iTunes alternatives?

well, i just did a reformat and am looking for an alternative to iTunes. i need something that will talk to my iPod. any suggestions?

 

What's wrong with iTunes?
If I'm not mistaken, Windows Media Player works with iPods.

 

I think that the WMA format works on/with iTunes, however Windows Media Player itself will not sync with iPods. You could try Music Match Jukebox - however, its very, very difficult to work with (when compared with iTunes) and is counter-intuitive.

 

We use WinAmp, with the iPod plug-in here.

 

what is wrong with itunes?

 

What is right with iTunes? It is grossly abusive of resources, insists (just like a virus) on inserting code into the registry to auto load, even when you don't need to use it, arbitrarily moves files around, builds its own directory structures, has mediocre visualizations, works best with Apple's proprietary format...need I go on?

 

No problem w/ iTunes. The problem is the iPod only works with iTunes. Non-proprietary players, IMO, are the way to go...
http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=213&subcategory=214&product=14331&nav=1
"Select from more than a million songs from a myriad of online music stores - Napster To Go, Yahoo! Music Unlimited, Rhapsody To Go, and so much more."
+ FM Radio!

 

if you dont like itunes...

you can try anapod 8.0

its like an explorer for ipods. you can do all the transfer music, backup music and all that jazz.

http://www.redchairsoftware.com/anapod/

if you want more info you can go to www.ilounge.com

 

I'll agree that the autoload is unwanted, and it is a bit of a resource hog. Not an issue for me, but with older systems, you're right.

Most of the other things you list as gripes are options you can change. I have never had iTunes arbitrarily move any of my existing music collection, because I turn the option off. I don't see what the issue is with building it's own directory structure for music you import/rip. Frankly, I don't care what directories my music is stored in, because if I ever need to move the files, I just select the whole of my music folder and copy it over the network for a backup. I will say that I wish it played OGG files, but I'll live.

I don't use the vis, so I won't argue you there.

However, I think what is very right with iTunes is the user interface and ease of use. It is the only program I need for ALL of my music needs.

 

cool... i think this is just what i'm looking for.

 

That's my point, by default iTunes assumes it knows more about what you want than you do. I shouldn't have to tell it not to make changes. I have all my music in one directory, files named Title - Artist - Album. I like it that way. iTunes doesn't.

 

i would rather have itunes use a little more resources than have windows media player take an eternity to accomplish nothing, itunes is just so easy to use, has a pretty decent EQ system, and it just works well.

 

Well, I would hazard a guess that for the vast majority of iTunes users, the program DOES know more about what the user wants than he/she does.

But I see your point.

 

I really like itunes, you can turn that stuff off if you don't want it automatically doing stuff for you, apple was just trying to make something really easy that isn't too difficult for computer illiterate people. It is easier for someone computer savvy to turn off anything they don't want than some inexperienced kid trying to turn them on without a clue. & Through the music store it has a huge information network too if you think about it, you can log into the UK, china or any other country and find out what the tops songs are, or find any radio station in the US sorted by state, plus podcasts. Etc.

Sharepod is a great program too, I use that so I can get music right off my ipod transfered to my computer

 

Problem is - the stuff you admit in the beginning is not a small issue. I installed Itunes on my laptop for my girlfiend's Ipod and it was awful. My system was gummed up and freezing all the time. Its a huge bloated unneccesary tool - on Windows at least.

I tried Anapod, didn't really like it and finally settled on Sveta Audio (by dbPowerAmp) as a software to load my girlfriend's Ipod. I though is was easier to use than Anapod, though Anapod has a lot of very good functionality.

The main problem is the stupid Ipod itself - there is really no reason it shouldnt be able have an option to operate as a simple drag-and-drop Mp3 player. No reason at all. I myself will never get one.

 

itunes truncated my entire led zep discography (about 75 songs) down to "Led Zeppelin ~1". i have no idea which song is which anymore.

it also did the folder thing to me.

it's definitely for people who don't care what's happening behind the scenes. you check a box or two during install and it ends up doing worse things than realplayer.

anyways, i haven't yet installed anapod, so i'll check out Sveta Audio too.

thanks for the tip.

 

You could use something called Ephpod, which is free or the iPod plugin for Winamp, but I'm not sure if it works with the new iPods, since I haven't had an iPod since the 3rd generation, which worked for that.

 

My son verifies the WinAmp plug-in works on the new ones too. He has a 60Gb Video iPod and since our MP3 collection is set up for WinAmp's Library System, it is the logical choice and does indeed work.

 

Winamp comes to save the day again. If I had an iPod I would just use the iPod plugin for Winamp. It is one of the best music players out.

 

I use JRiver's Media Center. Works great, and there's a ton of info and forum support available on the ilounge forums as well as the JRiver interact/support forums. The program is however shareware, but well worth it in my opinion, as it does far more than the other programs previously mentioned.

You can learn more here http://www.jrmediacenter.com/

 

I don't see what is wrong with iTunes, but if you're fancy something different, the best media player to use is Winamp. It is free and pretty much does everything that iTunes does, and there is a plug-in to use it with your iPod. The thing I really love about Winamp is that you can customise it so much! You can download thousands and thousands of skins for the player and there are a countless number of technical, support and visulisation plug ins. Best of all, it is small and very easy to use. There are even tutorials how to make your own skins and visulisations! Check out www.winamp.com However, I'm not sure if the program if compatible with Macs. However, if you want to be a retro geek and get an old version of Winamp, you can download every version of Winamp, including the very first Winamp 0.20, develouped in the early 1990's!!, to date. You can get these old versiosn from http://www.oldversion.com/program.php?n=winamp
:base:

 

try PodPlayer...it's pretty good

 

Winamp seems cool. How is it legal though? And it doesnt have a ton of songs though but ah, o well.

 

Neither does iTunes, unless you cough up a buck apiece. Wea are talking about the software, not the on-line store.

 

About iTunes starting up with your PC:

Start -> Run -> "msconfig" (no quotes). Go to "Startup" tab. untick everything that says "iTunes" or "iPod"...as well as everything else clogging up your boot sequence (except WLAN managaers and AV programs, plus the rundll and the like). You'll notice a big improvement in performance all around, and iTunes won't load with Windows any more.

 

I hate iTunes. There is a remarkable difference between itunes and Winamp sound quality, I have read elsewhere the issue was with the QuickTime Audio processing engine that itunes uses, but I also read they changed/upgraded it with their latest iTunes/QuickTime release.

It too resource hungry, but that may be because of the stupid windows because it works smooth on the Mac. Also it could be bad porting onto the Windows platform.

In any case, I just love Foobar. Its a pain to work with, much like Linux, but once you get a hang of stuff, you can custamize it any way you want.

 

i didn't like that it organized my songs either but all you have to do is uncheck a box in the preferences. that's it

i keep all my music in my music folder, say i download a song (completely legally of course), i have everything i dowload go into My Downloads, i put the song in my music, add file to library in itunes, and it will automatically create a folder for the artist, and the album. once you figure out how it actually works it is pretty nice actually.

and when you import songs from a CD, if you have your import folder set to My Music it will import it to my music and create a artist/album folders for you. normally it would put imported music in the itunes folder.

i have no idea why it would rename the song title unless that information wasn't on the disc in the first place, it has never done that for me, and actually something that no other media player has been able to do. When i wanted to import music from a Japanese CD it actually used the correct characters!!! it didn't just use a bunch of boxes.

i think when you have a lot of music and you keep the info on your music correct, instead of using random names for mp3's it is great

 

it didn't exactly rename the songs, it truncated them. see above example... "led zeppelin ~1", then "led zeppelin ~2" and so on for 75 songs.

i also already addressed the "box checking" issue. i'm not sure if you're saying this, but just cause i go back and uncheck or check a box doesn't mean itunes is going to automatically "untruncate" all those files, the damage is done.

itunes it just a little bit shy of real player when it comes to doing things to your system you don't want done or didn't agree to.

 

did you import those songs from a CD? aparently not, but why would it do that?

and itunes has never violated my system ^_^ i am well aware it uses the other programs, don't care. unless you have a minimal amount of ram that is not a problem. don't know why it truncated, (which means shortened does it not?) your led zeppelin as you gloriously put it but I have yet to have that happen to me. maybe apple has something against led zeppelin?? ^_^

itunes does not use that many resources, at start it uses abou 40,000kb, if it is minimized that number drops much much lower, and after it has been running for a short amount of time it stays about 16,000kb, if you are listening to music with itunes minimized it uses about 8,000kb, big woop wanna fight about it?

everyone is so afraid for their resources! ahahaha, that is what RAM is for isn't it.

i have spent way to much time arguing about something i really don't give a toss about so i am done. sorry if i got the thread off topic.

good luck with this thread.

 

Resources also include CPU usage. That is what I meant by using a lot of resources. And I am truly pleased that iTunes has worked so well for you. I see it as having many annoying 'features' (especially auto-loading processes without asking) and choose not to use it. As an after note, do you realize how difficult it is to remove? I believed I removed it once, only to find about 2 dozen registry entries it left behind. This wouldn't have been a problem, but I had to find and manually remove them because I was trying to re-install iTunes and give it a second chance. These are the kinds of behavior that make me call it a Virus.

 

ahh i see, but again i must say that i have uninstalled itunes many times and have had no problems reinstalling it.

and cpu usage isn't really an issue either i usually get between 0%-4%

wait, never mind i am done talking abou this i said, crap.....