Songbird vs. iTunes: The Battle of the Music Players (Part Two)

I mentioned a little while ago that I am now using Songbird for my music listening pleasure.  I figured I should write a part two after using it for a few weeks so that people can make an informed decision on whether or not to switch.

Three Reason why people might not like Songbird:

1. Songbird has no way to burn cds within the software yet.  I am one of those people who has held out and not bought an iPod, so I still rely largely on cds to listen to music on my stereo or in my car.  If you are an iPod user this shouldn’t be a problem as you don’t need to burn cds.  I actually haven’t tested any iPod on songbird yet, but if someone has it would be helpful to post in the comment section below.

2. Mac really takes the cake in their finder features and their indexing.  One annoying thing about the Songbird library is when you switch back and forth between your library, it takes you back to the beginning of your library every time.  It would be better if it saved your spot when one goes back and forth.  This is a small difference but it is quite annoying.

3. Sometimes the album art features on Songbird don’t work as well as on iTunes.  This can be annoying to someone who uses mediaflow (the mediaflow is also not quite as good on songbird as on iTunes), but I don’t use it so it doesn’t really bother me.

Two Reasons Why People will LOVE Songbird:

1.  I am really enjoying the last.fm support that comes built into Songbird.  It “scrobbles” all my music to my last.fm profile so when I sign onto last.fm, it gives me a bunch of recommended music based on my profile.  I know that this is similar to Genius on iTunes, but last.fm provides full descriptions of the band and full tracks you can listen to seamlessly online (instead of just 30 second previews).

2.  The fact that it is open source gives this software a huge advantage.  If you are not convinced yet, wait a few months and then check back when many more add-ons have been added to the program.