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iPod Tip #35
Ok, you may be asking why would you want to add music to an iPod and not use iTunes? iTunes is free, a nice full-featured application, and it is pretty to use. Well maybe you use Linux (there is no iTunes for Linux users). Or maybe you just do not like iTunes. Maybe you want to try out an alternative. Whatever reason you may have, this tip may be a good starting point for you. Not all of these alternative solutions however will work with every model iPod.
I have tried some of these applications over the years (not all of them), but I use iTunes daily on Mac OS X and Windows. I personally use Songbird to play media on my Linux desktop which is a cross-platform desktop Web player. Not all of these alternatives are as full featured as iTunes, but many of them are as good and even have some features iTunes doesn’t. Of course, if you like safe, stay with iTunes as Apple supports Windows and Macs and each iPod model for average users. If you want adventure try these.
Here’s how:
The first thing you need to do is enable your iPod to be used as a portable hard drive. You will need iTunes for this. Just follow these steps:
- Connect your iPod to your computer.
- Select your iPod in the iTunes Source list.
- Click the Options button in the lower-right corner of the iTunes window to open the iPod preferences window.
- Click “Enable disk use.” This will allow your iPod to both store your files and play your music.
- Notice the icon that appears onscreen. Double-click the icon to see what’s stored on your iPod.
- Drag the files you want to store on your iPod to the iPod window.
- When you’re done, click the iPod Eject button in the lower-right corner of the iTunes window. The iPod screen will display “OK to disconnect” when it is safe to unplug it.
Apple also has a video to show you how to enable your iPod as a portable hard drive.
Now for some applications that you can use in place of iTunes. Look for your platform below.
For Linux Users
Banshee
Banshee is a free music player for the GNOME desktop. Rip CDs, play and sync your iPod, create playlists, and burn audio and MP3 CDs. Most portable music devices are supported.
Amarok
Amarok is a very popular free KDE media player. One of the better ones, in my opinion.
gtkpod
gtkpod is a powerful and free platform independent Graphical User Interface for Apple’s iPod using GTK2. It supports the first to fifth Generation including the iPod mini, iPod Photo, iPod Shuffle, iPod nano, and iPod Video.
Floola
Floola is free, allowing you to copy both music and videos to your iPod from ANY computer. Floola helps manage your music and play lists, and it also checks for duplicate songs. Download Floola and drag it onto your iPod, and then you’ll be able to use Floola with any computer you connect to.
YamiPod
YamiPod is a freeware application to efficiently manage your iPod under Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. It can be run directly from your iPod and needs no installation.
Rhythmbox
Rhythmbox is a free integrated music management application inspired by iTunes for the GNOME Desktop, and based on the powerful GStreamer media framework. Rhythmbox includes the following features: an easy to use music browser, searching and sorting, comprehensive audio format support through GStreamer, Internet Radio support and Playlists.
gPodder
gPodder is a free podcast receiver/catcher written in Python utilizing PyGTK for its graphical interface. This is not a full iPod manager. gPodder will only take care of your podcasts. You can have gPodder download all new episodes of a particular podcast.
Songbird
Songbird is a free desktop Web player, a digital jukebox and Web browser mash-up. Like Winamp, it supports extensions and skins feathers. Like Firefox, it is built from Mozilla, cross-platform and open source. Songbird includes the following features: Plays MP3/AAC/OGG/FLAC/WMA and more, Multi-Language Support, Integrated Web Search, Smart Mixes, Play In Place (Songbird plays MP3s without leaving the page) and Add-ons (plugins).
For Windows Users
Anapod Explorer
Anapod Explorer $30 shareware can manage the content on your iPod with Windows Explorer. Your iPod shows up as a device in “My Computer” and you can drag and drop your media content on it. You also have right-click menus with the option to copy and paste, and “send to” menus. It is compatible with Windows 98, ME, 200, XP, and Vista.
Floola
Floola is free, allowing you to copy both music and videos to your iPod from ANY computer. Floola helps manage your music and play lists, and it also checks for duplicate songs. Download Floola and drag it onto your iPod, and then you’ll be able to use Floola with any computer you connect to.
EphPod
EphPod is a free Windows application that connects with Apple’s iPod to synchronize an entire music collection with one click. It imports Microsoft Outlook contacts, in addition to allowing users to create and edit their own contacts. EphPod can also download the latest news, weather, e-books, and movie listings to an iPod.
Winamp iPod Plugin
Winamp (with the iPod Plugin) can be used to manage your iPod. Basic one if free and the Pro version is $19.95. Getting your music on your iPod is simple. Just add your music to Winamp and right-clicking to choose to send tracks to your iPod.
XPlay 2
Xplay 2 $29.95 (free trial available) provides both read and write access to your iPod hard drive for documents and data files, plus the ability to copy music to your iPod, play songs from your iPod, restore your iPod, delete songs, and create, rename and delete playlists.
YamiPod
YamiPod is a freeware application to efficiently manage your iPod under Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. It can be run directly from your iPod and needs no installation.
MediaMonkey
MediaMonkey is free version and includes the following features: Party Mode/Auto-DJ, CD Ripper, audio converter, auto-renamer, album-art lookup, reports and statistics, iPod and MP3 Player support. Convert MP3s, OGG, FLAC and WMA files into other formats with the Audio Converter.
SharePod
SharePod free, includes the following features: loads directly on to your iPod – no software to install, automatically finds an iPod attached to a PC, read/write track properties, remove tracks from an iPod, add/remove playlists on an iPod, copy tracks from an iPod to PC with customized output filename formats, integrated iPod backup & restore – tell SharePodLib where to store backups and how many to store, eject iPod from PC. Requires the Microsoft .NET 2.0 Framework.
vPod
vPod is a free program for transferring music to your iPod from Windows.vPod doesn’t presently work with iTunes 7.3+ iPods! vPod is a pretty raw iPod song transfer utility that never made it out of beta with no release since 2005. It works with older iPods (including the iPod Shuffle)
Songbird
Songbird is a free desktop Web player, a digital jukebox and Web browser mash-up. Like Winamp, it supports extensions and skins feathers. Like Firefox, it is built from Mozilla, cross-platform and open source. Songbird includes the following features: Plays MP3/AAC/OGG/FLAC/WMA and more, Multi-Language Support, Integrated Web Search, Smart Mixes, Play In Place (Songbird plays MP3s without leaving the page) and Add-ons (plugins).
For Mac OS X Users
Floola
Floola is free, allowing you to copy both music and videos to your iPod from ANY computer. Floola helps manage your music and play lists, and it also checks for duplicate songs. Download Floola and drag it onto your iPod, and then you’ll be able to use Floola with any computer you connect to.
YamiPod
YamiPod is a freeware application to efficiently manage your iPod under Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. It can be run directly from your iPod and needs no installation.
Songbird
Songbird is a free desktop Web player, a digital jukebox and Web browser mash-up. Like Winamp, it supports extensions and skins feathers. Like Firefox, it is built from Mozilla, cross-platform and open source. Songbird includes the following features: Plays MP3/AAC/OGG/FLAC/WMA and more, Multi-Language Support, Integrated Web Search, Smart Mixes, Play In Place (Songbird plays MP3s without leaving the page) and Add-ons (plugins).
Audion
Audion has NOT received any updates in years and is now freeware. No longer being actively developed/supported, and is provided as-is and without warranty.
Conclusion
What I found is there is NO perfect tool that can do everything you need to manage your iPod (and this includes iTunes). They all have their advantages and disadvantages. So if you have a sense of adventure, you might find one of these tools is for you.
As I am sure this list is not complete. But, I do think it represents the most popular alternatives.
(1 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)
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