The popular media player Winamp will be shutting down December 20th, ending its 15 year career. Winamp was most popular in the late ’90s and early 2000s for the amount of customization it allowed. Users could download different skins and play just about every audio format out there.
In 2002, Winamp developer, Nullsoft, was purchased by AOL for $80 million. While Winamp eventually landed on Mac and Android, the app never really took off. Apple bundles iTunes with every Mac sold so there’s little incentive to use anything else. Apple’s iOS devices also rely on iTunes for transferring media, which meant iOS users have little choice in which media player they used.
Winamp has not posted a reason for the shut down, only displaying a banner on its site that reads:
“Winamp.com and associated web services will no longer be available past December 20, 2013. Additionally, Winamp Media players will no longer be available for download. Please download the latest version before that date. See release notes for latest improvements to this last release.
Thanks for supporting the Winamp community for over 15 years.”
If you want to hold onto a copy of Winamp, head over to their site before they disappear forever.
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Source: Winamp
