[HN Gopher] Winamp clone in Swift for macOS
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Winamp clone in Swift for macOS
Author : hyperbole
Score : 145 points
Date : 2025-11-14 12:44 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| hyperbole wrote:
| A winamp clone for os/x - interested in learning swift, and
| wanted a stable version of winamp for os/x - two itches scratched
| mabedan wrote:
| Nice. Maybe next step can be integration with one of the music
| services
| antonyh wrote:
| Apple Music would seem the obvious choice.
| asimovDev wrote:
| What was the most fun and least fun you had while learning
| Swift for this project?
|
| I remember having trouble making a Swift UI for my C app
| because I forgot to disable sandboxing in Xcode project
| settings. Spent a frustrating two hours debugging
| andreww_young wrote:
| Memories from over 20 years ago, but later I switched to foobar.
| I prefer foobar's simple interface. Does anyone still remember
| foobar?
| accrual wrote:
| I do! I also went from Winamp to Foobar 2000 for a few years.
|
| Then I discovered an actively maintained modern patch for the
| final Winamp called WACUP, and now I'm back to daily driving
| that instead. :)
|
| https://getwacup.com/
| worble wrote:
| >remember foobar
|
| It's still being actively developed
| stackghost wrote:
| >Does anyone still remember foobar?
|
| I remember foobar. I also seem to recall that it does not
| really whip the llama's ass.
| MangoToupe wrote:
| I've never seen os x written like that. I assumed it was a
| version of os/2 I had never heard of.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| Not only that but it hasn't been called OS/X for nearly a
| decade.
| dylan604 wrote:
| was it ever called OS/X?
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| It was called OS X and/or Mac OS X.
|
| But now, not only is it not branded OS X, but it's
| literally not at version 10 anymore. (The X was a roman
| numeral.)
| dylan604 wrote:
| It was a rhetorical question. Yes, I'm well aware it was
| OS X and that it was never referred to as OS/X
| runjake wrote:
| It was _never_ called "OS/X"[1]. I've never even seen it
| called that colloquially until today.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS
| deathwarmedover wrote:
| I wondered initially if this was a winamp port for older macs.
|
| It requires macOS 13.0 (High Sierra, 2017) or later, which is
| several releases after it stopped being called OS X. 10.11 (El
| Capitan, 2015) was the last OS X.
| Jeremy1026 wrote:
| The repo only goes back a week. I just think OP hasn't kept
| up with Apple's naming conventions.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Careful! High Sierra is actually macOS 10.13.
|
| By contrast, macOS 13 is Ventura, from 2022.
|
| (I personally would accept someone referring to High Sierra
| as "OS X" because it's still version 10 of the Macintosh OS,
| even if Apple dropped that branding a few years earlier.)
| rollcat wrote:
| As an occasional enjoyer of OS X 10.5 on PowerPC, I can
| recommend... iTunes. It is actually really decent, as is most
| of Jobs-era stuff.
|
| I don't have anything to play FLAC or Vorbis, but the machine
| has more urgent problems...
| <https://www.rollc.at/posts/2024-07-02-tibook/>
| jonhohle wrote:
| Not taking anything away from the project, which looks very
| cool, but it also probably doesn't compile on OS X. Looks like
| minimum macOS version is 13.
| HeckFeck wrote:
| IBM won the long game. They secretly acquired Apple, but you
| weren't meant to know that yet. Not even Tim Cook knows. Big
| Blue's lawyers will be writing politely to the author of this
| project, and teaming up with the gutted remains of Nullsoft to
| sue them for copyright infringement.
| wheybags wrote:
| Of course they mean OS/X Warp, the Apple x IBM OS collaboration
| the world forgot.
| linguae wrote:
| I know this was in jest, but had some of Apple's and IBM's
| 1990s plans came to fruition, we could've ended up with an
| operating system capable of running both OS/2 and Taligent
| (the original planned successor to the classic Mac OS)
| applications on PowerPC hardware (one of the few parts of the
| Apple/IBM collaboration that was realized):
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workplace_OS
|
| OS/X Warp sounds a lot cooler than Workplace OS.
| eknkc wrote:
| https://webamp.org/
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| Does it whip the llama's ass?
| Razengan wrote:
| Llamas are cute, do not hurt them please
| esafak wrote:
| Whips the vicuna's ass.
| LoganDark wrote:
| That vicuna's a wizard!
| Lalabadie wrote:
| Personal opinion: Alpacas are cute, llamas are mostly huge
| and menacing.
| treetalker wrote:
| it really does
| iso1631 wrote:
| Or does it lick it?
|
| #misheardLyrics
| racl101 wrote:
| #demolitionManReference
| yohannparis wrote:
| Great job! I'm sure it was a lot of fun to produce.
| xenophonf wrote:
| Pretty misleading headline. This isn't actually Winamp. It's
| someone's attempt at a clone.
| antonyh wrote:
| It's a clone with a stolen name, and given that it's not been
| abandoned it's likely they'll come down on this like a bag of
| hammers.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Seems like Mr. Greenwood may be too _green_ to know what 's
| coming!
| dang wrote:
| Ok, we've cloned the title above.
|
| (Submitted title was "Winamp for OS/X")
| xenophonf wrote:
| Thanks, Dang. You're the bestest.
| littlecranky67 wrote:
| Great project, I am using Audacious from homebrew with an XMMS
| skin to recreate the experience - but it struggles with HiRes
| displays amongst other things.
|
| You should, however, change the name. I am pretty sure the name
| Winamp is trademarked and you can get into legal trouble.
| BruceEel wrote:
| Nice! Speaking of Winamp - are you using any alternative music
| player for iOS that you would recommend?
| randomgermanguy wrote:
| I started using https://github.com/kushalpandya/Petrichor a
| while ago.
|
| Though design is more akin to the default Apple Music app than
| WinAmp.
| BruceEel wrote:
| Interesting! Will be checking it out.
| runlevel1 wrote:
| I've wanted a music player like the early versions of iTunes
| for a while, and this looks like it might fit the bill.
|
| Those who've only known Music.app and later iTunes versions
| might be surprised to learn that there was a time when iTunes
| actually had a clean, intuitive UI:
| https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/itunes-app
| BruceEel wrote:
| Beautiful. I remember running iTunes 5 on my Powerbook G4,
| incredible how things have changed.
| HeckFeck wrote:
| Can't go wrong with FB2k: https://www.foobar2000.org/mac
|
| It now has a last.fm plugin, so let's get scrobbling!
| BruceEel wrote:
| sweet! Thx!
| runjake wrote:
| Corrected link for iOS (TIL!): https://www.foobar2000.org/ios
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| I like Swinsian (assuming you mean MacOS)
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| I really liked this too, but balked at the license fee and
| ended up not paying.
| rollcat wrote:
| Decoupled:
| <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/decoupled/id1382409837>
|
| 100% offline-only. Open in Finder, drag&drop music, enjoy the
| untethered experience.
| BruceEel wrote:
| That's exactly what I like, airplane mode-friendly. Thanks!
| jamesgeck0 wrote:
| I love Decoupled, but the lack of updates and Apple's
| tendency to delist unmaintained iOS apps makes me nervous. I
| swapped over to VLC last year.
| bitwize wrote:
| Does not use the macOS standard toolkit or comply with Apple user
| interface guidelines.
|
| One MacWorld mouse out of five.
| hirako2000 wrote:
| The original likely infringed all Windows design principles.
|
| Yet they pulled off one of the most usable media player.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Windows users don't care about Windows design principles
| because there basically aren't any.
| badsectoracula wrote:
| At the time there were. Between 1995 and 2001 or so most
| Windows applications had largely consistent interfaces (yes
| i can think of exceptions, like WinAMP :-P and even
| Microsoft's own Office didn't always follow the rest of the
| OS, but _in general_ at the time following the OS style was
| considered desirable).
| dardeaup wrote:
| Would you expect a WinAmp clone to comply with Apple's user
| interface guidelines?
| dpflan wrote:
| This def needs skins next: https://skins.webamp.org/
| mocko wrote:
| https://archive.org/details/winampskins_major_tom_v5_1 was a
| true work of art
| tomislavpet wrote:
| Also worth checking out: https://re-amp.ru
| armitron wrote:
| No source "freeware", would you trust a binary from a random
| Russian developer to not contain/deliver a trojan?
| wang_li wrote:
| Would you trust a binary from a random developer to not
| contain/deliver a trojan? Russianness has nothing to do with
| it.
| superkuh wrote:
| These days executing random code is standard and if you
| don't do it you're wierd. Case 1: browsers automatically
| execute code from random sources. Case 2: People tell you
| to curl someurl.whatever | sh to install compilers (ie, the
| only way to use the rust rustc on non-rolling distros). And
| it goes on and on. It's not really an exception to standard
| practice to install applications. The only difference here
| is that it is from an actual human person instead of a
| corporation. They are at least somewhat trustable, unlike
| corporations which always have their profit motive to sell
| you.
|
| Also, if you only run programs that have been approved by a
| third party organization first you're really restricting
| yourself.
| dpark wrote:
| 1. Browsers aggressively sandbox the code they run.
|
| 2. If you're running curl | sh on random urls you don't
| trust, you're asking for trouble.
|
| Running random executables you find online is a good way
| to get spyware and ransomware installed. I'm not saying
| that's the case for re:Amp, but it's absolutely still
| valid to tell people not to run random programs they find
| online.
| Dwedit wrote:
| The page itself has a more accurate description (Winamp *clone*
| in swift for OS/X) than the headline here.
|
| Since the actual Winamp had a questionable source code release,
| it could feasibly have been ported to other platforms, so we need
| to know that it is in fact a clone, and not a port of the real
| Winamp.
| dang wrote:
| Ok, we've changed the title now. (Submitted title was "Winamp
| for OS/X")
| shevy-java wrote:
| I liked winamp when I was using windows.
|
| I think any winamp clone should run on OSX Windows and Linux.
|
| I understand that cross-platform code may be annoying, but we
| really need applications that work on the three main operating
| systems.
| dpark wrote:
| I'm not entirely sure we need a Winamp clone on MacOS anyway.
| It seems unreasonable to expect that everyone who ever builds
| consumer software should make it work on every machine, though.
|
| Why not also insist that it should work on iOS and Android?
| Those are undoubtedly the most commonly-used OSes at this
| point.
| antonyh wrote:
| If it doesn't run on Windows, how can it call itself Winamp?
| Macosamp makes more sense.
| rollcat wrote:
| OS/Xamp perhaps.
|
| Joking aside, there's Audacious[1], which is an excellent and
| cross-platform player, with support for Winamp skins. Also
| check out WebAmp[2] and the skin museum[3].
|
| [1] <https://audacious-media-player.org> [2]
| <https://webamp.org> [3] <https://skins.webamp.org>
| antonyh wrote:
| OS/Xamp, pronounced Oh-sex-amp :o)
| xeonmc wrote:
| It really slaps the llama's ass!
| Arubis wrote:
| [MacAMP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacAmp) was real and
| official, directly from Nullsoft, a million years ago.
| fmbb wrote:
| Fun and easy to reskin as well!
| Lammy wrote:
| There was also "Winamp:Mac" 0.71 alpha version official from
| Nullsoft: https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/winampmac
|
| Its awkward name was because "MacAMP" dev became third-party:
| https://macintoshgarden.org/author/subband-software
| agildehaus wrote:
| reAmp (https://re-amp.ru/) is a faithful recreation as well, but
| no updates since 2020 (and not OSS)
| runjake wrote:
| Minor point: I read this as OS/2. The author may want to correct
| that. macOS naming and versioning is confusing enough.
|
| macOS was never known as OS/X. It was formerly known as OS X and
| Mac OS X.
|
| As a former OS/2 user, it really threw me off for a second.
|
| Also, you're using a trademark ("Winamp") in the name. So, expect
| a C&D from Llama Group or whomever.
|
| Aside from that, it looks really nice and well-designed! And it's
| in Swift and not some janky Electron app. Good job on those
| fronts!
| tracker1 wrote:
| Same, actually... I'd probably just say "for macOS" at this
| point, since it is the current term from what I understand.
|
| Aside: the project seems interesting enough, didn't see support
| for (icecast) streaming listed in the project though, which
| although less common today still exists.
| zekyl314 wrote:
| 100%! I first read as OS/2 as well, and was like interesting.
| fortran77 wrote:
| That's how I read it, too! I got excited! "Finally," I thought
| "I can run WinAmp on my OS/2 Machine". Then I clicked to the
| repo and saw it was just a Mac thing.
| echelon_musk wrote:
| Every single time something like this comes up I feel compelled
| to mention Audacious.
|
| See my previous comments:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32779590
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39965620
|
| Like most days, I am using it right now on macOS.
| WD-42 wrote:
| Supports old Winamp skins too, which is the whole point!
| theoldgreybeard wrote:
| Why does the title call it OS/X? It's macOS and it's described
| that way on the repo.
|
| Unfortunately his is just a recreation rather than an actual
| port, since the license for the source that was released prevents
| derivative works.
|
| Foobar2000 is the spiritual successor to Winamp and it runs on
| Windows and macOS as well as mobile.
| ryandrake wrote:
| The "About" section on that page says "Winamp clone in swift
| for OS/X" but their description says "Winamp macOS [...] A
| native macOS application..." Not sure I understand what OS/X is
| --I thought it said OS/2 for a second.
| theoldgreybeard wrote:
| Oh, I originally missed it on the side I only looked in the
| README.
|
| I don't think it was ever called OS/X? It's been called OS X
| and Mac OS X but never OS/X.
| efields wrote:
| Foobar2000... now there's an app I haven't heard of in (checks
| calendar) nearly 20 years. Glad it's still kicking.
| theoldgreybeard wrote:
| It's still a wonderful piece of software and actively
| supported.
| stalfosknight wrote:
| Why do people insist on still calling macOS "OS X" (or "OS/X" for
| that matter)?
| dpark wrote:
| Why do people insist on calling "X" "Twitter"?
|
| When something has a name for 15 years, it tends to be pretty
| sticky.
|
| "OS/X", though, that's just someone messed up and jumbled two
| names together.
| incanus77 wrote:
| I mean, muscle memory & fatigue may be part of it. I used MacOS
| for a number of years, then I used Mac OS X for 8 years, then
| OS X for 5 years, and now macOS for 9 years.
|
| During that time I also used Windows and Linux from time to
| time. Their names didn't change in a way where just calling
| them that was perceived as incorrect.
| viraptor wrote:
| Rebellion against meaningless name changes. Why does Apple
| insist on calling Mac OS an OS X, Mac OS X, macOS?
| mrits wrote:
| Not everyone cares about the marketing departments feelings
| speed_spread wrote:
| Had Apple given their OS a proper name, I assure you people
| would use it. You shouldn't use the "OS" moniker as part an
| OS's name. It's redundant, like naming your child "Human Child
| Jimmy". Obviously people will take all sorts of shortcuts
| around it, which you will not have control over, leading to
| weird "HC/Jim" and the likes.
|
| It's a bit like "U.S.A." not being a proper country's _name_. I
| mean, would you name you children "Coherent-Enough Assemblage
| of Bodyparts"? You keep that long-form stuff for the
| _description_ field! Somebody fucked up when they filled out
| the form, ain't no fixing it now.
| skyyler wrote:
| This is not for OS X, this is for macOS 13.0 or later.
|
| OS X is macOS 10. This application does not open on macOS
| 10.14.6.
| anthk wrote:
| QMMP should run under OSx.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| Native app!!! It is not a trashpile of javascript plus a huge
| copy of V8. Warms my heart! Thank you!
| conradfr wrote:
| Obvious difference with the real Winamp, bugs etc:
|
| - Can't copy/paste a folder
|
| - EQ and Playlist are not detachable / moveable
|
| - No library
|
| - Does not restore the playlist at launch
|
| - Crashes when playing a flac file
|
| - Does it needs to auto play the winamp mp3 at launch?
| pbalau wrote:
| Re your last point: Duh!
|
| The only reason to use a Winamp clone is nostalgia.
| dmix wrote:
| I use Vox which is pretty close https://vox.rocks/mac-music-
| player
|
| They also have cloud syncing for your Flac audio files, that part
| costs $$ but it's nice if you have lots of lossless
| rips/torrents.
| newman314 wrote:
| Missed a chance to call this swiftamp instead and avoid namespace
| collision.
| debo_ wrote:
| machamp
| lacy_tinpot wrote:
| Isn't that a Pokeman?
| ghssds wrote:
| Seems fishy
| brulard wrote:
| Or swamp to be shorter
| sachahjkl wrote:
| finally.. good software
| teekert wrote:
| Ah I miss the days when my own music felt like something valuable
| (now it feels like a mess). When I'd turn on music via the
| computer (using xmms or Amarok hooked up to the amplifier. I feel
| a bit like Sonos and iOS/Android and Spotify are a trap. And I
| fell for it. I'm getting old.
| superultra wrote:
| Man, seeing the visualizations here reminded me of how great it
| was to load up some music in Winamp (downloaded via soulseek),
| turn on the geiss visualizer, and get stoned.
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(page generated 2025-11-14 23:00 UTC)