Fred Destin

Delighted and ecstatic to announce the release of Songbird 1.0.  From Rob Lord and the Pionneers of the Inevitable, the same guys who brought you Winamp comes the real consumer champion in digital music and media. 

iTunes is a great and easy product.  It’s also a very closed environment akin to the AOL of old.  Imagine of Internet Explorer only played on the XBOX and you could only read content from MSN…

Why Songbird in three bullet points:

• Independent and open: a compellingly simple media player that lets you take media in and out; play any service and sync to any device.
• Content owners can break out of the iTunes silo (finally) –> expect much faster online migration of digital media
• Any developer with web skills can build extensions and services –> expect the most fully featured, customizable player out there

Covered (of course) on Techcrunch. From LifeHacker:

• The default installation also suggests installing a new add-on (new in the sense that it wasn’t suggested in the release candidate I tested) called QuickTime Playback that supports playing back music you’ve purchased from the iTunes Music Store—a killer feature that, in conjunction with the iPod sync add-on, would allow even the hardcore iTunes user to switch.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Apple, Microsoft, Real, Yahoo, Google are all rebuilding the walled gardens of old.  Don’t fall for it.  Reclaim your Freedom :-)