Amarok 2 rocks the house: A review roundup

Friday, December 12. 2008

Amarok 2 rocks the house: A review roundup

After our recent release of Amarok 2.0, the first round of reviews from major Internet sites has hit the tubes. It is interesting to note that while we got slightly mixed reviews from our users, the majority of professional reviewers had mostly positive things to say about our baby.

I'm not surprised at all by this outcome - I've been long enough in the software business to know the rules. Again I would like to emphasize that we take every criticism very seriously, as long as it is constructive. And we have a very firm vision of Amarok. Everyone who has met me either on the Net or in person knows that I'm a man of strong visions in which I firmly believe, and that I'm not easily influenced by others to change my views.

Enough of the banter! Let's get to the meat:

Ryan Paul of Ars Technica posted an extremely well written and in-depth review:

Hands-on: Amarok 2 rocks the house

Jeremy LaCroix wrote a balanced and fair review for Linux.com:

Amarok gets a facelift

Kevin Purdy of Lifehacker has written a short but sweet review:

Amarok 2 Released, Windows and Mac Versions in Beta

Austin Modine of The Register reviewed Amarok 2:

Native-Linux music player Amarok gets major overhaul

That's all for now. If you discover any more noteworthy reviews, please post them in the comments section. I might eventually write a follow-up to this article, or simply caress my (planet sized) ego by enjoying the reviews.

Mark Kretschmann

Posted by Mark Kretschmann in markey at 03:10 | Comments (20) | Trackbacks (0)

Trackbacks

Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments

Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

Hi Mark!

First of all, congratulations on your release! I consider myself one of your happy "silent" users, but really have to say I've rarely been thrilled so much about a new software release as with Amarok 2.0!

Cheers!
Arend jr.

#1 Arend van Beelen jr. (Homepage) on 2008-12-12 05:38 (Reply)

Thanks Arend!

I actually remember meeting you at an Akademy many years ago. Nice talking to you again

#1.1 Mark Kretschmann on 2008-12-12 05:54 (Reply)

Another one, from Linux Magazine:

http://www.linux-magazine.com/online/news/amarok_2_makes_fresh_start_for_kde4

#2 Mark Kretschmann on 2008-12-12 06:07 (Reply)

A review from heise.de, Germany's biggest IT news site (in German language):

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/Audio-Player-Amarok-2-0-fuer-Linux-veroeffentlicht--/meldung/120224

#3 Mark Kretschmann on 2008-12-12 07:25 (Reply)

Aren't reviewers of free software generally very positive about everything? And usually not very thorough?

To a certain extent I'd say the users are better qualified than the reviewers, but like KDE 4.0, Amarok 2.0 is something new, and it'll suffer the same criticism, from long time users:
- "my pet feature is missing"
- "it's not as mature and polished"
- "oh God, please, no, I have to learn something new and slightly different and adjust my workflows a bit, nooooo!"

Guess that's the price of innovation

Personally I switched to 2.0 at beta2, and I'm very pleased with it. However...

My top 3 missing pet features:
- See podcast description (Show extended info)
- Enqeue songs in playlist (without rearranging playlist)
- Play audio cd

Keep on rocking in the free world!

#4 cb400f on 2008-12-12 07:48 (Reply)

Those are all things we want to add back as well.

Glad you like it!

#4.1 Ian Monroe (Homepage) on 2008-12-12 11:01 (Reply)

That review from Ars Technica was great. It was making me feel good even before it mentioned me.

(Slightly embarrassing since I haven't worked on the webcontrol script in a while!)

If only all journalists actually kept tabs on the technology they were reporting as Ryan obviously does. Most journalists report on us like they would report on closed source software, ignoring all the interesting info they could add to their article due to our open development process. Just read some blogs, that's not so hard.

#5 Ian Monroe (Homepage) on 2008-12-12 11:18 (Reply)

http://gotha88.blogspot.com/2008/12/amarok-20.html
Here is a review in bulgarian. In general:
- amarok is still the best audio player.
- Amarok 2.0 is big step forward.
- scripting is pretty cool.
- good web services integration(support magnatune - the "good guy" in the online music bussiness).
- really good bulgarian translation.
- still not quite stable.
- missing search filter above the playlist.
- no themes/ bad WM/OS integration.

Congratz for the great job! Amarok rullz!

#6 shitfaced on 2008-12-12 11:54 (Reply)

just to mention this is just user review, not professional.

#6.1 shitfaced on 2008-12-12 12:03 (Reply)

Don't have any reviews to link to. Been happily using Amarok 2 for months now. Great job to everyone involved!

#7 Jeffro on 2008-12-12 23:57 (Reply)

i switched from amarok2 to songbird today.
why is that so? i've always supported amarok2 in blogs, in forums and so on. but after some weeks usage i realize that i try to avoid amarok when it comes to playing music.

reasons:
it is slow. the interface tends to freeze from time to time (everything else is running fine)
it takes a lot of screen space on a 19"-tft. not everyone has a 26"-tft with 16:10-ratio...
i can't get rid of the context-view while the playlist, the most important thing in a media player, is ridiculously small.
it crashes. a lot.
* usability in the context-view is bad, adding plasmoids suffers from bad "fitt's law" (tiny ui-elements with transparency = cannot be easily read)

amarok has a lot to offer - granted, but when it comes to the central task, actually listening to music and doing simple things, it fails. heck, it often even does sorting wrong when i drag and drop an album into the playlist (didn't occur with amarok 1.4).

it's a good OS but it lacks a good media player. well, maybe in 2.1...

#8 kubuntu-user on 2008-12-14 07:21 (Reply)

This is a pre-release version, people seem to forget that.

#8.1 Matt on 2009-01-09 00:34 (Reply)

A Dutch language review. Unfortunately I don't speak Dutch, but maybe someone else could read the gist of it, and also the comments?

http://tweakers.net/meuktracker/19096/amarok-20-final.html

#9 Mark Kretschmann on 2008-12-15 14:02 (Reply)

Another very nice review from MakeTechEasier:

http://maketecheasier.com/amarok-2-brings-fresh-changes/2008/12/18

#10 Mark Kretschmann on 2008-12-19 03:41 (Reply)

I will try to use Amarok 1.4 as long as possible. I don't like the new interface and i really miss the possibility of seperating playlist from a little media player interface.

#11 Anonymous on 2008-12-22 11:18 (Reply)

Yes I agree with i also don't like the new interface.

#11.1 mani (Homepage) on 2008-12-29 01:36 (Reply)

I surprised to see you new release. Amarok 2.0 is good but i think it can be better by addition of some new relevent features.

#12 Harris (Homepage) on 2009-01-02 01:00 (Reply)

I like it. I had some serious reservations about Amarok2 when I tried one of the beta releases. I've since upgraded to the current release version and am very impressed. I actually like it more than the old 1.4 series - which is saying something.

#13 Dr. Anon E. Mouse on 2009-01-13 09:25 (Reply)

Thanks, that's nice to hear

#13.1 Mark Kretschmann on 2009-01-13 09:32 (Reply)

I love 1.4 (and am still using it - it's probably the best media player that I've ever used)

I'm not so sure (yet) about 2, I still prefer the interface in 1.4, so I will continue to use it for now, but I will keep checking back.

Thanks for all the good work!

#14 Ollie on 2009-11-03 19:03 (Reply)

Add Comment

Name
Email
Homepage
In reply to
Comment	Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (word), underscore are made via _word_. Standard emoticons like :-) and ;-) are converted to images. To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly. Enter the string from the spam-prevention image above:
	Remember Information? Subscribe to this entry