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Winamp’s woes: how the greatest MP3 player undid itself (2012)

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Re: Winamp’s woes: how the greatest MP3 player undid itself (2012)

#31

Post by illuminate »

eksith wrote: post #3

Every promising technology/company that gets gobbled up by the bureaucratic mega fauna enviably end up being re-chewed and strewn about as piles of dung (to be burned to repel mosquitoes). AOL's problem is that it's a corporation first, a product/service creating, maintaining and selling entity second. Oh sure, the execs may think they're "creating and maintaining" a product/service, but their mindset is "how do we m…

"AOL's problem is that it's a corporation first"

Isn't its main problem today that it's a content farm operated by new-age antivax no-signal-to-noise peddler Arianna Huffington?

Re: Winamp’s woes: how the greatest MP3 player undid itself (2012)

#32

Post by jamesaguilar »

moxie wrote: post #27
hkmurakami wrote: post #24

I remember finding out the story of WinAmp's creator (Justin Frankel) making a winamp plugin that basically "blocks" AOL AIM advertisements after his company had been acquired by AOL. Just hilarious. Frankel has programmed a Winamp plugin that blocks out the advertisements in AOL's AIM instant messaging program. The ad areas are currently used to advertise AOL features; install Frankel's plugin and they're replaced b…

Yes! I remember this happening but wasn't able to find any reference to it. I remember that I was already impressed he'd taken someone else's MP3 player, put a GUI in front of it, and sold it to AOL for hundreds of millions of dollars. But when I saw Nullsoft immediately release the AIM adblocker after being acquired by AOL, I knew they were truly amazing.

$86 million.

Re: Winamp’s woes: how the greatest MP3 player undid itself (2012)

#33

Post by illuminate »

booruguru wrote: post #15
smrtinsert wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Winamp still kicks the crap out of every current music player.

How is it better than iTunes? I'm seriously asking. I'm always hearing people bitch about iTunes, but they never explain why. P.S. Yes. It has been getting bloated, but people have been complaining about iTunes since day 1.

If there was something akin to the (very well curated, if still missing most of my tracks) Smart Playlist option, I'd switch in a heartbeat.

Re: Winamp’s woes: how the greatest MP3 player undid itself (2012)

#34

Post by mh- »

smrtinsert wrote: post #5
soulclap wrote: post #2

I guess I am the only person in the world still using Winamp. Just feels odd when I listen to mp3s and can't look up the ID3 tags with alt-3. And I never felt the need for a 'library', 'database' or huge spaceship cockpit UIs either.

Winamp still kicks the crap out of every current music player.

one might say, even, that it really whips the llama's ass.

Re: Winamp’s woes: how the greatest MP3 player undid itself (2012)

#35

Post by beefsack »

yareally wrote: post #21
beefsack wrote: post #16

For those on Linux or Windows, Audacious is a beautiful audio player heavily inspired by Winamp 2.x, both visually and mechanically. It supports Winamp Classic skins out of the box, and comes with quite a nice one as stock. Screenshot: http://community.linuxmint.com/img/screenshots/audacious.png Homepage: http://audacious-media-player.org/

I might be willing to switch if it can do a minimal interface[1] like Winamp does (depending on the skin). That's what keeps me on Winamp the most. edit: Awesome, it does[2] (if you switch to the winamp classic skin). Just need to find how to minimize it to the tray so it doesn't show in the taskbar and get switching between tracks with the mouse scroll wheel working. [1] http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/901/winampm.…

If you go to preferences, and look at the plugins tab (I believe in the general plugins section) you'll see there's a plugin for a system tray icon. After enabling, you can hide to the system tray by clicking the system tray icon. Most useful plugin IMO.

Re: Winamp’s woes: how the greatest MP3 player undid itself (2012)

#36

Post by eclipticplane »

KwanEsq wrote: post #19

I've never understood why media players in particular feel they have carte blanche to completely ignore any attempt at integrating with the system look and feel. I never really got along with WinAMP due in no small part to that.

Back in WinAmp's rise, the "system look and feel" was stagnant and stale.

WinAmp (and other media players) tend to be small on-screen; they are rarely full screen apps. They should play my music and get out of my way. System styles and UI are rarely designed for "small form" applications that need to pack a lot of features into a very small, non-descript space.

WinAmp's themes went above and beyond, of course, but those were at the user's discretion.

Re: Winamp’s woes: how the greatest MP3 player undid itself (2012)

#37

Post by yareally »

beefsack wrote: post #35
yareally wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might be willing to switch if it can do a minimal interface[1] like Winamp does (depending on the skin). That's what keeps me on Winamp the most. edit: Awesome, it does[2] (if you switch to the winamp classic skin). Just need to find how to minimize it to the tray so it doesn't show in the taskbar and get switching between tracks with the mouse scroll wheel working. [1] http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/901/winampm.…

If you go to preferences, and look at the plugins tab (I believe in the general plugins section) you'll see there's a plugin for a system tray icon. After enabling, you can hide to the system tray by clicking the system tray icon. Most useful plugin IMO.

Oh thanks. I was hoping it would just remove the app from the taskbar and keep the player still on the screen (like winamp). Not quite the same, but it can probably be tweaked in the source.

Re: Winamp’s woes: how the greatest MP3 player undid itself (2012)

#39

Post by swatkat »

I was using WinAmp in its 1.x and 2.x days. When WinAmp started to bloat, I switched to Billy [0], an ultra-fast and minimal player. Nowadays, I stick to VLC as I no longer have Windows on my personal laptop.

[0] http://www.sheepfriends.com/?page=billy&subpage=billy_co...

Re: Winamp’s woes: how the greatest MP3 player undid itself (2012)

#40

Post by lmm »

soulclap wrote: post #2

I guess I am the only person in the world still using Winamp. Just feels odd when I listen to mp3s and can't look up the ID3 tags with alt-3. And I never felt the need for a 'library', 'database' or huge spaceship cockpit UIs either.

Amarok 1 was better, but it's harder to get hold of than winamp :(
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