And a major desktop app overhaul is planned too

Oct 17, 2018 05:28 GMT  ·  By

Winamp, the famous media player that everyone was using more than 10 years ago, continues to run perfectly fine on Windows systems out there despite not receiving a single update in a long time.

However, Radionomy, the current owner of the app, has big plans for Winamp, including a mobile version with support for Android and iPhone, as well as a major desktop overhaul.

In an interview with TechCrunch, Alexandre Saboundjian, CEO of Radionomy, explains that Winamp will soon get a small update with fixes and compatibility improvements, but a truly massive release is planned for 2019.

Earlier this year, Winamp version 5.8 got leaked to the web, and by the looks of things, this particular build would be published by Radionomy as soon as this week.

“Winamp is not dead”

As far as the mobile version is concerned, Saboundjian says this is the place where the company wants to expand, as the desktop experience has changed substantially in the last few years.

“There will be a completely new version next year, with the legacy of Winamp but a more complete listening experience. You can listen to the MP3s you may have at home, but also to the cloud, to podcasts, to streaming radio stations, to a playlist you perhaps have built,” he said.

“People want one single experience.  think Winamp is the perfect player to bring that to everybody. And we want people to have it on every device.”

Saboundjian emphasizes that despite the general belief, Winamp has never been abandoned, despite updates taking longer to be released.

“Winamp users really are everywhere. It’s a huge number,” said Saboundjian. “We have a really strong and important community. But everybody ‘knows’ that Winamp is dead, that we don’t work on it any more. This is not the case.”

It will be interesting to see what Winamp brings new to the mobile world, especially given that there are a plethora of similar apps on both Android and iOS, but Radionomy seems to be certain its revised media player would succeed. No word has been said on the feature lineup of this new app though.