Songbird PPC

You use iTunes, but you hate it. It's OK, you can admit it. You're in a circle of trust here. Let it out.

Of the many reasons to hate iTunes, what with it's lack of FLAC and OGG support and its appearance that inspires "I'm getting tired of you" thoughts generally reserved for longtime spouses, it turns out there is an alternative. It's called Songbird, and before you say, "But wait, didn't they drop PPC support sometime in the Mesozoic?" Well, yes, they did, but thanks to Thomas Legg, we now have updated PPC builds of Songbird available at his blog. (Update: direct link to Aug. 2010 version here.)

So given that I hate iTunes, I took it out for a spin. I wasn't expecting much because I knew it was built on the same engine as Firefox and wasn't a native Cocoa app. I anticipated a sluggish GUI on my Sawtooth, and while usable, it's still slow. And it's, while not buggy, I will say, quirky. If I click on things too quickly, it definitely gets surly. On the plus side, it supports FLAC and OGG and has an equalizer to boot, something that FLAC supporting players Cog and Play don't.

So will I finally dump iTunes? Are the divorce papers in the mail? Not quite. Maybe if I get a MDD or a G5 Songbird will be a better option, but right now it's back to the old standby. My music is in mp3's and I don't have golden ears, so truthfully, FLAC playback isn't a priority.

Another option for FLAC and OGG support with an equalizer is Vox. Version 0.2.7 is Leopard only, but 0.2.6 for Tiger is still available here.

Update: The developer for Vox has released a 0.27 version for Tiger, though they say this will be the last that supports it.

Update 2: Songbird has dropped support for Linux? What the what?!