[ZoomZoomZoom]

Before foobar2k there was an outstanding player named Apollo[1] with almost a perfect UI: basically, just a playlist grid. It supported associating with directories, of course, so playback was also two clicks away.

Just checked, it still works great, although, the limited codec support and no scrobbling is a dealbreaker for me. Same reason I had to ditch it years ago.

Would love to peek at the source code of that program. One of the last messages its developer Heikki Ylinen left on his website reads:

  If you want to know what the future of digital music looks like, I recommend giving Spotify a go. And before anyone says anything, I know it has been done before, but this time it looks like it's been done right. And this is just the beginning.

Pretty ironic.

[1] https://www.rarewares.org/rrw/apollo.php

[skeaker]

Hardly ironic. It's not a stretch to say they were right, Spotify is pretty synonymous with digital music even for all of its flaws. (Disclaimer, I don't use it myself.)

[ZoomZoomZoom]

What's ironic is that the tone of that message is pretty positive, even though it comes from an author of a pretty successful freeware media player for a PC. You'd think they should have known better.

[defrost]

If you liked Apollo then you might like Boom now - https://perkele.cc/software/boom

No scrobbling (that I now of), codecs up to August 2022, and recommended by the maker of Foobar2K as "more minimal, simpler, uncluttered" than F2K.