wrote:
> Not necessarily a computer question, but I'm thinking of buying an iPod. I have
> a small 4Gb .mp3 player which isn't bad but it's a little tough to navigate
> through, so I think I want to spring for the real thing. My question is simply
> can you just transfer .mp3 files from the computer to the iPod without going
> through iTunes or some other program? I have plenty of .mp3 files on my hard
> drive and don't want to jump through hoops to transfer them to an iPod. Thanks.
Something like Songbird will get your MP3s onto your MP player.
Googling for iTunes replacement generates 3.7m pieces of data...good luck.
To summarise the relative attractiveness of iTunes:-
1. It's a very clever piece of software.
2. It locks a user into an Apple-centric view of the digital world, for
better or worse. iTunes will want to wipe your drive and start again and
own your iPod. iTunes only works with iPods and iPhones, but the Palm
Pre apparently does for the moment. That last bit irrelevant unless
you're in that place between Mexico and Canada.
3. Adding stuff already on your HDD to your iPod is as easy as pressing
CTRL-O and following the prompts.
4. With an iPod touch or iPhone you become effectively a captive of the
Apple iTunes store, it's the only way to easily, perhaps legally (say
Apple) add applications to your iPod Touch or iPhone. (explanation:
Apple takes a 30% cut of all sales value on the 'store'). If you want to
use something else you'll need to "jailbreak" your iPod and use Cydia.
See here:
http://cydia.saurik.com/
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