Free MP3 software like WinAmp, but for Mac?

December 30, 2003 2:41 AM

My Dad's undergoing The Switch, to evil Apple computers. He wants some free MP3 playing software, preferably with the functionality of WinAmp. Any suggestions, MacFites?
posted by armoured-ant to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

Has he had a look at iTunes? Free as in bundled-with-the-system, has good playlist management, one-touch ripping and supports burning.
posted by danhon at 3:15 AM on December 30, 2003

not sure if there are many realistic alternatives, but i run itunes on my mac, as i'm sure most other apple users do too. you lose out on a lot of fun from window's winamp, but you get a pretty good music store in the deal.
posted by lotsofno at 3:16 AM on December 30, 2003

Best answer: You know about iTunes, right? That can do pretty much everything WinAmp can do, and more. If you don't like iTunes you can always try Audion. Mind you, iTunes is free and Audion isn't (not really).
posted by adrianhon at 3:20 AM on December 30, 2003

iTunes is much less nasty for mac than it is for Windows. In addition to Audion, MacAmp Lite is another alternative, and sounds like the sort of thing you're after. I haven't tried it. I'd recommend iTunes, though.
posted by nthdegx at 4:00 AM on December 30, 2003

As a switcher that was a big fan of WinAmp 2.x, I was also interested a similar app for the Mac. I stopped looking after using iTunes though. The only thing iTunes lacks is being skinnable and the tons of visualizations but I don't miss that stuff.
posted by birdherder at 5:03 AM on December 30, 2003

Classic formulation of "switchers" : The only thing Mac's lacks is [X] and the [Y] but I don't miss that stuff.

What good are 10,000 applications of 9,992 of them suck or aren't what you need anyway? Sure, your choice of 50 music playback applications seems good, but what you really want is the best one out there. Same goes for MP3 players as well. Yeah, not every MP3 player is mac compatible, but the best one is.
posted by zpousman at 11:28 AM on December 30, 2003

offtopic: Personally all I really want is the ability to grab any window edge to resize. Having to go all the way down to the bottom right hand corner of a window to resize it makes the baby Jesus cry.
posted by bshort at 12:21 PM on December 30, 2003

I would second Audion as an alternative to iTunes.
posted by gyc at 2:02 PM on December 30, 2003