Pioneers of the Inevitable, makers of Songbird, the open-source alternative to iTunes, has just secured a new round of financing, saving it from death and placing its platform more aggressively as a competitor to Apple’s venerable media player.

According to TechCrunch, Pioneers of the Inevitable’s $8 million in venture funding from Sequoia Capital and Atlas Ventures ran out earlier this year. Shortly thereafter, so too did its Founding CEO, Rob Lord. According to Michael Arrington, Lord’s departure left the company “…without a game plan.”

Now the company has a new CEO, Jerrell Jimerson, a big bag of cash (again from Atlas but not Sequoia, who backed-out of this round of funding) and, most importantly, a deal in the works with Phillips to include Songbird (or software based on Songbird) in no fewer than five million of its music players. (No, I didn’t know they still made music players, either. Seriously, do you know anyone with a Phillips music player?)

Sounds like, just maybe, they have a new game plan.

Songbird is, on the Mac at least, possibly the best free alternative media player to iTunes. And not just because it looks like iTunes, either. It’s fast, customisable and integrates well with online services such as 7digital Music Store, Flickr, YouTube, SHOUTcast Radio and Last.fm.

Mind you, it doesn’t yet manage CD ripping, and if you’re looking to play video files in a consistent and enjoyable manner, I recommend you look elsewhere (you can’t go wrong with VLC). And while not every single model of iPod in history is fully supported by the software (which is to say, it will work but it’s not guaranteed to work perfectly) the developers are “working on it” and offer links to various plugins that offer expanded compatibility.

At one time Songbird was important because it did what Apple’s iTunes could not; it offered freedom from digital rights managed nonsense. But now that iTunes Plus offers high(er) quality digital downloads free from DRM silliness, Songbird again must offer something more in order to be a viable — and attractive — alternative. And it does. You see, at its core Songbird is a web browser, based on none other than Mozilla code. It provides hooks into social networking services and popular online media sites. It offers easy expandability and added functionality from a huge open-source community of developers and enthusiasts. So it not only offers (almost) everything iTunes can offer, but it brings much more to the table.

All this added functionality isn’t new; but a distribution deal with a major consumer electronics manufacturer is new, and may be enough to give Songbird new wings. (You know I’d use that pun sooner or later, right?)

Even if the rumours are true and iTunes does get social (with Facebook and/or Twitter integration of some kind or another) it won’t be beating Songbird, it will only be taking one tentative step in the direction Songbird has already flown.

I won’t make any bold claims about Songbird being an iTunes killer — that’s just crazy-talk. The vast majority of iPod owners don’t care too much (if at all) if their media acquisition and management choices are artificially limited by Apple. They’re probably not even aware of it. I am aware of it, though still don’t care enough to want to migrate away from iTunes.

But with this new lease of life, and the promise of major mainstream distribution, Songbird is suddenly on my radar as an interesting, viable option.

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7digital is the UK’s number one digital media distributor, and has localized stores for seven other European countries. Their library is nothing to sneeze at either, with 6 million titles and clients like EMI, Sony-BMG and Universal. That’s not too far behind the iTunes store’s roughly 8 million tracks, although the selection might differ according to the very different markets to which each store caters. Prices are similar to the iTunes store, with individual tracks priced at 99 cents. Track quality is excellent, too, thanks to DRM-free, 320kbps MP3s. You can also turn on 7digital’s recommendations engine to get suggestions from the service based on your purchases.

The 7digital music store is available as an add-on for Songbird 1.1.1, and appears in your left-hand menu under the sub-title “Stores,” which seems to imply that Mozilla plans to partner with other content providers in the future. They’ll definitely have to go elsewhere if they want to offer video for sale once they eventually get Songbird’s video playback features up and running. It’ll be tougher to crack the dominance of iTunes in that market, since there aren’t as many small, independent distributors with big-name contracts.

Plus they’ve got that little issue of adding device support for iPods and the iPhone before I can seriously consider throwing off the shackles of iTunes. Maybe Apple will play nice and help them out? That’s about as likely as me getting a Zune and any WinMo powered phone.

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Look out iTunes, there’s a brand new media manager in town, in the form of a public beta just released for OS X. The program is called doubleTwist, and it’s the brainchild of anti-DRM crusader “DVD” Jon Johansen.

Ars Technica had a look at it in length, and it seems to be fairly promising. The idea is the same one behind Pioneers of the Inevitable’s Songbird, namely to provide users with an alternative to Apple’s own iTunes, which is sometimes criticized as having an unnecessarily large memory footprint, among other failings.

The killer feature of doubleTwist, the one which really sets it apart from both Songbird and iTunes, is its ability to sync your media on pretty much any portable device of your choosing that’s capable of playing it back. In fact, doubleTwist supports syncing with literally hundreds of devices, among them the standard heavy hitters like BlackBerry, Sony’s PSP, Nintendo’s DSI, and just about any mobile phone you can think of. Except, and this is the odd part, for the iPhone and iPod, which are currently available for PC users only, though the Mac client with iPhone/iPod support is in private testing.

Curiously, doubleTwist does feature a mandatory sign-up before you can start using it. And, annoyingly, you have to wait to receive a confirmation email and click an activation link before the application will even let you get past an authentication screen. It wouldn’t have been nearly as aggravating if I’d just received the email right away, but I had to wait quite a while to even get started.

Aside from login issues, the program itself is intuitive and easy to use. It can automatically scan all of your drives, folders, and connected mobile devices for any kind of media to build a comprehensive library, organized by where it was found. Unfortunately, doubleTwist is DRM-phobic in its current incarnation, and will not find or recognize any DRM-enabled content, besides iTunes music, which it can presumably play by running Quicktime in the background.

The beauty of doubleTwist, from the perspective of someone who hates messing about with conversion software and often gets frustrating results when he does, is its automatic conversion feature when dragging and dropping media to different devices. If the device is one of the many doubleTwist has in its expanding database, your file will either just be transferred to it automatically if already in a compatible format, or converted into a file type the device will recognize. No muss, no fuss. Which is also a limitation, since you have no control over conversion.

I’m not sure it’ll ever replace iTunes as my primary media manager, since I’d miss Apple proprietary features like AirTunes support, but it does help me wrangle my gadget collection a little better, and with a lot fewer headaches. Let’s hope future updates fully realize doubleTwist’s early potential.

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Now it’s that special moment that happens ever Saturday at TAB where, after a week of trawling through the latest App Store releases, I hand-pick a few interesting specimens especially for your perusal.

This week I’m looking at Songbird Remote, Slydial, TED and DTESS Aphid Attack.

Songbird Remote (free)
TAB’s Bob Rudis gave the most recent release of Songbird a thumbs-up not so long ago. The desktop app is an alternative to iTunes, managing your music, video and all that entertaining jazz. This app adds to Songbird’s already impressive functionality, incorporating remote control via iPhone. I’m well aware we already have a very robust remote app for iTunes, but choice is a good thing and this certainly makes swapping to Songbird more-so appealing.

Slydial (free)
Ever have one of those moments where you’re calling someone and would really rather go straight to voicemail, cunningly avoiding some kind of an awkward and poorly-worded explanation? For folk are lacking in, or too lazy to use, social skills and tact, comes Slydial – a tool that sends you straight to voicemail when calling someone (U.S. only). There’s something unscrupulous and horridly calculating about this app, nevertheless it’s an interesting (and free) addition to the App Store which some people may find to be an invaluable tool.

TED (free)
The TEDtalks are a wonderful series of live recordings – available on iTunes – from TED, a conference for the world’s brightest and most brilliant minds. The talks themselves are a meeting place for über-smart folk to discuss, deliberate and schmooze everything from arts and entertainment to world politics and artifical intelligence. The TED app takes it all a step further than the podcast subscription, with searching and bookmarking through their vast back-catalogue.

DTESS Aphid Attack (free)
The new Keanu Reeves vehicle, The Day The Earth Stood Still, is currently hitting cinema-houses here in the UK. It’s a remake, where this time the entire world faces off against Reeves as a calm but irate humanoid alien. This is a game promoting the movie where you send nasty aphids (in this case, big alien bugs) to destroy global iconic landmarks. Yes, it’s in ever-so-slightly bad taste. But no, it’s not so great — it could be good fun, but it’s got as much depth as Reeves’s acting. Woah.

Like an iPhone-toting Columbo, I’ve brought you some exciting leads to follow up on, but before I hurry on my way, there’s just one more thing. There have been some exciting developments for iPhone owners this week, one is officially sanctioned by Apple and the other, while not official, is a step in the right direction.

Starting with the former, in yesterday’s Daily Apple post, our very own Darrell Etherington mentioned Apple’s changes to the App Store layout. Setting aside the developers for a moment, the big question for consumers is, “What does that actually mean for us?” 

Perhaps the most noticeable and useful change is that the listing of most popular apps has been split in two, resulting in a separate paid and free top ten charts. This is a welcome step in the right direction for highlighting which apps we should shell out for a few bucks for.

On the unofficial front, another solution for the lack of Copy-Paste on iPhone has arrived. Pastebud is our savior’s name and it works, not as a downloadable app, but a series of Safari-based javascript bookmarklets. It’s a clever solution indeed and we’ll follow this up with a proper posting explaining the intricacies of using Pastebud.

That’s all for this week, I’ll return next Saturday with a cavalcade of new apps to tell you about, in the meantime drop by the comments and let me know which apps you’ve been downloading this week.

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Even though Apple does not ship alternatives to built-in programs, many savvy users grab alternative browsers , text editors and even movie players. One area where Apple seems to have a stranglehold, though, is in the general media players category. Let’s face it, almost every Mac user uses iTunes as the primary way to store, organize and playback media. iTunes is also the de-facto way to get content–music, video or applications–onto your iPod or iPhone. iTunes, to put it bluntly, is its own monopoly with no competition–until now.

Thanks to the hard work of the Pioneers of the Inevitable, Songbird is finally in its 1.0 Release Candidate stage and nearly ready for prime time. So how does it stack up against Apple’s built-in 800-pound gorilla? Can it replace iTunes for many users? Read on for TAB’s initial view of Songbird 1.0.0 RC1.

Songbird: First Look

One major difference between iTunes and Songbird is that you will need to have an Intel Mac to work with it. There are no PPC builds for this release candidate and I suspect that may be the case for the first official release as well. The 31MB download ends up taking 126MB on disk just within the Applications folder, which is just slightly less than the 136MB occupied by iTunes. Not surprisingly, Songbird makes use of the XUL framework and a host of open source libraries to do its work, all of which must be factors in the difference in resource consumption just after startup when compared to iTunes.

You will be asked to import your music after firing up the application for the first time and Songbird will either scan your system for content or it can import your existing iTunes library. While it may re-create your library and playlists item-for-item, Songbird cannot play protected AAC content due to the QuickTime add-on not working with RC1 just yet, so do not expect to play many of your iTunes store purchases unless they are either in iTunes Plus format or you have already taken measures to de-DRM your library.

You will also be asked if you want to load any extensions at this time. Songbird ships with five add-ons:

• iPod Device Support
• SHOUTcast Radio
• Concerts (including ticketing info via Songkick)
• Last.fm
• mashTape

And you can find many more in the Songbird listings.

Once the initial setup is complete, you will be greeted with a window that will seem very familiar and intuitive.

But, Does It Play Music/Videos?

As the previous window-capture shows, Songbird most definitely plays music. With the proper add-ons installed, it will even give you some details about what you are listening to.

Because it is open source, Songbird supports Ogg Vorbis content without having to fiddle with any settings and also supports MP3 and FLAC on all platforms; WMA and WMA DRM on Windows; and (once the add-on is updated) AAC and Fairplay on Windows and Mac.

Video support was “interesting” as I tried playing a movie trailer from the iTunes store (not in a DRM-format) and it played, but with a slightly different experience than one would get in iTunes.

(The video was “squished” with no way to correct it, but it played “correctly”).

Songbird does let you modify the media metadata and will display song lyrics if you have meticulously entered them yourself or utilized one of the handy add-ons to fetch them from the dark corners of the internets.

How Does It Measure Up?

Because of the virtually identical interface to that of iTunes, the experience was very…iTunes-like. Everything worked as you would expect and audio playback was indistinguishable from that of iTunes as well. Smart Playlists worked as expected along with subscriptions (i.e. podcasts). Video playback was a bit tenuous and Songbird did crash on me twice, but that is to be expected given that it is still a release candidate. The developers were even thoughtful enough to include a mini-player.

I was very pleasantly surprised with the level of support for iPods. I was not brave enough to subject my own, personal iPhone to the test, so I commandeered my daughter’s iPod and managed to perform all operations that one would expect to perform without any errors or warnings. That same iPod worked fine again in iTunes as well.

It was also unexpectedly useful to be able to utilize the tabbed-browsing capabilities within Songbird, especially when I used it to explore the “similar songs” content via Last.fm.

Tabbed-browsing was also useful when I jumped over to Aimee Street to find some tracks (it further displayed a list of files I could download immediately).

However, my experiences with the preferences system left much to be desired.

With a bit more polish and working add-ons, I could definitely use Songbird as my primary audio media player if it weren’t for the need to sync everything but music and video with my iPhone. It would also be useful to have a “remote” application for Songbird that worked on the iPhone and iPod touch.

Beyond The Player

The real power of Songbird comes from add-ons. These extensions are what make iPod support, album art download, Last.fm functionality and skinning (now called “feathering”) possible. The best way to work with add-ons is to use the “Songbird Add-ons” bookmark from the leftmost pane. By viewing the Songbird Add-ons gallery from within the application you will only be able to install those extensions that are compatible with the version of Songbird you are running, which will take quite a bit of the guesswork and frustration out of finding ones you want to use.

After putting Songbird through it’s paces, here are some add-ons I can recommend you install to get the best experience out of the application.

• MediaFlow for a cover-flow like view
• Last.fm Album Art to make MediaFlow useful
• Music Recommendations for pseduo-Genius-like recommendations
• LiveTweeter to annoy your social networking friends
• LyricMaster to read what you are hearing
• Mac Remote Control Support which enables the use of Apple’s remote control
• iTunes for an even more familiar GUI

Getting Your Hands Dirty

Because Songbird is an open project, you may contribute as little or as much as you’d like to the community of users. You can work on skins (OK, “feathers”), general add-ons or fiddle with building display panes and Songbird-specific web pages.

One very interesting idea would be to fully integrate social networking sites within Songbird itself so one could, say, monitor Twitter Search for “listening to” tweets and have them queue up in a stream from Last.fm or perhaps find a way to integrate Amazon MP3 into Songbird so that tracks can import directly into it instead of first having to go into iTunes then wait for the library sync. Personally, I’d really like to see support for Growl via some nifty add-on.

For those users that like to know where an application has made footprints on their system, Songbird will store music in ~/Music (you probably should create a subdirectory called “Songbird” that instruct the application to use it if you like your top-level Music folder tidy) and correctly utilizes ~/Library/Application Support/Songbird2 (note the “2″ on the end) for application extras. Application preferences are not fully stored in ~/Library/Preferences/org.songbirdnest.songbird.plist, but it does use it for some of them.

Scripters will be a bit disappointed as Songbird does not have a rich dictionary in any way, shape or form. Only basic application controls are available and no way to do any type of media content-based automation whatsoever. All customizations and integration attempts must be done via Songbird add-ons.

Songbird has come a very long way since the days of version 0.3 and it is definitely something the iTunes development team within Apple should keep an eye on. While iTunes bloats (though Genius is truly genius), Songbird innovates. When 1.0 finally comes out, I suspect I will have little hesitation recommending it to even the most casual of Mac user.

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