I checked out Songbird really briefly. Here are some thoughts:
- It doesn't feel like an OS X app. I use a Mac both at work and at home now, so this is actually something that matters. I had to stop and look around for controls that belong *right there* on Mac apps.
- I was really interested to see what song metadata got imported from my iTunes library:
- Album art was hit or miss. I suspect some of my mp3s have art embedded in a standard-compliant manner and others have it done by some iTunes-specific way.
- iTunes offers a "Grouping" meta tag that I find useful for making "smart" playlists. This isn't available in Songbird.
- Speaking of "smart" playlists, Songbird has 'em too, but they are exactly the same as those in iTunes. I was kind of hoping for more. There was once a music player that let you do crazy SQL-like queries. I want that.
- Plain play lists got imported from iTunes, "smart" ones did not.
At any rate, I was just taking a peek. I've downed the whole pitcher of iTunes Kool-Aid and I'm not going anywhere. iTunes manages my iPod and my iPhone, my iPhone can remote control iTunes from the other side of the house, and my TiVo can play iTunes playlists that I've shared from my iMac. Also, contrary to many people I know, iTunes actually works great for me.
I have no reason to be looking elsewhere, but I do like so see what's up with the new stuff. ;)