Songbird isn't a good competitor to iTunes and WMP.

Alright; first of all:
I meant in terms of layout and everything. I don't think the default feather should be an iTunes rip-off for two reasons:
1. iTunes sucks
2. It just makes Songbird look unoriginal
As for the intuitiveness and nativeness, I'm gonna use Firefox as an example, when you move stuff around it, they don't move in a choppy way; they run smoother. And if Songbird was a little more native to the OS, maximizing and minimizing wouldn't be choppy; opening dialogs wouldn't look choppy, etc. Firefox does that well! I know I compare a lot to Firefox but that's because Songbird runs under the same principal of open-source that beats everything else, and also it's based on the same framework (I think).
When I say I think songbird runs choppy I mean that... Well, try using a menu for example. It doesn't look natural, and the whole thing just pops up without grace. I know it's just physical appearance most of it, but physical appearance is the first impression in everything.
And I repeat again! PLEASE make it stop looking like iTunes. Get Songbird it's own, fresh look. Make it look more original and less like a ripoff of something that isn't all that good anyway.

Sorry for the ranting... It's just what I think would do the best for Songbird. It's really the only reason I just stopped using it. If it ran smoother, that would change it a lot.

And on a side note, it needs built in minimizing to tray as an option -_- the extension magically stopped working.

So what say you? D=

Personally I think songbird takes whats good about ITunes, and builds on that. Personally, I'm happy. Though I wish music stores had more presence in Songbird. Music stores should build their own extensions.

As for building a native application. Well yes Songbird is based on the same XUL framework, as firefox. Making an application solely for windows, as in making it truly native is a little troublesome. By Songbird using XUL it remains truly multiplatform, and can easily be adapted to run on phones, possibly android! :-)

Okay, it doesn't look like a standard Windows app, but frankly I don't want it to. Think Songbird looks best on the Mac, much like Firefox.

@Hen Asraf:

Personally, i still don't understand, what you mean by "choppy".

Lets stay with your example:
"When I say I think songbird runs choppy I mean that... Well, try using a menu for example. It doesn't look natural, and the whole thing just pops up without grace."

The songbird menu seem just like the menu in firefox to me. Of course, different colours and fonts (which can be changed by feathers), but that's all. The pop-up effect is same as the pop-up effect in firefox. What exactly is the difference?

Perhaps it would be much more clear, if you give a constructive suggestion: what would you do, to let the menu look "more natural" and less "choppy"?

P.S: i like that the appearance of songbird can be changed, unlike windows media player or itunes. That's why i don't really understand the complaining about a too ituny default skin. Everybody who doesn't like it can customize it easily, there is no big deal about it! I know many apps, which are coming with a boring default skin (XP for example ;-), but I would never think of complaining about it, because i just can switch to a theme i like more.
So instead of changing the default songbird skin, i would promote the "skinability" of songbird a little bit more :-)

@Hen Asraf

Choppy sound I agree, there are definitely problems I've ran into. Usually when downloading music within Songbird, and previewing at the same. Mind you, lets see what happens when the new GStreamer backend is implemented. Choppy user interface? I agree with atreiu; please be particular. Possibly image links, demonstrating the problem.

atreiu: I know that Songbird is skinnable; but finding good feathers is really a bitch. I myself haven't found a feather that doesn't have it's own downsides like text that is invisible on some parts (black on black or something like that) or that is simply only half skinned (suddenly you see parts that are entirely inconsistent with the feather and are sticking to the default). And when you mentioned it uses XUL just like Firefox... That's a good way to make Songbird depend on the way the user's OS looks. That's how Firefox, without themes, is mostly of toolbar icons and the rest is already within your own system.

wonea: There's nothing I can really show with images... It's something you have to witness with your eyes, it's something about how it moves. It's hard to explain... But to me it really feels like the way Songbird moves is unnatural. It just doesn't flow in movement like an application should. Any application. I think that's because the default feather is pretty... uhm... not well done? Notice how when you minimize/maximize Firefox you see it all go down at once (it's even more noticable if you have Vista with Aero turned on) but Songbird, even on a fast computer, you kinda see it building and disbanding itself when it maximizes/minimizes. It's just so unnatural, it's clear that the method for minimizing was pretty much written inside Songbird itself, am I right? Or there are things that happen when it's minimized? It doesn't seem OS like, it's kinda clear that it's not a natural minimize. You can kinda see the interface as it's all different parts that reattach themselves every time the window does something. You can even see it when you're opening a tab, or something like that. Firefox doesn't do that, it's all compiled in one part. It looks more native, more natural. Sorry to be comparing Songbird which isn't even completed to an application that's been released in 3 major versions, but... I'm trying to show that it's possible to use XUL in a more native way, even without hurting the fact it's cross compatible.

@Hen Asraf:

I think I know what you're talking about, but that has nothing to do with the native-ness of the application. Songbird CAN'T look native to every OS because it's multi-platform, and quite frankly I don't want it to be native, at least not to windows, and not even to Mac or Linux I think that if it's fully native you loose a lot of the app's uniqueness because is acts too much like the OS, which if you're running windows is the most horrible thing possible.

The reason that Songbird "rebuilds" or "re-attaches" it's self, (and if I'm wrong, devs please correct me!) or however you put it, is because much of the interface is essentially a locally built and loaded web page and so when it re-draws itself it does to in a web page like manner, which is somewhat choppy, but so what, there is nothing "un-natural" about that, it just is.

Besides, if Songbird acted native to windows it would be much choppier than Songbird currently is, which by the way I really didn't notice until Hen pointed it out, you can't even change the desktop icons or re-size anything without the entire screen flickering.

Personally I like the way Songbird is build and the way it looks and with the new gonzo look I really don't see much of iTunes in Songbird anymore. And the iTunes-ness that Songbird did have isn't really a bad thing. iTunes is a very well UI-ed application. It's very intuitive, like all Apple products, everything feels ergonomic and natural, as an Apple product should. The only problem is that the code that all that usefulness is build upon is ridiculous. iTunes is probably the most bloated media player in existence, even WMP beats is in performance. Like Wonea said, "songbird takes whats good about ITunes, and builds on that."

It's okay to take ideas and build upon them, someone, I don't remember who, although they where quite influential and where considered pioneers in their field, rather genius like, actually, said that they only reached the great heights that they reached by standing on the shoulders of giants, and that they couldn't have accomplished what they did without the foundation and ideas of those who came before them. Totally re-inventing an interface that doesn't need renovation is pointless and if you don't like it you can just download another feather :P , the relative lack of which is not any fault of the devs, more people need to skin songbird; otherwise the plus of skin-ability really doesn't count because there aren't enough quality skins.

(Sorry about the length, I tend to write long essay-like posts as I am somewhat of an essayist by hobby)

Enough said, Carlos K!!!