Why does Winamp, WMP, QCD, etc just NOT GET IT?

[Trevelyan]

I just don't get it. I've tried WMP, Winamp, and QCD and they are all nice MP3 players but they just don't seem to get the basics.

ITunes is incredibly intuitive with the playlist and media library functions. It makes it so easy to browse your music library, which as everyone has increasing amounts of music is ESSENTIAL. So many conveniences about iTunes make it so hard to switch to anything else. I'm not saying it's perfect, because it is a resource hog, and is slower than it should be, and there are other things that it lacks.

But seriously, other players need to work on getting a user-friendly and simple music library. Winamp has been around forever and there still isn't an easy way to select music by artist, album, genre on the fly. ITunes must've spent more time thinking about what users actually want to see and I really think they got it right with the music library.

My question is: Is there ANY OTHER PLAYER that offers a music library like what iTunes has, that isn't crappy in other areas? No doubt iTunes isn't perfect, but there are some basics that it has nailed on the head... it makes accessing and playing your music simple and fast. Period.

 

[Rip the Jacker]

winamp>all~

 

[Trevelyan]

Originally posted by: ItmPls
winamp>all~

I can't agree man, I mean it's fast I like that a lot, and great quality, cool skins, but some things I don't like:

1) No good in-taskbar toolbar mini-player like WMP, and iTunes (there are a few plugins, but they suck compared to WMP or iTunes)
2) Media library still sucks, needs better organization scheme

 

[kamper]

Originally posted by: Trevelyan

1) No good in-taskbar toolbar mini-player like WMP, and iTunes (there are a few plugins, but they suck compared to WMP or iTunes)

iTunes is worse for this. With winamp I keep it stretched out just above my taskbar and "Always on top" and it's almost like having a really large toolbar like wmp. The iTunes Mini Player blows. It is large yet displays almost no information and has only 3 buttons.
While I like the power of iTunes' tag based library browsing I really hate how apple thinks that no one can handle any sort of complexity.

 

[sandorski]

2 things keep me from using iTunes exclusively:

1) No Alarm function/App

2) the annoying reconnect window that pops up when streaming radio is lost. This is the most annoying thing of any software I use. I don't mind a reconnect window, I just can't stand how the window takes Focus off of anything else one might be doing. Reconnect in the background damnit! I can hear that the signal has been lost.

Other than that, iTunes ownz *. The OP states the best part, Management of content, but also the sound quality and the ability to easily adjust it makes it stand above WinAmp/WMP. Sure, WinAmp and other players can use Plugins to acheive a similar level of Audio quality, but the days of me wanting to hunt down such things is over(actually ended for me years ago when I used Sonique for similar reasons).

edit: Kamper brings up a good point: "Always on Top" is an important missing feature. Don't fully agree with the rest of his points, but I can see how they might turn people off.

 

[Malak]

Originally posted by: Trevelyan

Originally posted by: ItmPls
winamp>all~

I can't agree man, I mean it's fast I like that a lot, and great quality, cool skins, but some things I don't like:

1) No good in-taskbar toolbar mini-player like WMP, and iTunes (there are a few plugins, but they suck compared to WMP or iTunes)
2) Media library still sucks, needs better organization scheme

Well...

1. I had controls in my taskbar, but turned them off. My keyboard has controls built-in.

2. I just make multiple playlists and add songs when necessary. Easiest method for me, don't think a media library will work as fast.

 

[kamper]

Originally posted by: sandorski
edit: Kamper brings up a good point: "Always on Top" is an important missing feature. Don't fully agree with the rest of his points, but I can see how they might turn people off.

Actually, I should take that back. I just remembered that the newest version of iTunes (or at least one newer than what I have installed at home) minimizes to the system tray and is pretty easy to use from there. Crap, that was one of my main reasons for hating iTunes. Soon I might have to give in

One thing that is really cool is the network sharing. You don't notice this until you're on a lan with other iTunes installations but you can browse and listen to other people's music as easily as your own. It's quite nice at work.

 

[Trevelyan]

Originally posted by: malak

Originally posted by: Trevelyan

Originally posted by: ItmPls
winamp>all~

I can't agree man, I mean it's fast I like that a lot, and great quality, cool skins, but some things I don't like:

1) No good in-taskbar toolbar mini-player like WMP, and iTunes (there are a few plugins, but they suck compared to WMP or iTunes)
2) Media library still sucks, needs better organization scheme

Well...

1. I had controls in my taskbar, but turned them off. My keyboard has controls built-in.

2. I just make multiple playlists and add songs when necessary. Easiest method for me, don't think a media library will work as fast.

For some reason my Logitech keyboard lags with the keyboard controls, maybe I should switch it to PS2?

I have a lot of music and am constantly adding more music, I don't want to have to manually add it to playlists when iTunes just adds it to my library and I can sort it how I want very easily.

 

[blazer78]

Originally posted by: ItmPls
winamp>all~

 

[TheWart]

i admit that now i use iTunes exclusively. the library and search functions make finding what i want to hear a snap.


my favorite feature is the Party Playlist or whatever that acts like a jukebox for specific playlists. it can rotate in songs that you give higher ratings so that the experience feels very customized.

 

[duragezic]

Uhhh cause people who have their music organized don't need a big, bloated program and a media library.

 

[Trevelyan]

Originally posted by: duragezic
Uhhh cause people who have their music organized don't need a big, bloated program and a media library.

I have ALL my music organized with ID3's AND with directory structure, more organized than most people I know, and I still definately appreciate iTunes easy management software. It's very smart to make the library and playlist into one window, and make it the biggest part of the software.

 

[kamper]

Originally posted by: Trevelyan

Originally posted by: duragezic
Uhhh cause people who have their music organized don't need a big, bloated program and a media library.

I have ALL my music organized with ID3's AND with directory structure, more organized than most people I know, and I still definately appreciate iTunes easy management software. It's very smart to make the library and playlist into one window, and make it the biggest part of the software.

No that part sucks, because when you go browsing through your library and forget to return to the exact selection that you have playing then it will stop at the end of a track instead of continuing with the next one like any sane player would.

 

[beatle]

I'd try it if it supported .ape files, which 90% of my music is encoded in.

 

[boran]

heh, I listen to my music randomly, not selectively, which means I have all my songs in a gigant winamp playlist and play em random. (still got winamp 2.91) I got it as a single bar on top of my screen with Always on top on, and the TransparantFX plug, light, handy, and sleek, whadyawant more.

 

[magomago]

Originally posted by: beatle
I'd try it if it supported .ape files, which 90% of my music is encoded in.

yeah if i tunes supported plugins like that it would own the market


but my friend still uses WMP, because in the end to him winamp can be just a thin sliver on the bottom corner of his desktop whereas itunes is a big mosnter

But for me...its tunes...i LOVE how it organizes music....and the playlists right there on the window are beautiful so i don't have to load, regardless if its "you are lame for not spending 10 seoncds to do it". Yeah, I'd rather than 2 seconds. but itunes defnitely knows what its about...its just so dman bloated apple should be happy i like the way it nails things down that i can overlook its fat flaws1

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: duragezic
Uhhh cause people who have their music organized don't need a big, bloated program and a media library.

:thumbsup:

Used winamp for years, but recently switched to foobar2000. Very configureable, powerful, simple, and kernel streaming audio is awesome. As an added bonus, it doesn't install malware (QT) when you install it.

 

[Trevelyan]

Originally posted by: kamper

Originally posted by: Trevelyan

Originally posted by: duragezic
Uhhh cause people who have their music organized don't need a big, bloated program and a media library.

I have ALL my music organized with ID3's AND with directory structure, more organized than most people I know, and I still definately appreciate iTunes easy management software. It's very smart to make the library and playlist into one window, and make it the biggest part of the software.

No that part sucks, because when you go browsing through your library and forget to return to the exact selection that you have playing then it will stop at the end of a track instead of continuing with the next one like any sane player would.

Heh, alright man, you win.

But seriously, Apple really knows what they are doing with this design, and at least for me (and many others I know) its very sweet.

 

[loic2003]

Yeah iTunes wins hands down. For organising music it's second to none, plus you have access to the music store (the best there is), party shuffle, the ability to wirelessly stream lossless quality music across a home network, smart playlists (define properties and it creates them on the fly eg "play me all music I haven't listened to in the last two weeks"), the ability to burn your playlists and span them across CD's, the rating feature ("I want to listen to my favourite 100 tunes"), a play count ("I want to listen to my least/most played music") and the search function that searches as you type, etc etc etc....

Nothing else comes close to this.

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: Gurck

Originally posted by: duragezic
Uhhh cause people who have their music organized don't need a big, bloated program and a media library.

:thumbsup:

Used winamp for years, but recently switched to foobar2000. Very configureable, powerful, simple, and kernel streaming audio is awesome. As an added bonus, it doesn't install malware (QT) when you install it.

QuickTime qualifies as malware?

 

[loic2003]

Originally posted by: MrChad

Originally posted by: Gurck

Originally posted by: duragezic
Uhhh cause people who have their music organized don't need a big, bloated program and a media library.

:thumbsup:

Used winamp for years, but recently switched to foobar2000. Very configureable, powerful, simple, and kernel streaming audio is awesome. As an added bonus, it doesn't install malware (QT) when you install it.

QuickTime qualifies as malware?

Yeah gurck'll say it's because it's installed automatically and does such terrible things as assigns itself to filetypes. It's not really malware, especially as the new versions are coming with the new H.264 codec which is easily one of the most advanced out there for quality and compression. I've seen some pretty fantastic demos of it. The quality over a standard broadband connection is shockingly good.

 

[Sunner]

I tried iTunes about 6 months ago, seemed to suck for my needs.
But then, my entire collection(about 6000 mp3's and ogg's) is sorted according to Directory/Filename for which iTunes sucks.
ID3 tagging everything is entirely out of the question, too much work for no benefit that I can see.

I just have one huge playlist, and when I wanna hear something specific, I just use the jump function(something that all other players either lack or suck at).
Also, being able to control Winamp from my Linux box is nice

 

[skace]

QT is malware because it is nearly impossible to get it to stop opening on reboot short of uninstalling it.

 

[loic2003]

Originally posted by: skace
QT is malware because it is nearly impossible to get it to stop opening on reboot short of uninstalling it.

You're thinking of the 2 little apps that run for the iPod, and these can be disabled using msconfig.

 

[edmicman]

Windows Explorer is my media manager