Songbird:

http://getsongbird.com/

Supposed to be pretty good but it's just out of beta so may be slightly unstable still.

Also here's a list with more alternatives:

http://www.simplehelp.net/2007/07/08/10-alternatives-to-itunes-for-managing-your-ipod/


last edited by Opec at 20:22:49 11/Jan/09

fuck itunes

i bought me and the missus zens, so i can just use explorer to copy tunes on and off my mp3 players

iTunes rocks. I hated it at first - just give it some time. Use smart playlists and rate all your music to make that even easier.

Just be careful to delete songs from the iTunes library before deleting the file on disk as there's no easy way to reconcile orphaned songs.

The only way you've ever been able to upload music to all models of iPod is through iTunes (except for 3rd party apps).

ml_ipod for winamp

Scorp what don't you like about iTunes? I've used it for too long now and don't know why people hate on it so much:(

Spook - are they as good as they look?? There must be a reason they aren't more popular.

I'd much rather check some songs I want on my iPhone, uncheck some others, maybe check for app updates, let video podcasts download, then hit the big Sync button and not have to touch any file browser manually.

The whole point of iTunes doing the sync is so you don't have to care how the songs get on there. And also, it allows the iPod/iPhone to keep a tag oriented database of your music and not have to search itself for music files whenever you change your songs. Using a file browser for a high end mp3 player is so 5 years ago. (lol)

For me, iTunes has everything. I have a full library of movies, each categorized into genres with DVD artwork which show up in the movie browser. Video podcasts automagically download, any changes to my entire iTunes library automagically syncs the iPhone. If an app update downloads in the background and I hit Sync, it gets updated. Simple.

People bash iTunes too quickly before getting used to it. Its a hell of a lot better than these ephPod or Winamp manual hacky iPod sync programs.

In other words, stop whining like a bitch and use iTunes for christ sake. OH its made by Apple poor little me has to use an Apple application whaa whaa..

/end-slightly-over-the-top-rant-about-iTunes-whingers-which-ill-get-flamed-for

ive got tons of music, i know it, i dont need it organised

ive also got a computar which is very clevar at searching for things, like song titles, or artists

if i wanna see all the songs by x i use windows explorer and search my mp3 dir for x

its ingenious!

unsuprisingly, wifey also manages her musak the same

every experience ive had with itunes was a painful one

Scorp: Floola is what you're looking for http://www.floola.com/modules/wiwimod/index.php?page=download

And here's me thinking of going back from a Mac to Windows.

It's mostly just the keystrokes that are giving me the absolute shits!
Home = start of file, that kind of shit. Why, Apple, why!?

And you can't change it. Yes, I know there's ways out there that claim to re-bind - they don't work for the apps you need them in though, eg, Eclipse.

Yay, lets turn a thread asking about iPod managers into an argument about Mac Vs Windows.

On second though, how about everyone just shuts the fuck up?

Scorp what don't you like about iTunes? I've used it for too long now and don't know why people hate on it so much:(

It is slow...it crashes a lot (seems to have massive problems in Windows with album art...).

This is me, jumping on the 'I hate itunes' bandwagon.

HATE IT HATE IT HATE IT.

The end.

Well i tried all the programs none worked with my iPod touch. Sigh. Aparently the iPod touch uses some form of encryption no one has been able to break yet to encode the music as it goes on. Yay lets here it for more fucking proprietary CRAP!

I then bit the bullet and jumped on my windows xp machine and installed iTunes. I installed with all thes nice questions like 'when you change something on your iPod do you want it to change on your computer as well' .. which was cool. It started ok... then i clicked file->add folder and directed it to my 80gB mp3 folder located on a NAS on my network. The program froze. I left it alone knowing that the program would refresh eventually. It did, 4 1/2 hours later. When at 11pm while i was in bed watching a movie my speakers started beaming away to some death music. Aparently i double clicked the GUI when i was trying to get it to respond after it froze after being asked a simple task such as to add a folder of mp3's 4 1/2 hours ago and it was now playing slayer or somecrap. I Stopped it and click 'ok' to the warning that said 'i will need to reencode your wma files into aac for them to be put on the ippd' - sigh. Fine whatever (more propriatary crap getting i my way! - who cares about wma - delete the crap imo). (Seriously why the fuck cant you add a folder of music while being able to 'start/stop/select another song to play??) I spent the next hour unticking 80% of my music library so i could then 'sync'. Clicked the sync button - watched it do about 300+ files out of the 4000 i had selected and then went to bed. Hoped up this morning to find itunes sitting there using all my ram but no cpu. Sigh. Not one f-ing file had synced. Also itunes had a ! next to all my music, aparently this means you cant 'drag and drop' it to your ipod. Stupid thing is double clicking any music file would play it in itunes and mark it without a !. Sigh. So i quickly played about 20-40 songs and dragged them to my ipod. Waited 15-20mins for the damn thing to start and it didnt so i gave up, threw the ipod touch back in the pile of computer shit i have next to my computer and went to work.

Fuck that priorietary shit. If it wasnt the sentimental value of it being given to my by someone i love i wouldnt spend this much fucking time on getting a fucking mp3 player to play mp3s. I dont see how people who love ipods and apple can think this is somehow better? I understand it needs to build a library of my files but i dont understand how apple fanboys find this kind of expereince acceptable. It's just not in todays world. A library should be a second feature to WORKING ACCEPTABLY AND BEING OPEN.

ffs.

anyone with help as to get around itunes and make this ipod touch experience better please let me know. thanks!

last edited by Scorp at 10:45:00 13/Jan/09

last edited by Scorp at 10:46:24 13/Jan/09

People that hate itunes have poorly tagged collections of music gotten from illegitimates sources and are too lazy to fix em.

As for keybinds ?? wtf get a keyboard with the MM buttons ...

I disliked itunes for about 2 weeks until I got used to its quirks and differences. But once I got over it I'd never go back.

Here's one of the reasons I hate iTunes - it doesn't like it when you're running Windows in 16 bit colour:



Also, its really, really slow on my desktop PC (seems way better on my laptop). I get freezes for about a second after I click on anything.

Hate to say it, but 16-bit colour was sorta deprecated and forgotten about around, say, 10 years ago...

I've been using 16 bit colour cuz Firefox was noticeably slower to redraw for me in 32 bit mode. I've just changed it back to 32 bit to see if it still doesn't it and it doesn't look like it does any more, so maybe it was just an old Firefox or driver bug that has since been fixed.

typical story with alot of apple devices... i love the device but hate the pc software.

itunes fails to play my WMA collection (which I ripped all my CDs into), so it's a no go.

wma, lol

WMAs piss me right off, a friend ripped all her CDs into WMA format....now they can only be played on her laptop, and if she wanted to play it on my media PC then she'd have to change the licence....every few days :|

I use a program called "ImTOO iPod Computer Transfer". You can pull stuff from the ipod to the computer and vice versa and an easy to use Explorer way.

It works with iPhone and iTouch. A bit buggy but good nonetheless.

I don't have a problem with iTunes, but for all the massive cry babies, you could always install one of the legit Apple approved 3rd party apps that allows file transfer via wifi (iPod touch only). Then you can use explorer or firefox to transfer music until your hearts are content. Your iPod will become like any other shitty mp3 player out there which seems to be what people want.

One of the best things about iPods is the way they sync with iTunes. If you don't have time to learn how to use it and why it's so awesome, sell your iPod and get some generic mp3 player instead.

I should mention that I have been using iTunes for about 6 years now, so the majority of my music has been well organised from the begining. As a stand alone media player, I find it slow and annoying, but when coupled with a kickarse iPod it is teh best thing evr.