Today, Winamp for Android is coming out of beta, a month after its initial launch and more than 500,000 downloads later. This new public Android release lets you manage your music downloads on your Android and will offer a couple of new features, including wireless syncing over WiFi with Winamp on your desktop computer and the addition of Shoutcast radio stations. (Both Winamp and Shoutcast are owned by AOL, as is TechCrunch). The wireless syncing requires a new desktop version for Windows computers, which is also available today.

Winamp is a popular music management software for Windows, with 60 million users, predominantly overseas. Only about 5% of its users are in the US but AOL is trying to make a big push with Android, hoping its going to attract a lot of new U.S mobile users and become the iTunes for Android devices. AOL currently has no plans right now to release Winamp for iPhone where its pretty much impossible to compete with iTunes. “There is a lot of inertia around the iPhone. We have to nail this first,” says Jeff Bronikowski, the new VP of AOL Music who was hired away from Yahoo Music earlier this month. Instead, AOL is going to ride the Android wave. “Now with the Android OS beating out iOS, it is a foregone conclusion that it will beat out iOS over time,” argues Kerry Trainor, senior vice president of AOL Entertainment. Winamp is set in the position as the one of the best music management apps for Android, of course there are other contenders for that title as well, such as doubleTwist and Songbird.

Similar to iTunes, Winamp allows you to manage and play your digital music collection. You can even do a one-click import of all your non-DRMed music from iTunes. The ability of creating playlists, searching by song, artist, or album, and listening to Shoutcast Radio are all there. Clicking on an album cover as you are listening to it allows you to get the discography information, news, and music reviews from AOL music. While Android and Google will support over-the-air syncing for music, Winamp’s WiFi syncing solves the problem of getting music from your desktop to your phone effortlessly.

People usually spend a lot of time with their own music collections. The average Winamp user spends 80 minutes a day listening to music through the desktop app,. Extending listening opportunities to mobile phones should extend that average time. Although AOL is taking the push to Android Bronikowski says AOL Music is “not planning on launching our own subscription service.” He states that Winamp is currently a profitable business and he wants to keep it that way. If it takes off with Android devices, it could become a strong distribution partner for other subscription music services.

Have you gotten a chance to try out the app for your Android device? If so, let us know what you think by leaving us a comment below! Stay tuned for more news and info regarding your Android devices by following us on Twitter and/or subscribing to our RSS feed.

[Source: Winamp (blog)]

Authors: _GadgetNews

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