Songbird vs iTunes: Things Songbird Does That iTunes Can't

Want to find an iTunes alternative? You are not the only one, in fact. iTunes is slow and bloated to some extent. If you don't update your device system or use the App Store, you deserve using a better music player and manager. Songbird, the evolutionary media player, aims to do better than iTunes, just as Firefox did to Internet Explorer. Songbird is 5 years younger than iTunes, but now it does many things that iTunes can't, besides the basic common features like iPod support, album artwork, radio, music store, CD ripping, etc. Below are the Songbird features that iTunes doesn't provide. So is there an iTunes absent feature to make you switch to Songbird? Read on.

1. Add-ons (Extensions)

Different from iTunes, Songbird directly supports add-on to add more features to Songbird. The CD converting feature is important to expand your music library. While it's default supported by iTunes, Songbird makes it possible by CD Convert Support add-on. Other useful Songbird add-ons include iPod Device Support and LyricMaster

2. Feathers (Themes or Skins)

This is the Songbird way to call themes and skins. Just turn your Songbird into fun. You can easily customize Songbird's appearance by Appearance add-on. Whatever iTune-like or Windows-like appearance, download and install, you get it, for totally free.

3. Tabbed Browsing

Songbird is based on the Firefox framework. With tab browsing feature, you can listen to music in one tab, and install add-ons, surf the web in other tabs. Multi-task is popular, and you can enjoy it in your music player like Songbird.

4. Download music from web page

While exploring music online, a song list will be displayed on the bottom as long as there is playable file in the web page. Then you can easily download file to library or selected playlist.

5. Subscribe to MP3 Blogs as Playlists

This is similar to the above feature. If a music blog provides "Subscribe to this page" option, you can turn it into a playlist, and new songs will be downloaded to the specified folder automatically.

6. Play a Wide Range of Media Codecs

Compared to iTunes' limit media codec support, Songbird supported MP3, FLAC, Vorbis on all platforms; WMA and WMA DRM only in Windows; AAC and Fairplay on both Windows and Mac platforms. It could even play DRM protected music files.

7. Mashtape - Rich Media Presentation

This is useful feature to know more about the music track you are currently listening. The mashtape will display a panel at the bottom, providing related info, photo, video and news.

8. Better Last.fm Integration

Last.fm is a service to collect what you listen, recommend what you may like and share your musical taste to more people. If you are a Last.fm user, you can directly scrobble, love, and ban your tracks directly from Songbird.

9. Run It On Android and Linux

Like iTunes, Songbird works on both Windows and Mac. Now Songbird also supports Linux and Android system. All music users are covered. Wanna give Songbird a try. Download it here.