terms of navigating the folders (maybe equally, but the app should cache the folder structures and make it snappy). Unfortunately, the app has no screen resizing options for the text of the folders and they are this balloony tapping space with small text and big numbers. Basically, it just doesn't look very good, wastes space, and is laggy relative to the fact it should cache the directories.

Now, the middling. It supports embedded media and plugins. yay. However, if i click on an mp3 from my Listen item feed, the media cant be opened in reader, aww. But it pops up and asks, mp3 (video seemed embedded properly)? open in [music app] or [music app]. (Good thing Google knows that we wouldn't want to open a Listen item in the Listen app.) I tapped the first podcast and it played about 30 seconds in Winamp then froze and died. im guessing bandwidth limitations caused a streaming error, or pre-buffering something and it died. oh well. Pressing and holding the folders gives you one option: delete. Pressing and holding the RSS/individual feed button for XYZ.com gives you a few useless options. What I want is >mark as read> for a folder, and the same for a feed. They give it to you for a post. They have the power!

So short of being on wifi, its only about as good as the web reader with a nicer interface. On wifi it is a great reader app. But only 3/5 great, nothing special and nothing too competitive with other apps in the market.

To get 5/5 give me:

• IN THE EXPLORE SECTION, GIVE ME A >FOLLOW THIS FEED OPTION> umm-DUH. (+0 should have been there, but you're in a grace period so im not taking off points)
• buffering of media and streaming to [music player] (+2 if SD cache options for media buffering, and adjust size)
• swipe to move to next post (+2 if options for swipe=next post|feed|folder)
• resizable interface like kindle (+3 if through pinching)
• cache directory structure (+1 to hide unread count, +3 for option to cache item headers by magic to SD, and adjust size)
• change skins from bright white (again if kindle can do it...)

Update on 11:22AM by mfg

oh yeah. obviously this needs Apps 2 SD, and its a memory hog. However, i think judging an app based on that fact alone is kind of like judging a computer game based on the fact it takes up 40 gig on your hard drive. If it improves the product, then its admissible and circumstantial so i wont complain outright about it unless i have another valid suggestion of how to use it on sd more effectively.

Winamp for Android! w00t!

(pic links to engadget article; QR goes to market for DL)I was a long time user of Winamp. It has been my standby since I began using it sometime around version 2.0 (prior to 3).

I used it consistently through the early aughts. I maintained an active install of the latest update prior to 3 for quite awhile since the release of 3 was too unwieldy of an architecture at the time for a boot-strapped computer's resources.

Eventually, somewhere in 2007 i moved to Totem, Banshee, Rhythmbox as i had moved into Gutsy Gibbon Ubuntu; and then in 2008 i moved over to Songbird (Genesis release i think). Really had high hopes for that. 

Right now I've been between mp3 players for awhile. none of them have exactly the right mix top to bottom. The three big ones to me seem to be itunes, songbird, and winamp; for various reasons (mind you, i am referring to win7).

on the one end of the spectrum, you have a massive .db powered bloat monkey like itunes. on the other hand you can run a leaner shell based program like winamp. or you can try to find balance in between with songbird. this metaphor used to hold. now songbird is so off kilter with the most recent releases i've used that i switched back to a mix of winamp and songbird skipping between the two depending on how im listening. if i know what i want to listen to, i use winamp; if i dont, i use songbird. last i updated, scrobbling was broken on songbird, queries are taking forever to load, library filtering feels clunky. and thats on a fast desktop (either my core2duo or the i7920!).

anyway, on android i have tried the media player built in, as well as 3 ("cubed" - who i hold out high hopes for, but it still feels flimsy and half-baked), and for the past 9 months been thoroughly baiting my breath for an immediate contender. thank you Winamp, i think you have listed a race-maker there. 

i saw one comment about it feeling like that standard player. in someways i can understand what they mean; when browsing it uses the android shell and appears to mimic the andro-mp3 player, but actually thats just the browsing default. in many ways the Winamp is actually more deeply integrated with its features than the stock player.

• One thing off the top that Winamp did was add a pane feature that mimics the status pane. They positioned it just low enough below the system status bar that you dont confusedly hit the wrong one (even on a device like the droid whose screen accuracy is sketchy).
• In the stock player it can be disorienting to find where the playing now track is playing so you can change it (i have to switch to home to use the widget frequently, ugh). With this app, when you switch away from the now playing screen, the pane just drops to the other page you switched to, but you still have now playing controls, and with one tap youre back to control central.
• The settings page is aflush with settings, and they actually do something!

Thats just the comparative experience of it. Fantastic. As for the features, it has wireless syncing if you have winamp on your desktop/laptop, the fantastic playlist queueing system of regular winamp, playlist reordering and creation, widget with [ <||, =, |>, ||>, album art track/album/artist, and tap to app], last.fm scrobbling, search integration. pretty full featured.

Requested features? I have a few.

• winamp remote integration (there are apps out there)
• podcast/streaming/shoutbox support
• video?!?
• event listings; like cubed, last.fm, songbird (by extension) have
• track ratings (that integrates with desktop on sync), love track on last.fm
• track tagging, fuller integration of id3

The one criticism i have is the menu button. It has different options from one pane to the next (now playing v. home in particular; the specialized queue menu makes sense). There arent that many buttons; make it a 2x3 menu and condense it.

Otherwise, beautiful job; lets heat this race up. What you gonna do Google? You gonna maybe make your listen/music apps work?