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I hate iTunes. Any alternatives out there?

hogginthefogghogginthefogg 6,098 Posts
edited July 2007 in Strut Central
I've had an iAudio mp3 player for a few years and it's great. Only thing is, it just holds 20 gigs. My wife just got an 8-gig nano, which is all she really needs, and gave me her 30-gig iPod. But what I don't love is iTunes. Anything out there that--like iAudio--let's me use FOLDERS instead of having to make playlists for every mix CD, etc.?

  Comments

  • Egbert_SouseEgbert_Souse 920 Posts
    I gave my ipod away because i couldn't stand itunes.

    I have a nice little 1 gig sandisk player that i love to death. drag and drop usb disk style.

    I don't know why anybody would need 30 goddam gigs though. thats a lot a reggae mashups!!!! OING!
  • ZEN2ZEN2 1,540 Posts
    try this:
    http://www.vonnieda.org/vPod/
  • dgriotdgriot 388 Posts
    http://www.rockbox.org is an alternative firmware that's available for most versions of the iPod - it's folder/file-tree driven instead of database.

    I'm also pro-file tree, but that's because I'm not big on making a lot of varying playlists on the fly (e.g., all tracks by artist X, genre Y, year Z, etc.). I mainly just listen to mix CDs/albums in full.

    I'm also pro flash-based players than large capacity HD ones. Since I don't travel frequently, watch videos on it, or away from my computer for extended periods of time, it's not for me.
  • kinjameskinjames 19 Posts
    The 'Enter the Dragon' of jukeboxes/players is 'Foobar 2000'. On the plus-side, it is endlessley customizable and can sort/display/layout your collection in the coolest ways you can imagine...down-side is (at least for me) a big learning curve to get the customizing strings down (although the stock setup is solid)

    Google it, there's a ton of resources, examples, etc...out there.

    KJ is out!
  • onetetonetet 1,754 Posts
    Is there already a thread itemizing and problem-solving iTunes' flaws?

    I've been wondering if there's a way to "select all" when feeding the name of an artist or album to a batch of tracks without having to change each one individually. There probably is, but I'm too dense to figure it out so far.
  • johmbolayajohmbolaya 4,472 Posts
    http://www.anythingbutipod.com
  • edulusedulus 421 Posts
    i dont use it but a couple of my friends like it.

    http://www.redchairsoftware.com/anapod/
  • FatbackFatback 6,746 Posts
    ImutherfuckingRIVER, son!!!
  • johmbolayajohmbolaya 4,472 Posts
    ImutherfuckingRIVER, son!!!

    I wish I knew what that meant. So I'll lie and just say
  • spelunkspelunk 3,400 Posts
    ImutherfuckingRIVER, son!!!

    The only mp3 player that actually sounds half-decent.
  • mandrewmandrew 2,720 Posts
    yall need to




    this tiny gadget holds thousands of different pieces of art, replicated perfectly as zeroes and ones. user-friendly. revolutionary. the first. the best. there is no competition.

  • spelunkspelunk 3,400 Posts
    replicated perfectly as zeroes and ones

  • akoako https://soundcloud.com/a-ko 3,413 Posts
    Is there already a thread itemizing and problem-solving iTunes' flaws?

    I've been wondering if there's a way to "select all" when feeding the name of an artist or album to a batch of tracks without having to change each one individually. There probably is, but I'm too dense to figure it out so far.

    what? are you serious? maybe i misunderstand, but if youre wondering how to select a bunch of mp3s and change just the album name and artist for all the mp3s selected at once, its a pretty basic windows function.

    click on the first one, then hold down shift and click on the last one. if they arent all in a row, hold down ctrl and select them one-by-one. once theyre all selected, right-click and click "get info". itll ask you if youre sure you want to edit info for multiple items, click yes, and edit away.

    if youre on a mac, its probably the same thing, but im not sure if the shift/ctrl functions carry over.
  • HairyBelafonteHairyBelafonte 1,202 Posts
    Is there already a thread itemizing and problem-solving iTunes' flaws?

    I've been wondering if there's a way to "select all" when feeding the name of an artist or album to a batch of tracks without having to change each one individually. There probably is, but I'm too dense to figure it out so far.

    what? are you serious? maybe i misunderstand, but if youre wondering how to select a bunch of mp3s and change just the album name and artist for all the mp3s selected at once, its a pretty basic windows function.

    unless youre on a mac, then dont ask me.


    shift + click to highlight everything you want to change, apple button + I to change all highlighted selections.
  • akoako https://soundcloud.com/a-ko 3,413 Posts
    Is there already a thread itemizing and problem-solving iTunes' flaws?

    I've been wondering if there's a way to "select all" when feeding the name of an artist or album to a batch of tracks without having to change each one individually. There probably is, but I'm too dense to figure it out so far.

    what? are you serious? maybe i misunderstand, but if youre wondering how to select a bunch of mp3s and change just the album name and artist for all the mp3s selected at once, its a pretty basic windows function.

    unless youre on a mac, then dont ask me.


    shift + click to highlight everything you want to change, apple button + I to change all highlighted selections.

    ok, so the shift does carry over. thanks
  • anasarcasmanasarcasm 365 Posts
    i didn't know this shortcut. thank you
  • JimsterJimster Cruffiton.etsy.com 6,952 Posts
    www.mediamonkey.com - freeware.

    The nicest thing is you can select a bunch of craply-tagged stuff and ctrl+l and get the info from Amazon, including artwork, copied straight to the files. It'll also rename the files to match.

    Godsend.


    Plus you can export the lib to excel and stuff.
  • tirefiretirefire 203 Posts
    yall need to




    this tiny gadget holds thousands of different pieces of art, replicated perfectly as zeroes and ones. user-friendly. revolutionary. the first. the best. there is no competition.


    The first? Not even close.

    The best? Depends on what you want you mp3 player to do. The iPod does what it does really well, but it's not very feature-rich.

    Anyway, I have Rockbox on my iRiver H320, and love it. I recommend MediaMonkey for PC. If you want it to do something, somebody has probably already written a script for it.

    Amarok is also excellent, but Linux-only at this point. I've heard rumors of upcoming ports though.
  • dgriotdgriot 388 Posts
    The best? Depends on what you want you mp3 player to do. The iPod does what it does really well, but it's not very feature-rich.

    I think at the time it came out, it was arguably the best overall when you combine aesthetics, hardware interface, and intuitive firmware. The main downside for me is iTunes, which I think Apple purposely half-assed for Windows, and there's workarounds to that anyway.

    Features like FM radio, recording, gapless playback, FLAC/OGG/misc. codec support, etc. don't mean a thing to the majority of users. (Lord knows I ditched rockbox+iRiver once Apple finally got with gapless playback. I admire what the rockbox team is doing, but it's still a little too rough/buggy for me to keep with it now Apple incorporated the one feature I really cared about.)

    I'd agree now there are great options that are more feature-rich and cheaper without sacrificing on virtually any other metric, but it wasn't like that when iPod first came out. Just about all options were too bulky and/or clunky firmware-wise. It wasn't the first, but it was the first worthwhile choice for a broad user base.
  • akoako https://soundcloud.com/a-ko 3,413 Posts
    It wasn't the first, but it was the first worthwhile choice for a broad user base.

    exactly, most people wouldnt even consider an mp3 player till the ipod came out. in fact the only kids i knew with mp3 players pre-ipod were kids with mp3 CD players.
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