There are some similarities for sure! I also like IINA and have used it extensively in the past. The main additions are the flexible layout, waveform view, shader background, better performance and smaller app size, pitch and effects and bunch of other small things. So even though they can look similar (both have album cover and playlist), the experience is hopefully quite different.
Thank you. I like the way you phrased this, especially the "just launch & listen with minimal involvement" part. That’s very close to how we think about it too.
Nice, thanks for the link. It actually works, but lacks basic features as opening the whole folder with subfolders, pressing spacebar to play or loading large amounts of files, the app hangs immediately.
I remember using that "green head" Windows Media Player. It's fun for like five minutes, then you get back to the default, but maybe that's just me. But we definitely need more "weird shaped" apps, that's for sure.
I used iTunes for a long time with a library of around 1,000 albums. If you weren’t too lazy to add proper covers and ID3 tags, it was actually pretty enjoyable to use – especially together with an iPod. But the problem is that iTunes imposes a very “flat” structure on your library, while for some collections a hierarchical folder/subfolder/file structure just works much better. Not to mention that you can keep all kinds of related files alongside the music itself – booklet scans, lyrics, interviews, links, PDFs, and so on.
For me personally, the main reason to use foobar2000 back then was FLAC support, which Winamp didn’t have at the time. Out of nostalgia, I downloaded foobar again not too long ago, but I just couldn’t get into it – it doesn’t really jive with me anymore. I wouldn’t have tried to build a new audio player if I felt there were better alternatives already out there, but personally I couldn’t find one. Cheers.
What for? It's just streaming audio chunks with Core Audio that you cannot bypass. Even if there's resampling of 44.1khz to 48khz (Mac's default nowadays), it's not audible. Bit by bit perfection matters when you do a lot of processing, like in the context of a DAW or sound plugins, but not so much in the listening context. DA (digital-to-analog) end-chain matters much more – the actual audio interface and speakers, where all file-to-sound-wave reconstruction magic happens.
I miss these times too. And I’d like to remind you that Winamp used to be a $10 shareware app (that’s roughly $30 in today’s dollars). The first version of Winamp didn't have any windows, it was pure utility application. Do you still think there's value in "max customization"?
We tried to keep it as lean as possible. MacOS itself adds quite a bit, and then there are libraries for format decoding, audio streaming, VST support, etc. Could it be smaller? Probably – but not by an order of magnitude.
I personally own a bunch of vinyl records and love to change pitch while listening to get a different feel for the familiar music. DJs used to mix with turntables that have only pitch and phase adjustments, it was very minimal.