Hey, just so you know ... this post is now about 15 years and 8 months old. Please keep that in mind as it very well may contain broken links and/or outdated information.I love my 30gb iPod Video … I really do. The interface is simple and elegant; the hardware is a marvel; its changed how I listen to music, and what I listen to: I don’t listen to radio at all anymore, I listen to podcasts (or when the podcasts run out, music!).
So why, why, WHY does Apple ruin such a perfect device with the millstone-around-the-neck that is iTunes? Where do I start?
- iTunes is slow: my main desktop that I use for iTunes is a 3.0GHz P4 with 2gb of RAM running Vista Home Premium. Ok, yes, it’s a few years old and doesn’t have dual cores, but it’s not exactly slow. And yet iTunes runs like molasses: switching between views in the library is slow, typing into the search box is slow, right-clicking on my iPod under Devices to get to the context menu is slow. The entire thing is just sloooooow.
- iTunes is bloated: why do I have a Apple TV tab in my iTunes preferences when I don’t have an Apple TV? Why does it install the Apple Mobile Device Support service and the Syncing tab under Preferences when I don’t have an iPhone?
- iTunes is broken: this drives me nuts … I update the tags on my MP3s, add album art, etc. Then I’ll notice, while a track is playing on my iPod, that the cover art is gone. I check iTunes, and sure enough, the art has been removed. Sometimes it even seems to update the Album Artist tag for me. I’ve spent a lot of time tagging everything the way I want it … don’t mess with my tags! (And before you ask, yes, I have “automatically download missing album artwork” turned off).
- iTunes is sneaky: remember a few months ago when Apple tried to slip in their Safari browser through their Windows updater? Well, if you’ve upgraded to iTunes 7.7 recently, you’ll find a new MobileMe icon in your control panel! Yep, they did it again. I’m not going to use MobileMe, don’t mess around and put icons for stuff I don’t want on my PC (for steps on how to remove it, see here).
There are a few things I like about iTunes: the podcatcher functionality, Smart Playlists, the ability to organize my music library hierarchy on my PC, etc. I only use it, though, because I have to. I stopped buying tracks from the iTunes Music Store once Amazon launched their DRM-free music store so I don’t need it for that. If you know of a good iTunes replacement that will work with my iPod, please let me know!
Here are some things you might try, I don’t think there is a perfect solution just yet, but a combination of these or some plugins may just do the trick for you.
http://getsongbird.com http://www.redchairsoftware.com/anapod
http://www.floola.com/modules/wiwimod
http://www.yamipod.com/main/modules/home
http://www.gnome.org/projects/rhythmbox which works in linux GUI.
http://www.gtkpod.org/about.html may also be worth checking out but also only runs under a linux gui.
Here is a list of other ipod managers you might want to look at. http://ipodmanagers.blogspot.com/
I’ve actually tried gtkpod on my EeePC with my iPod, and it worked for playing back music on the device through my Eee. But then it screwed something up and I had to reset my iPod to factory (empty) and re-sync my entire library back onto it with iTunes.
I’ll check out those other apps, though, Thanks!
I am using songbird right now and its pretty nice, has a lot of plugins and seems stable. The ipod interface is almost the same as in itunes, so all in all, of the things I’ve tried, this is pretty close. It seems a little slow to startup, but once you get going, its not bad. I added a bunch of plugins that handle displaying lyrics, grabbing missing cover art, etc. This and a combination of podcatcher would probably be a good itunes replacement setup.
So I’ve been playing with Songbird over the weekend.
It’s nice, and works fine with my 5th gen iPod Video, but right now the lack of podcatcher functionality is a deal-breaker for me. I hate iTunes, but don’t want to have to replace it with two different applications.
Podcast support is on Songbird’s list of features for later this year, so I’ll keep an eye on it. For now, I guess I’ll just have to grit my teeth and deal with iTunes.