Hello birders,
I just wanted to give all of you a quick update about the features and bug fixes that will be in the next beta of Songbird for Android which is due in a few weeks.
We’ve spent quite a bit of time trying to smoothen out the Phone interactions. The headset hook key for example will work as expected and enable you to answer a call and hang up. We were hoping to also fix interactions between the Voice Dialer and Songbird but it would seem that the Voice Dialer doesn’t send out any notifications so we don’t actually know when it becomes active. If any of you have any information on this and are willing to share it that would be greatly appreciated.
Other things we’re actively working on right now include a splash screen and about view (with super whizzy animations!) and
settings for handling of headset media buttons, scrobbling and now playing notifications to other applications. A lock screen widget as well as playlist creation and editing are in the design phase and we’ll get started on those real soon. 
21 Comments
Subscribesweet, smart play lists please!
Great, also I thought you would use J’Koshi illustration here : http://notesfromthezeitgeist.blogspot.com/2011/02/songbird-android.html
does the linux version of songbird support syncing to my android device?
A download link/barcode would be nice
Sounds great, looking forward to the release! (@anders: this is just forecasting; the release isn’t due for a few weeks.)
Also, I have been critical in the past due to lack of updates/communication, so I feel it is only fair now to thank you for the recent rise in updates. I really appreciate it as a user and I am sure a lot of other users do as well. Kudos.
@Antoine Turmel
I was planning on using that image for the 1.0 Final release blog post but you’ve ruined my surprise :p
@moragos
Yes. If you use the 1.10 Linux Nightly build along with the MSC Add-On for it you should be able to sync to your Android phone.
@katana346
Thanks
It can be difficult at times to remember to post updates to the blog. It’s often more natural to post about stuff when they are done and available. It can also be pretty easy to get tied up in writing code and forget about the blog completely. I’m trying to break that habit 
Yeah, I’m with @katana346 – while I do get grumpy when things go silent for prolonged times, it makes me very happy to see this great improvement again. Keep up the good work!
Quite honestly, the fact that Songbird will be available on Android makes it MUCH more likely I will go to that platform, when I finally surrender to our smartphone overlords.
any chance of adding URL streaming i love being able use that in windows songbird and hate having to have 4 different music programs on my phone to do all the things songbird does
@Nate
It’s in our list of future features but it’s unlikely to make it into 1.0 Final.
i believe that adding something like the Recommended Playlists AddOn (that uses lastfm database to create automatic playlists from the library) would make it the killer-app/player for android
is podcatching on that list too? I use StreamFurious for streams and Doggcatcher for podcasts now, but would love to eventually have it all rolled into one program.
Still b2 on the market… how long does it take to appear? any idea?
@abeman: From the first line of this post “…which is due in a few weeks.” So… more than one week for sure. She didn’t say ‘a couple’, so I’m guessing three weeks from now.
@Aus: Any updates on the Songbird mainline? Do you plan on releasing to PortableApps again (please please please)?
Does this mean that Songbird will be available on the Xoom tablet? If not, will this happen in the future?
@Gryphon
The PortableApps version of Songbird was not done by us. We’re hoping that the guys that made the 1.4.3 version of it will be excited about the 1.9 release and update it
@froyobro
Yes, Songbird will be available on the Xoom tablet!
@William Maggos
While we don’t have plans to directly manage podcasts from the phone we do have some features planned to support playing them nicely. There are also some top secret plans which may enable support for management of them… when we’re ready we’ll announce those to the world.
Thanks for the update Aus!
As for the voice input, would it be possible to look for anything using the RecognizerIntent function to call up the speech processor, and then wait for the result to be sent to un-pause/mute?
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/speech/RecognizerIntent.html
@Aus – I hope so too! They should, ‘cuz it’s looking awesome! My tests showed it working much faster with my bloaty ol’ library, but I’m addicted to the portable version. I’ll go lean some gentle suggestive pressure on ‘em.
Also… you are entirely within the bounds of right and reason to bonk me severely for this, but… I gotta. :>
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/02/28/mac-and-linux-users-also-buy-games/
Something to consider adding…have the volume buttons work as “next” and “previous” if held down while the screen is turned off. That way, you don’t have to turn your phone on to do that from the lockscreen or from the app depending.
@Gryphon
Hmm, while that is interesting I think it’s specifically because the bundle was meant to support the EFF. It’s also really different for us because we don’t sell our product directly to consumers.
If you’re telling me Linux users would be willing to pay for Songbird so that it’s officially supported I would also have a hard time believing that. There are too many other options that they don’t need to pay for already for us to compete with a paid product.
For us, in the end, it’s really a question of man power, time constraints and features. With those key factors in mind we had to pick what most of the world uses on the desktop. When that changes, our partners will likely change too and request Linux to be officially supported and pay for licensing.
Yay! Portable Apps -already- has 1.9.3!
http://portableapps.com/apps/music_video/songbird_portable
Downloading now. :>
@Aus
Oh, I totally agree – that is kind of an apples to wombats comparison. Games are very different from applications like Songbird, in every way. But I thought the info might be useful to you as a group. The way they ‘advertised’, and the goodwill generated, was pretty cool. It’s also the kind of thing you might ride the coattails of, since they strongly stress being cross-platform.
Songbird rocks… and reaching out to a new audience might just spread the word. Much like hooking up with Philips and Android is already doing.
how do you put music on a device using philips Songbird?