Amarok 'Fast Forward' 1.4.4 released with a music store

[eddie]

Amarok continues to blast ahead with release 1.4.4. We're thrilled to be able to take our long association with Magnatune to new heights with the addition of an integrated DRM-free music store with full-length mp3 previews. Magnatune's "we are not evil" attitude guarantees that you can purchase awesome tunes and the artist will recieve half the profit.

With 1.4.4 comes basic support for the Rio Karma. Many bug fixes and additions for the other media device plugins have also been made. Now Amarok is truly your "one-stop-media-device" shop, supporting nearly all the major media device's on the market.

Amarok 1.4.4 may very well be our closest to being bug free release ever! Over 100 bugs have been closed for this release, thanks in no small part to the tireless effort of our development team. Martin Aumueller and Alexandre Oliveira in particular have been on a bug squashing craze for this release, and first-time contributor, Ovidiu Gheorghioiu, has submitted a large bundle of patches and fixes to improve Amarok's efficiency and response.

On another note, we still need artists! If YOU are interested in creating artwork for the Amarok project, please mail amarok@kde.org with your proposal, or for more information about what is required.

New Features

* Transfer .wav-files to iPods. (BR 131130)
* Xine and Helix engines now support three different crossfading modes: always, on manual track changes only, or on automatic track changes only.
* Manually specify local file for podcast episodes via right-click menu.
* Action menu entry for adding podcasts to Amarok. Based on .desktop files by Harald Sitter and Fabio Bacigalupo.
* Open podcast items with external application from right-click menu.
* Synchronize listened flag for podcast between Amarok and iPods.
* Added integrated Magnatune.com music store. Includes artist and album info and full previews of all tracks.
* Fade-out for xine-engine when pressing Stop. Patch by Tuomas Nurmi. (BR 127316)
* Support downloading of files from an MTP device.
* Purged podcast episodes can be readded by increasing the purge number.
* Added rudimentary support for the Rio Karma. (BR 132713)
* Support creation and editing of playlists on MTP media devices.
* Undo/Redo functionality is now available over sessions. (BR 131072)
* Allow the creation of empty playlists in the playlist browser. Available either from the Add button in the toolbar or the context menu of a playlist folder. (BR 133543)

Detailed Changelog mentioning all the changes and bug fixes is located here

This player just keeps getting better and better

[mediator]

Time to upgade amarok!

[JGuru]

Good news for KDE users. Amarok rocks for sure.

[hellknight]

Amarok, the best song management tool in the world, not only on Linux. Its only rival is iTunes