music: iPhone sync, iTunes alternative
A post unrelated to coding - about a problem that was occupying my hobby time ever since I got the iPhone - it's called iTunes, one of the most offending pieces of commercial software I have seen, right after RealPlayer and Quicktime. Apple is notorious for unusable software (while having the best hardware design), as if they outsource their coding to some African tribe, receiving the deliverables engraved on banana leafs.
So, I've had enough of iTunes when one day it removed all of my tracks on the 16GB iPhone. Before that, it was making computer unusable when opening (pretty small by today's standards) 60Gb music lib, suddenly destroying the library index, being unable to sync with more than one computer (amazing brainstorming Apple!) and so on. Considering that iTunes is a total joke in it's music organization attempts with the need to manually add/remove every file to the library, manage tags and album art by hand, not showing directory album structure, and forcing it's own tag-based categorization it could be only useful for random pop-track purchasing iTunes customers. Uninstalled, and started looking for some sane alternatives. I have tried mostly every piece of software that claimed it could sync iPhone/iPod music with a Windows computer, including iPhone-based ones, with no luck - they either don't work with the new Apple encryption, or don't do their simple job well, crashing left and right.
Relief came when I discovered and installed a little gem called MediaMonkey. Purchasing it was a no-brainer - even though it syncs through the evil iTunes, you can erase iTunes's library and disable iTunes syncing so it should not be able to do any harm. MediaMonkey works with the existing music library wonderfully, through a set of views and filters, not locking you into a stupid "vision", with a lightning fast presentation of any amount of albums. It converts FLAC/OGG to iPod-compatible mp3 on the sync (once), so you don't have to keep two copies of the same albums. You can view the track/album/artist conveniently and you can re-tag albums from freedb/web. You can actually see the directory structure from within the program. You are able to get album art without using iTunes Store. Rip/Burn Cd-Dvds. Music DB is automatically updated with watched folders feature (yes you don't have to add each file manually). And so much more is done right in that little Monkey-driven app that comparing it to iTunes is an offense. Did I mention that the sync check takes 1 second, instead of eons with iTunes?
Apple software engineers should download a trial version of MM and then go hang themselves in shame.
So, I've had enough of iTunes when one day it removed all of my tracks on the 16GB iPhone. Before that, it was making computer unusable when opening (pretty small by today's standards) 60Gb music lib, suddenly destroying the library index, being unable to sync with more than one computer (amazing brainstorming Apple!) and so on. Considering that iTunes is a total joke in it's music organization attempts with the need to manually add/remove every file to the library, manage tags and album art by hand, not showing directory album structure, and forcing it's own tag-based categorization it could be only useful for random pop-track purchasing iTunes customers. Uninstalled, and started looking for some sane alternatives. I have tried mostly every piece of software that claimed it could sync iPhone/iPod music with a Windows computer, including iPhone-based ones, with no luck - they either don't work with the new Apple encryption, or don't do their simple job well, crashing left and right.
Relief came when I discovered and installed a little gem called MediaMonkey. Purchasing it was a no-brainer - even though it syncs through the evil iTunes, you can erase iTunes's library and disable iTunes syncing so it should not be able to do any harm. MediaMonkey works with the existing music library wonderfully, through a set of views and filters, not locking you into a stupid "vision", with a lightning fast presentation of any amount of albums. It converts FLAC/OGG to iPod-compatible mp3 on the sync (once), so you don't have to keep two copies of the same albums. You can view the track/album/artist conveniently and you can re-tag albums from freedb/web. You can actually see the directory structure from within the program. You are able to get album art without using iTunes Store. Rip/Burn Cd-Dvds. Music DB is automatically updated with watched folders feature (yes you don't have to add each file manually). And so much more is done right in that little Monkey-driven app that comparing it to iTunes is an offense. Did I mention that the sync check takes 1 second, instead of eons with iTunes?
Apple software engineers should download a trial version of MM and then go hang themselves in shame.
Labels: apple, iphone, mediamonkey, rant
posted by kibitzer at
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home