Call me crazy but iTunes/Music has always been one of the things I like most about macOS, at least after going through the settings and disabling all the features trying to push you into a subscription. I still manage my own ~500 file mp3 collection instead of paying monthly.
I feel like iTunes/Music gets worse with every version, to the point where I've effectively abandoned it finally after macOS 26.
My music collection is some tens of thousands of files served via a DAAP media server - since macOS 26, Apple Music will only play music for 5-15 minutes before giving up and just stopping.
For years, it's had a trivially reproducible bug where pausing Apple Music while playing from a DAAP server, then restarting the DAAP server will crash Apple Music.
After trying basically every airsonic/subsonic/plex/etc. alternative, I finally settled on simply using foobar2000 to play from an SMB share.
iTunes/Music has its merits but in my opinion has been in decline since between versions 6 and 10 depending on the aspects being spoken about. For most of its existence it was subject to constant bloat and always felt a bit "off" compared to other Mac apps due to its nature as a cross-platform Carbon app full of bespoke UI widgets, and though its feature set got pared down and it technically became AppKit-dominant in the transition to "Music", it still doesn't feel right and is out of step with the rest of the OS.
A proper AppKit iTunes-style player with the best parts of iTunes across versions but without the bloat would be a beautiful thing. Even better if it's FOSS so it doesn't get abandoned a few years down the road, as paid players tend to. While there's several apps in this general direction like Doppler[0], nothing really nails it satisfactorily.
I also hate the idea of streaming, but I have been super lazy in the past
I have listened to 44,000 songs on Spotify over the last 13 years. It has brought me a ton of value, but I would love to move back to owning my music as files. I've been getting fancier with managing self-hosted infra at home, especially using AI to help me out.
Maybe I'll get back there, but I also can't imagine only listening to 500 songs!!!!
Just tried the linked app after a year of using iina only, and it definitely has a vibe to it!
I actually have missed the exact feature of being able to open downloads folder and see all the media alphabetically + shuffle through them. Not paying 20$ (sorry) but might take a look whether I can use codex to add a couple of nice tweaks for personal use
Good retro feel. I don't mean to shift the spotlight away from the topic, but a great lightweight alternative is Tiny Player: https://www.catnapgames.com/tiny-player-for-mac/
I see little to no information on whether or not it really whips the llama's ass
At 26MB setup package it most likely doesn't.
Call me crazy but iTunes/Music has always been one of the things I like most about macOS, at least after going through the settings and disabling all the features trying to push you into a subscription. I still manage my own ~500 file mp3 collection instead of paying monthly.
I feel like iTunes/Music gets worse with every version, to the point where I've effectively abandoned it finally after macOS 26.
My music collection is some tens of thousands of files served via a DAAP media server - since macOS 26, Apple Music will only play music for 5-15 minutes before giving up and just stopping.
For years, it's had a trivially reproducible bug where pausing Apple Music while playing from a DAAP server, then restarting the DAAP server will crash Apple Music.
After trying basically every airsonic/subsonic/plex/etc. alternative, I finally settled on simply using foobar2000 to play from an SMB share.
iTunes/Music has its merits but in my opinion has been in decline since between versions 6 and 10 depending on the aspects being spoken about. For most of its existence it was subject to constant bloat and always felt a bit "off" compared to other Mac apps due to its nature as a cross-platform Carbon app full of bespoke UI widgets, and though its feature set got pared down and it technically became AppKit-dominant in the transition to "Music", it still doesn't feel right and is out of step with the rest of the OS.
A proper AppKit iTunes-style player with the best parts of iTunes across versions but without the bloat would be a beautiful thing. Even better if it's FOSS so it doesn't get abandoned a few years down the road, as paid players tend to. While there's several apps in this general direction like Doppler[0], nothing really nails it satisfactorily.
[0]: https://brushedtype.co/doppler/
I also hate the idea of streaming, but I have been super lazy in the past
I have listened to 44,000 songs on Spotify over the last 13 years. It has brought me a ton of value, but I would love to move back to owning my music as files. I've been getting fancier with managing self-hosted infra at home, especially using AI to help me out.
Maybe I'll get back there, but I also can't imagine only listening to 500 songs!!!!
complete opposite, i hate it
I recommend IINA: https://iina.io (https://github.com/iina/iina)
Just tried the linked app after a year of using iina only, and it definitely has a vibe to it!
I actually have missed the exact feature of being able to open downloads folder and see all the media alphabetically + shuffle through them. Not paying 20$ (sorry) but might take a look whether I can use codex to add a couple of nice tweaks for personal use
Pay software that doesn't have anything to do with Winamp.
Does it support original Winamp skins?
Cool. Now please make it support skins that aren’t rectangular. https://warped3.substack.com/p/direct-win32-api-weird-shaped...
Vibe coded?