New App Helps Songbird Rock the iPhone

While the new Songbird iPhone application is simplistic, it showcases why Songbird might one day prove an iTunes killer -- anyone can add features to Songbird.

Like Firefox, Songbird can be extended with add-ons that allow anyone to build new features into the application. In this case the 779Media group is behind the iPhone app, but there are already countless other community-developed extensions available for Songbird.

Songbird's plugin architecture has allowed developers to create add-ons ranging from lyric-fetching tools to plugins that scan your music library to let you know which of your favorite bands are playing in your area.

Considering that Songbird 1.0 is only a couple weeks old, the new iPhone app is a good sign sign for those hoping Songbird can replace iTunes as their media player of choice.

That said, 779Media's Songbird iPhone app (Apple App Store link) leaves much to be desired. Once you install the iPhone app and its accompanying Songbird extension, you can play, pause and skip tracks, but there's no library listing for cueing playlists or albums (like you'll find in the iTunes-based Remote app). While the Songbird iPhone app is a nice start, it doesn't quite stand up to the competition just yet.

Unfortunately the same is true of Songbird itself. While Songbird trumps iTunes with a number of very cool features -- a full-fledged web browser, RSS and MP3 discovery tools, integrated lyric searching, related artist add-ons and much more -- it still has a way to go before it matches the basic feature set of iTunes. For example, Songbird currently doesn't support the iPhone or iPod Touch and it sometimes has trouble with large music libraries.

In many ways Songbird 1.0 is roughly where Firefox started -- it looked very promising, but it wasn't really capable of replacing Internet Explorer until version 1.5, or even 2.0, rolled around.

Still, if you're serious about your music -- particularly if you follow MP3 blogs or like to discover new music online -- Songbird makes a very nice addition to your jukebox software arsenal. It may not replace iTunes at the moment, but it offers enough extra features to make it worth a spot on our hard drives.

By Scott Gilbertson for Wired.com