Hello fellow birders,
We couldn’t help ourselves after 1.5. We had to make some more performance and memory usage improvements for you! We’re very excited about the progress we’re making and we hope you are as well. As with every release there are also many other bug fixes which we hope you’ll appreciate.
Not to sound like a broken record but we’re always happy to get your feedback so please don’t stop giving it. 
1 Trackback
[...] disponibleL’équipe de songbird a du corriger un certain nombre de bug et nous livre une version 1.5.1 encore mieux optimisée en performance et utilisation de la mémoire que nous espérons que vous [...]
25 Comments
SubscribeSince v1.5 Songbird auto-rotates to widescreen despite me having the feature turned off. Its kinda annoing. SGS2, current ofw.
Umm.. could you also maintain actual changelog to publish with new release annoucements? Its kinda annoying having to check for all known bugs only to find out none of those were fixed >_>
(Dont drop shuffle just because I’ve selected something from the list manually.)
le bug: Go into some fancy long playlist > swipe to scroll > press back button while the list still scrolls from inertia > pretty decent chance your songbird just froze. At least in my case.
“Not to sound like a broken record but we’re always happy to get your feedback so please don’t stop giving it.”
You say this, but then you don’t like when I bring up Linux. Can’t give honest feedback with lamenting.
Could you make the orientation switching optional or make it follow the device settings? I have my device set to not go into landscape, but songbird still does.
The bug I reported on 1.5 is still present: the list of song is already scrolled down
Seriously, some loving for the desktop version is really really needed. Your roadmap is a year out of date.
If you’re just throwing in the tower for the desktop versions just say so and we’ll all give up and go to foobar and winamp.
Thanks for the new version!
My wish list:
1. I second I would like an option to turn off orientation switching altogether
2. Bug: When I play a long playlist (1700 songs) in shuffle mode skip back / skip forward does not skip to the song previously played, rather to some random song
I think APP2SD could be a good improvement. Also a widget with transparency could be welcome.
Thank you for this wonderful music player!
I’d rather ‘shuffle’ were a true shuffle, rather than randomly selecting the next song. And that the newly shuffled play order was reflected in the playlist.
De-selecting shuffle would restore the playlist to its original order. RE-selecting it would produce a new randomization.
Sure looking forward to a new desktop build. And still wishing for official Linux support. Glad there’s unofficial, at least. Clementine’s catching up.
@Gryphon
I’m not sure what you mean by true shuffle. Currently, we create a shuffled list which we then use to pick from. There are no repeats with the shuffle algorithm we use until every single track has been played once. After that, we will re-shuffle the list and start anew.
@SquareWheel
I’m just trying to keep the conversation focused on the topic of the blog post. Quite honestly, people expect the comments of this blog post to be relevant to what’s in it.
@radyn
Please stay on topic. And no, we are not throwing in the ‘tower’ (which I’m assuming is actually ‘towel’). We are still ironing out the kinks in the next Desktop release.
@Farrol
Would you like to see an option that only locks the orientation in the application itself? You can already lock the orientation of the phone by disabling ‘Auto Rotate’ under the ‘Display’ options.
As for the other issue, using the back button in our testing just goes back to the previous song played, even with shuffle turned on. Could you please give us more detail?
Aus,
I was just about to post here re the desktop version when I saw your post.
Firstly, belittling your users by putting their typo in inverted commas and calling into question their obvious meaning is poor form.
Secondly, if you want people to stay on topic then how about responding to their comments when it is appropriate, then they won’t feel the need to vent their frustrations whenever they’re given the opportunity.
Your communication on the desktop version is beyond poor, and this is not the first time I’ve brought this up. Your roadmap has for along time said nothing (it may still do), and whilst you must surely be aware of people’s expectations for the next version, you continue to be silent on the matter both here and on Twitter.
People want to know they’re not using abandoned software. Whilst I did not for a minute think it was abandoned, it does seem like it’s not getting the attention it deserves. When users see this, they worry. When developers see this, they don’t commit. For this reason, your addons are suffering – far too often I want to download an addon which is not supported by the latest version.
I have, as I said, brought up the team’s poor communication before. (Sorry to sound like a broken record.) It’s so simple to just update the blog with a few lines to say what’s going on. And when even the roadmap is untouched, well than that’s serious cause for concern.
I don’t think it’s too harsh to say that it’s both infuriating and utterly mind-boggling that you persist in being so poor at this. It’s the sort of behaviour that encourages the “companies never learn” thinking – which often I find misplaced but here is thoroughly deserved – as well as making me think that were in your position I would find this a very easy problem to fix: communicate. Often. How hard is that?
Ha, well. Spot the additional typo to be pointed out
I believe that good developer-community communication is absolutely necessary in open source projects to receive a good interaction and gain from the community.
When the community would feel appreciated and gets to be more involved in the project by giving them updates etc, then it’s when the community gets excited and will be start giving back to open source projects. Look at the add-ons, over the last year almost no significant new add-ons have been added and a lot don’t get updated anymore. Same thing with the wiki etc.
However, that being said, good work on the android version.
@Elliot
I felt like the tower vs towel thing was funny personally. I didn’t mean to offend.
Anyway, you’re singling me out unfairly here. I’m the Lead on the Android product. It’s not really my place nor is it my responsibility to communicate about the Desktop. Assigning the all the blame to me is shortsighted and quite frankly very rude. If you were using the word ‘you’ as ‘you, the Company’ then I retract what I’ve said. However, the tone did seem personal.
We’re a small company and there’s always too many things to do and so I have to stick to the things that I’m supposed to do.
That’s just how it is. I’ve communicated my concerns about the lack of updates about the desktop to that team and now the ball is in their court.
@seba
I appreciate what you are saying but communicating about the Desktop product is out of my control and domain of responsibility. I understand that people are frustrated but the updates are not mine to give.
What I’m missing badly in the Android version is the support for dynamic playlists. This also includes missing support for songs’ rating (and reading the rating tags from files).
Another feature I would like to see added is sleep (stop playing after xx minutes) support.
Aus, obviously I meant you in the sense of the company. Aside from actually using the words ‘companies’ and the phrase ‘the team’, did you think I was referring to *your* own personal roadmap, or your own personal Twitter account? I don’t know why you’re so keen to make this personal but that it comes in the face of criticism doesn’t look good. Anyway, I appreciate you passing on our concerns to the desktop team. Again, we all appreciate that it’s a small company but nobody’s asking for a faster pace of development. Just a few sentences once in a while.
Last.fm is not scrobbling for me with this. It will how the name of the song while playing but will not save it to my recently played. Please fix?
Great app!
Just one thing, though.
I use my Android phone on a dock while driving. The problem is that the fonts are too small in landscape mode. I wonder if there is a possibility to increase this fonts.
Thank you.
It doesn’t sync Playlists or Album Art with my Android phone.
Should I start with a “clean slate”? How exactly would I do that?
I have:
- Songbird 1.10.0b3, Build 2091 (20110620030445)
- Songbird for Android v1.5.1
- Samsung Nexus S (Andoid v2.3.6)
Remote access to your PC’s Songbird through the Songbird Android app.
Video sync to your device.
More Video Codecs and a iTunes grid replica for the PC version would be nice.
Over all, Great product!!!! Glad is open sourced……… Props on the logo too
little bird + big headphones = awesome
@Aus – I guess it’s that communication thing again. I had no idea you (personally) were Android-Only. Who -is- the desktop lead? Bean ‘em with a beanbag!
Seriously, the communication thing is an issue. I like Songbird a lot, despite the linux thing, and I really want for it to succeed. But the desktop end is starting to feel like abandonware. And a good chunk of the appeal of the Android app is its ability to synch with the desktop end.
In fact, that ability is not a small part of what’s guiding my decision to go with Android, when we do finally upgrade phones.
But without both halves of that formula, well… it’s like a bird with one wing. Pretty, but not gonna fly far.
I would like to apologize for giving you (Aus) a hard time about things related to the desktop, now that I know it’s not your area. Fill a beanbag with those gritchy comments, and fling it at whoever SHOULD be handling updates for that other wing.
@Aus
1: Yes, I would like to see an option that only locks the orientation in the application itself. Because I often fiddle around with the Songbird app when the phone (or I) is lying flat down and then the orientation sensor can easily be confused.
Most other apps I just use standing up and for those I want orientation awareness.
2: Regarding the problem with skipping back/forward in shuffle mode:
This most often occurs with long (> 1000 songs) playlists. Back and forward skip to totally random titles.
But sometimes it actually works as it should, even with long playlists.
With short playlists it always works.
Maybe my phone has not enough memory? (LG P500)
Like the app but can’t seem to get my settings to keep – like turning off the lock screen widget and Last.fm scrobbling. For some reason I make those setting and the next thing I know they are back.
It seems that the settings should stick even after an update too.
Songbird still doesn’t read exported playlists in .plu format from the main app.