[aroon]

i just got my ipod a couple weeks back and i was thinking of trying out a bunch of these other apps that work with the ipod. i was wondering what all of them are. ive heard of anapod explorer by red chair software and ephpod. any others? i figure this thread could be a nice place to collect this information with links to them all as well.

so ill start things off

anapod explorer by red chair software
ephpod

thanks guys!

edit: and now that i think of it, please talk about your experiences with any 3rd party apps you've had too please.

 

[Weiman]

XPlay:
http://www.mediafour.com/products/xplay/

I don't have an iPod (yet) so I can't comment on it

 

[blessingx]

My experience is here. There are more Mac apps out at the moment.

On the PC side, this looks interesting.

EDIT: Versiontracker had the wrong OS. Listed as "Windows 95/98/2000/ME/XP/NT", but its OS X also.

 

[austonia]

Ephpod and iTunes are free, what else ya need???

I used Ephod from day 1 till iTunes (Win) came out. iTunes does transfers faster so I just use that now. All i want is drag and drop loading and no hassle, both do a swell job. Piss on Apple for taking so damn long though.

 

[iPodophile]

I love Anapod, but I'd only recomend it to people who will use the extra features, of which there are tons. The web interface, streaming and transcoding/downsampling are the ones I use the most.

I've also got XPlay, which is much more straight forward and simple to use. It doesn't have alot in the way of extra features, but for simply managing your music and syncing, it can't be beat.

Ephpod was really buggy last time I tried it, but that was quite a while back.

iTunes is easily the weakest of all of the available programs, in my opinion. Sure it does everything, but it does it all very poorly. Winamp 5 is a better player, CDex and EAC are better rippers, there are litterally dozens of programs that are better for tagging and renaming files, and probably all of the programs that I mentioned above are better for managing music on your iPod.

I guess iTunes is ok if you're not concerned about sound quality at all, and/or you want the integration of functionality.

 

[blessingx]

Quote:

Originally posted by iPodophile iTunes is easily the weakest of all of the available programs, in my opinion. Sure it does everything, but it does it all very poorly. Winamp 5 is a better player, CDex and EAC are better rippers, there are litterally dozens of programs that are better for tagging and renaming files, and probably all of the programs that I mentioned above are better for managing music on your iPod. I guess iTunes is ok if you're not concerned about sound quality at all, and/or you want the integration of functionality.

Actually none of the programs you mentioned manage music remotely as well (if they manage at all), but you're right there are specialty apps that do their individual components better. However I think it's a big difference between EAC being a better ripper (probably best there is) and saying iTunes w/error correction rips very poorly. I have to use both on some library discs to extract clean tracks. Same goes for Winamp and playback, etc. I don't believe Winamp sucks 'cause I can do more with Foobar or XMMS.

 

[SpoonMan]

I second blessingx's statement, none of the programs you mentioned manage music as well as iTunes does...and that's the big draw of iTunes for me, that and the fact that it does very quick transfers to the iPod...I use EAC / Lame for ripping, I don't feel iTunes rips poorly, I simply feel EAC / Lame does a better job, there are certainly lower quality ripping programs then iTunes out there.

As for syncing...I've used everything available, and nothing touches iTunes in that respect, plug it in, wait for it to update then you can go about your business.