Recommend a Replacement for iTunes

[Raguleader]

The latest version of Winamp does indeed let you put music on and off of your iPod (and without having to wipe the whole thing clean each time, even!) although it takes a bit of digging to figure out how to make it work, and it’s not the most intuitively setup thing ever.

Still, the price is right.

Now, if only Quicktime would quit trying to get me to install iTunes 7.5 with its autoupdater. Sure would be nice if there was a “Don’t offer this update to me anymore, and get off my freaking lawn!” setting in there.

[Tuckerfan]

@Sleel

You might consider trying Songbird. I downloaded it and played with it a bit a while ago. It works pretty well, though it suffers a bit from the usual Open Source malady of no focus and excessive feature-itis. It supports podcasts, so it should do what you want.

I’ve also heard that Yamipod is a good lightweight iPod manager. I haven’t used it myself though.

Tried Yamipod and Floola, but neither of them could recognize my Shuffle.

@squeegee

The problem, as I understand it, is that going back to an older version of iTunes doesn’t help, once the iTunes 7.5 installer has poisoned the well.

Right, I imagine one could clean up the problem if they edited the registry, to remove everything that iTunes had installed, but I’d be willing to bet that’d take a lot of time and be tricky to do right.

[tonedef]

@Caractacus Pott

No, natively Windows cannot copy MP3’s directly to the iPod and be playable.* You can copy music to the iPod through Windows Explorer, but it’ll be on the part of the system used as if it were a thumb drive. The iPod will see it as just a file, not music.** Before you curse Apple for having a “closed” system, remember that for most of the drag-and-drop players, you need some kind of software to manage playlists and other housekeeping duties.** Most of them use Windows Media Player, software built into Windows. I personally can’t stand WMP because it had so many problems when I was using it, so I had serious problems using those players. Apple just combined all the software together in one easy piece. Most people generally have no problems with iTunes, otherwise an argument can be made that the iPod wouldn’t be so successful. **

See thats one of the reason i would never buy an ipod.
As for the drop and drag mp3 players all the mp3 players I have had have never needed another program like wmp or itunes to do its housekeeping, or manage playlist. Most of them let you add the play list like a drop and drag, make one in the mp3 player, OR use folders as playlists.

[Steve_MB]

@Caractacus Pott

Another program I used with my iPod is Anapod Explorer. It’s inexpensive, feature rich, but a pain in my side to get running, so I’ve abandoned it until I need it for something EphPod doesn’t have.

I used to like Anapod Explorer, but I can’t recommend it now – the publisher put “expiration” code in the installer in a (failed, predictably) attempt to prevent bootlegging and has never gotten around to updating it. To install it now, you need to roll back your computer’s date and get a code from an “update assistance” page with a URL I don’t have on hand here and can’t be readily found on the publisher’s Web site.

[Merkwurdigliebe]

@Tuckerfan

Tried Yamipod and Floola, but neither of them could recognize my Shuffle.

Right, I imagine one could clean up the problem if they edited the registry, to remove everything that iTunes had installed, but I’d be willing to bet that’d take a lot of time and be tricky to do right.

This could be true, but why not just try giving 7.02 a shot? If it does work then good for you. If not then you have to rethink things again.

[Caractacus_Pott]

@Steve MB

I used to like Anapod Explorer, but I can’t recommend it now – the publisher put “expiration” code in the installer in a (failed, predictably) attempt to prevent bootlegging and has never gotten around to updating it. To install it now, you need to roll back your computer’s date and get a code from an “update assistance” page with a URL I don’t have on hand here and can’t be readily found on the publisher’s Web site.

Oh, so that’s it. I thought something was up with my setup. EphPod does me well without all the fuss.

[Tuckerfan]

@Merkwurdigliebe

This could be true, but why not just try giving 7.02 a shot? If it does work then good for you. If not then you have to rethink things again.

7.02 what?

[Merkwurdigliebe]

@Tuckerfan

7.02 what?

I meant iTunes 7.0.2 from oldversion.com. It’s what I’d do in your situation. Better to give that a shot than deal with a whole new program that doesn’t perform the functions as well. I’m not saying it will work, but it’s possible, right?

[Tuckerfan]

@Merkwurdigliebe

I meant iTunes 7.0.2 from oldversion.com. It’s what I’d do in your situation. Better to give that a shot than deal with a whole new program that doesn’t perform the functions as well. I’m not saying it will work, but it’s possible, right?

Well, on the older PC, I cleaned everything of Apple’s that I could find in the Registry and that still didn’t fix the problem. I’m now, rather grudgingly, running WinAMP on it. On my main PC, I’ve been able to get iTunes 7.02 to run. It will occassionally bring the whole thing to a screeching halt, but not nearly as frequently as 7.5 was doing. I suspect that the only way I’ll truly be able to get iTunes to work, without an update to 7.5.1 or so, is to do a complete reformat and reinstall of Windows and then installing 7.02.

[Runs_With_Scissors]

I refuse to pay the high prices Apple charges for what I consider to be inferior products (thank you for giving me this opportunity to state that). I don’t know if an ipod can play .wmv or .mp3 files, but I get all my music through Yahoo Music.

I pay an (optional) fee of about $12 every three months and I can stream music.

My .mp3 player is an iRiver.

http://music.yahoo.com/jukebox/

[Tuckerfan]

@Runs With Scissors

I refuse to pay the high prices Apple charges for what I consider to be inferior products (thank you for giving me this opportunity to state that). I don’t know if an ipod can play .wmv or .mp3 files, but I get all my music through Yahoo Music.

I pay an (optional) fee of about $12 every three months and I can stream music.

My .mp3 player is an iRiver.

http://music.yahoo.com/jukebox/

And this helps me, how? AFAIK, Yahoo’s software is incompatible with iPods, and I am certainly not going to plunk down money for a new player, as I have $700 in car repairs that I have to somehow figure out how to pay for.