Photo: Winamp
Good news to all those stuck in the early aughts! Everyone’s favorite lo-fi MP3 playing application Winamp is getting a major facelift, and I’m not just talking about skins. After years of version 5.666, current users of the program pulled an update. While version 5.8 only fixed a few lingering issues with Windows 10 compatibility, it also signals that development is resuming. However, rather than focusing on their traditional desktop home, the team behind the in-the-works Winamp are charting a new course towards mobile.
Speaking with TechCrunch, Radionomy CEO Alexandre Saboundjian expanded on the app’s new direction. “What I see today is you have to jump from one player to another player or aggregator if you want to listen to a radio station, to a podcast player if you want to listen to a podcast — this, to me, is not the final experience” He sees that there is a lot of fragmentation in the cell phone listening space. Winamp could be the solution to that problem.
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There are plenty of good use cases too. Despite years of trying and several official Google solutions, Android still doesn’t have a standout free podcasting app. If Winamp could move into that space, it would immediately improve the ecosystem. The same could be said with audiobooks, which exist almost solely in Amazon’s walled garden.
Winamp 6 aims to bring together all the services you already use in one place, but there aren’t solid details in place as of now. One imagines that Radionomy is in talks with all sorts of platform holders to get integration going. It could be tricking pulling together Google, Spotify, and Amazon, but the end result seems worth it. Until then, you can always still listen to your Shoutcasts on the desktop.
