Charles Kraus: Songbird app for Android goes beta, we go hands-on

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Songbird app for Android goes beta, we go hands-on

Using Songbird on your desktop or laptop to listen to your cavernous collection of digital music? Good news -- the Songbird team has been working in "super seekrit" (their words, not ours) on bringing you a pocket-sized version for your Android device. Even better, they've announced the availability of the first public beta of Songbird for Android -- and we took it for a spin.

Here's the quick version: Songbird looks nice, and it's got a good set of basic features. It's got a good built-in search and allows you to browse your library by artist, album, song, genre, or playlist. As your peruse your collection, the now playing pane hides itself behind Songbird's playback controls. Tap and drag the tab to slide it into view, and you can swipe through a Flickr-powered photostream or like the track on Facebook.

Want to control your Songbird queue from your homescreen? Like all good Android music players, there's a widget which allows you to do just that.

Now, this being the first beta we expected some bugs and missing features. While you can play existing playlists, Songbird doesn't yet allow you to create them on your device -- we'd love to be able to tap and hold a track to send it to a list. We'd also like to see something happen when we tap the menu button on our device -- maybe some personalization or sharing options could appear?

There's also an interesting bug (which the team calls out in their blog post) where the wrong songs may play if you have music stored both on your internal storage and on a microSD card. Try as we might, Lateralus just wouldn't play -- another album kept butting in.

Gallery: Songbird for Android Beta Screenshots

Still, we're encouraged by our first taste of Songbird for Android. Check the gallery for more screenshots, or hit the Songbird blog and grab the .APK to take the beta for a spin!

Thanks to Chris H. for pointing Songbird for Android out to us!

Songbird app for Android goes beta, we go hands-on originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 22 Jan 2011 16:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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