ipod + windows media player

neil_g · 12 Jul 2009 at 16:55

if you "let itunes manage your music" and the itunes folder is not specified as the same place as your music is currently located it will copy the files to the path specified in preferences.

personally i manage my folders manually and turn that option off and import folders using the "import folder" option.

the only time itunes duplicated anything of mine was when i had unconverted WMA and MP3 for each album.

MagicBoy · 12 Jul 2009 at 16:55

JonRohan said:
Irrespective of this I still do not like iTunes. Why duplicate music by default? Not a great design imo.

I don't understand apples need to lock these devices to a set piece of software. Imagine if Microsoft tried to do that.

iTunes is designed to be easy to use for people that don't understand the nuts and bolts of computer filing systems. Both my Parents have iPods and haven't got a bad word to say about iTunes. It just works, which is exactly what they want. The centralised music library is a boon as it allows them to easily back up their purchases and the database by picking a single folder.

***COUGH*** Microsoft Zune ***COUGH*** That doesn't use Windows Media Player either, and there's no software to allow that to work on a non Microsoft OS.

zetec452 · 12 Jul 2009 at 16:57

MagicBoy said:
iTunes is designed to be easy to use for people that don't understand the nuts and bolts of computer filing systems. Both my Parents have iPods and haven't got a bad word to say about iTunes. It just works, which is exactly what they want. The centralised music library is a boon as it allows them to easily back up their purchases and the database by picking a single folder.

I suppose I can see why iTunes does this and for its target audience it works well. I however much prefer WMP (in particular the layout) and don't want to have to install a fairly heavy app like itunes to sync an ipod once every 4 months.

MagicBoy said:
***COUGH*** Microsoft Zune ***COUGH*** That doesn't use Windows Media Player either, and there's no software to allow that to work on a non Microsoft OS.

Man that's pretty crap too. What is it with these people? I take back my statement about Apple and iTunes.

MagicBoy · 12 Jul 2009 at 16:58

Tomsk · 12 Jul 2009 at 17:01

JonRohan said:
I only want something to switch on one a month and wack some tunes on my iPod.

That's all I wanted out of an iPod manager so I avoided iTunes and used to use Anapod.
However now I use YamiPod - http://www.yamipod.com/main/modules/home/
I have both Windows and Linux versions on my iPods so I can connect to PCs at home and work and my netbook.
It does take a little time to update it's screens if the iPod has a lot of tunes.

zetec452 · 12 Jul 2009 at 17:01

For the benefit of anybody else not wanting to use iTunes, sharepod works brilliantly. Very simple and easy to use. Thanks.

.walls · 12 Jul 2009 at 18:21

MagicBoy said:
Have you actually tried iTunes recently? Wheeling out the same old cliches doesn't suggest that you have.

I have an iPhone and absolutely hate being tied to iTunes. IMHO, it is one of the worst written pieces of software that I have ever used and this is not me "wheeling out the same old cliches", I actually do hate this piece of software.

EDIT: Also: with iPhone OS 3, they changed the database hash... again - so even though things like media monkey which worked very well for OS 2.x can no longer sync.