iTunes Replacement

I finally cracked and bought an 8Gb 2nd Gen iPod Touch. I went with the 2nd Gen because it gets better battery life over the 3rd Gen, but can run the latest 3rd Gen software.

I absolutely hate iTunes and Quicktime with a passion. What are some other great alternatives that are light yet fast and user friendly?

 

I like Foobar. Very light and is capable of iPod syncing if you get the plugin.

In terms of user friendliness though.. as long as you don't care to look and find your own themes and just use on the built in UI's then it should be fine.


iPod plugin
http://yuo.be/ipod.php

 

Not really a fan of Foobar since I already have KMPlayer.

 

I also hate iTunes and the junk that comes with it. So far I like MediaMonkey as a replacement for syncing.

I will be watching this thread with interest to see if there is anything better.

 

You can try this:

http://www.doubletwist.com/dt/Home/Index.dt

There is also Songbird:

http://getsongbird.com/

 

I assume you have downloaded a decent library onto your HD using iTunes by now. The question is, can you import your songs into a new different carrier and will they be compatible. Some years ago I was using Musicmatch and was notified they were no longer going to exist. They pointed me to a new company as a replacement. The trouble was I couldn't import my songs to the new carrier.

 

+1 for MediaMonkey. Here's a couple polls with some good info. 1by1 seems interesting. Also a list of favorites on Gizmo's-
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=263732
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=262013
http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/best-free-music-players-and-organizers.htm

 

I hate iTunes too. Unless you have a fairly new PC, it makes a noticeable impact on performance.

Keep the alternatives coming!

 

I kinda hate iTunes too. But I find it irreplaceable.

 

Ive got about 22Gbs of music on my external all of which was before iTunes. I havent purchased anything from iTunes.

Songbird isnt compatible with Windows 7. It refuses to install for me.

 

Another vote for MediaMonkey. A very good program IMO. Its very customizable and it does everything you could want a music library manager to do and then some. Once you unlock your iPod (or whatever) its simply a matter of dragging and dropping to get your tracks on your Pod via MM.

 

You could try the lastest nightly which is compatible with W7 (I know the previous version also works under 7) http://wiki.songbirdnest.com/Developer/Articles/Builds/Nightly_Builds
A good point about Songbird is there are a lot of great addons, but it is slower with big libraries and its organizing skils aint that good.

Further, I think MediaMonkey is great, especially it's tagging and organizing capabilities. You can customize is a lot. There are also addons, but those aren't of the level of Songbird. (Like Opera <-> Firefox)

But I have to admit, since I use Windows 7 I just use Windows Media Player. It is fast, the interface is the best interface ever (just like all recent Microsoft products, for example MSE). Also it syncs the best to my creative mp3-player. It blends in so nicely to the OS. The only drawback I have with Windows Media Player are its organizing and tagging skills, MediaMonkey is just unbeatable at that area, therefore I also use Mp3tag.

 

Im going to give MediaMonkey a go. It seems that is the most popular iTunes replacement and offers unbeatable sorting and an easy interface.

 

mediamonkey is the best option IMO, as long as the only thing u really want to sync is music, cause App syncing im pretty sure is not possible with mediamonkey, at least last time i used it. i dont remember about video and picture syncing tho.

 

App syncing is also a must.

 

im almost certain that u can only do that with itunes, and thats the same problem i had which is why im still using itunes

 

I purchased some hardware that converts tape and vinyl, really great to digitally archive all my old stuff and save it from degrading, but the software only works with ITunes which I don't particularly like (d'oh!) I've only just got over buying Quicktime Pro Lol for working with Photoshop.

 

I tried MediaMonkey and didnt like it. Any others out there?

 

did you check out musicbee?
http://www.getmusicbee.com/

there's also helium player
http://www.helium-music-manager.com/

there's also this although I have not used it, from magix-
http://www.magix.com/us/free-downloads/free-software/mufin-musicfinder-base/detail/

 

All of those look very promising. Ill start with Helium.