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The charming obsolete Winamp media player is being reinvented as a platform-independent mobile audio application that brings together all your music, podcasts and streaming services in one place. This is an ambitious recovery, but the company behind it says that the global market Winamp, which counts millions community – and for proof, the original desktop application also receives an official update.
For those who do not remember it: Winamp was the MP3 player of choice at the turn of the century, but it went through a difficult period at the time of ownership of Aol (our former parent company) and n & # 39; 39; has failed to counter the likes of iTunes and the onslaught of streaming. services, and more or less crumbled over the years. The original application, last updated in 2013, is still working, but to say that it has a hard time would be a euphemism (the community however worked hard to keep it updated). It is therefore with pleasure that I can confirm the rumors that substantial updates are in progress.
"There will be a brand new release next year, with Winamp's legacy but a more complete listening experience," said Alexandre Saboundjian, CEO of Radionomy, the company that bought Winamp (or what's left of it) in 2014. "You can listen to MP3 files that you can have at home, but also the cloud, podcasts, streaming radio stations, a playlist that you may have built. "
"People want a unique experience," he concluded. "I think Winamp is the perfect player to bring this to everyone. And we want people to have it on all devices.
Laugh if you want but i laugh
Now, I am a Winamp user myself. And although I am saddened by the drama that has gone through the iconic MP3 player and the team that created it (in the hands of the former parent company of TechCrunch, Aol), I can not say that I've been affected by this in real life. Winamp 2 and 5 m have led from Windows 98 SE to 10 with hiccups, and the drive is docked just to the right of this browser's window when I type this. (I'm using the skin nucleo_nlog.)
And although I carry the burden of derisory comments from my colleagues for my choice of player, I am far from alone. Winamp has up to one hundred million monthly users, most of whom are outside the United States. This real and engaged user base could constitute a powerful footing for a new platform: the mobile at first, but with a lot of love for the office. .
"Winamp users are really everywhere. It's a huge number, "Saboundjian said. "We have a very strong and important community. But everyone "knows" that Winamp is dead, that we are no longer working on it. This is not the case. "
This may not yet shock Winamp users: After years of rumors, an update to the desktop drive was released last month, upgrading it from 5.666 to 5.8. This was a pleasant surprise for users who had encountered compatibility issues with Windows 10 but who had taken the "more to come" rating on the website with a huge grain of salt.
After all, this kind of thing happens often: an old property or application is bought, promises are made and after a few years, they disappear somehow. So, a free upgrade – in fact, 5.8 eliminates all the paid options originally offered in the Pro version – bringing a host of fixes comes back to Christmas who is approaching ahead. Or late. In any case, it is appreciated.
The official undisclosed version 5.8 should come out this week (18, to be precise), and will not be substantially different from the one we have been using for years or the one that leaked. Bug fixes and compatibility should allow this relic to stay a few more years.
The update of the desktop application is basically a bona fide advance payment to the community: Radionomy shows that it does not just run away with the property and slap the mark for a random business. But the real news is Winamp 6, which should be released in 2019 according to Saboundjian.
"What I see today is that you have to switch from one player to another or to an aggregator if you want to listen to a radio station, to a podcast if you want to listen to a podcast – for me, this is not the final. experience, "he explained.Everything is audio and everything is searchable in one way or another.So why is not it all in one place?
The planned version of Winamp for iOS and Android will be this place, says Saboundjian. On the desktop, "the war is over," he said, and between iTunes and Web applications, there's not much room to sneak in. But mobile audio is fractured and impractical.
While Saboundjian declined to specify the services that would be part of the new Winamp or how the application would connect, for example, to your Spotify playlists, your Google Music library, your Podcasts app, to Audible etc., he seemed confident that this would meet the needs he described. Many conversations are going on, he said, but licenses and agreements are not the main difficulty, and of course, release is still an issue. The team focused on creating a consistent application across all the platforms you would like to encounter with mobile audio. A much improved search will also play a role, as it should be, when all media are grouped in the same place.
It is unclear if she will keep her trademark when it's installed – "WINAMP. He really whips the lama's ass. "I hope so.
Of course, this lack of precision is a bit frustrating, but I'm not worried about the vaporware. I fear other services will insist that their fragmented experience serve their interests better than ours. But if Radionomy can navigate these difficult waters and provide a product that is similar to what they have described, I'll be delighted (and I imagine tens of millions more will be). And if not, well, we'll always have the original.
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