The A to Y list of 20 iTunes alternatives from managing your iPod to getting the most from your iTunes music.

iTunes is Apple’s software for managing your iPod but you could easily argue that its primary role is to act as a closed shop for buying iTunes music and video clips. Still, you either love iTunes or you don’t.

Those who look for alternatives to iTunes are generally looking for something that isn’t quite so “straight-jacketed” and gives you greater freedom to do what you want with your music.

NOTE: We’re not condoning music swapping but we don’t like closed devices either.

As it turns out, neither do quite a few people and there is a surprisingly long list of iPod/iTunes alternatives available. A couple of them are payware but for the most part, they’re freely available.

Anapod Explorer
Type: Commercial ($19.95 to $29.95)
Platform: Windows

 

This one has received rave reviews but it can be confusing which one to choose as Red Chair Software offers multiple versions. To get you started though, there is a free trial edition that works with all iPods but has a limited features set.

Anapod Explorer blends itself into Windows and offers Firewire and USB2.0 connection support. It also includes a tool called AudioMorph that can translate MP3, WMA and Ogg Vorbis formatted audio files on the fly as you transfer them to your iPod.

Audion
Type: Freeware
Platform: Mac OS 9/X

Audion has received much of an update in years and is now freeware. This one supports iPod management but just which version it supports is unclear. Strangely though, it supports mp3PRO, an attempt at offering higher quality MP3 encoding that never really took off but claims to improve the audio bandwidth at lower bit rates, similar to WMA and OGG Vorbis. Has some useful features as a player/encoder including batch encoding and supports using the LAME MP3 encoder. Not bad but definitely long in the tooth.

Banshee
Type: Freeware
Platform: Linux

Banshee is one of the bigger management/player options for the iPod on Linux. It allows you to rip audio CDs and sync them to your iPod. It can also create playlists and burn MP3 and audio CDs. It also supports album cover art. It’s currently available on a number of Linux distros including openSUSE 10.1+, Ubuntu and Gentoo. It supports more than just the iPod as well as Creative players and other players conforming to the USB mass storage device standard. There’s also a bucketload of plugins from Internet radio to podcasts and DAAP music sharing.

CopyTrans
Type: Commercial ($US19.90 to $US49.60)
Platform: Windows

CopyTrans (formerly known as CopyPod) is a backup tool for iPods, allowing you to backup the contents of your iPod, including all ratings and playlists. It can retrieve lost songs in a broken iPod database and perform incremental backups if needed. It works with all iPods and works with Windows Vista. There’s also a free trial version. If you’re about to send your iPod back to Apple for a battery replacement, this looks to be a good option for backing up the contents before they’re wiped at Apple.

Ephpod
Type: Freeware/Donate-ware
Platform: Windows

Ephpod claims to be compatible with all iPods whether using USB or Firewire ports however the latest versions – 2.75 and 2.77 – have a note saying they may not work with the latest generation models. Still, it has some useful features including support for Winamp .m3u playlists. The unusual features are its support for contact lists from Outlook and the ability to download weather, news and e-books to the iPod. Freeware but there is an option to donate to Ephpod’s beer fund! Not a whole heap of support but there is help available via the ipodLounge forums.

Floola
Type: Freeware
Platform: Windows (including Vista), Mac OS, Linux

Floola is a rarity in that it supports all three major operating system platforms and not manages the iPod but also works with Motorola cellphones that work with iTunes. This one has plenty of features including the ability to fix your iPod if it’s had some nasty software do it over. It has a search option to look for lost files on your iPod and even has lyric support provided you have at least a 3G iPod. There’s also support for iPod Shuffle and giving you the option of how songs are ordered.

Foo_pod plug-in
Type: Freeware
Platform: Windows

Foo_pod was originally a plug-in designed to work with Foobar2000 to allow copying of music to the iPod without the need for iTunes. Unfortunately, development of this plug-in has sagged over the years and it now causes problems if you’re using the latest version of iTunes or manage more than one iPod or connect the iPod to another computer. However, for older iPods and versions of iTunes, it’s still said to work but very definitely now a tool to use carefully.

Foobar2000
Type: Freeware
Platform: Windows

Foobar2000 is a handy audio player that supports a truckload of different audio formats including MPEG1, AAC, FLAC, Ogg Vorbis and WMA plus a heap of others. It needs at least Windows 2000 but will work with Windows Vista. While strictly not an iTunes alternative on its own, it can be used with the Foo_pod plug-in however, these days the plug-in’s support is fairly shaky and doesn’t like the latest version of iTunes. Still, it doesn’t need much in the way of hardware, getting off the ground with just a 200MHz processor although a 500MHz something (insert your favourite processor here) is recommended.

Gtkpod
Type: Freeware
Platform: Linux

Gtkpod is a graphical user interface (GUI) for the iPod using GTK2. It’s been tested with GNU/Linux and FreeBSD. Like most of these tools, Gtkpod gives you quite good control over what you do with your iPod including allowing you to extract and export tracks from your iPod. It can view, add and modify album art, read and update the iTunesDB database file. It doesn’t do any file conversion. It’s available in source form or as a precompiled binary. Not a complete tool but still pretty useful all the same.

Hymn Project (QTFairUse6)
Type: Freeware
Platform: Windows, Mac OS X

The most controversial of the list is the Hymn Project as it’s the only one designed to crack the digital rights management (DRM) copy-protection built into iTunes-downloaded songs. Circumvention tools such as this are now illegal in many countries so you need to tread carefully even before you download this one. JHymn was originally designed for this purpose however as of iTunes 6 it appears to no longer work correctly. The only working option at the moment is said to be QTFairUse6, developed by Jon ‘DVD’ Johansen. According to Wikipedia, it currently works with iTunes versions 6.0.2 and 7.

MediaMonkey
Type: Freeware/Commercial ($US19.95)
Platform: Windows

MediaMonkey is a popular media player/manager/CD ripper/converter tool. In fact, there’s not a whole heap this one can’t do. Comes as two versions, a freeware limited functionality but still useable version plus a $US19.95 payware version. The freeware version still syncs with iPods and other MP3 players though so it’s still definitely worth a look. It can rip CDs to MP3, OGG, WAM and FLAC and play those formats as well. There’s a CD burning engine but it’s limited to 4X speed on the freeware version (48X speed burning is available on the payware version).

Poddox
Type: Freeware
Platform: Windows

Poddox is a different type of tool, more of a “virtual iPod” allowing you to download and retrieve songs to and from an iPod while it is in disk storage mode. However, there are reports this one is mucking up iPod databases. However, the tool’s developer says Poddox can repair iTunes databases. Either way, an interesting tool but one to be wary off. There’s no player software on this tool, it’s strictly meant for file shuffling between your PC and iPod.

Rhythmbox
Type: Freeware
Platform: Linux (GNOME)

Rhythmbox is another management tool for Linux and was specifically designed to work on the GNOME desktop however there’s a very good tutorial on how to get this to work directly on Ubuntu. Rhythmbox supports searching and sorting, playlists and has an easy-to-use iTunes-like music browser. This one is quite a slick design and looks to work well. It also supports various audio formats provided you have GStreamer on your system.

Senuti
Type: Freeware
Platform: Mac OS

Senuti is a neat little Mac OS tool for transferring songs from an iPod rather than to it. It does requires Mac OS X 10.3 but it will play songs direct from your iPod’s iTunes database. It’s designed to be used with iTunes but provide the reverse direction that iTunes doesn’t. There seems to be a problem however that iTunes can erase songs you want to copy onto your iPod however the fixes for this are explained on the site. You do need to prepare your iPod and iTunes software correctly but this is also well explained on the site.

SharePod
Type: Freeware
Platform: Windows

SharePod incorporates itself into Windows Explorer to enable simple drag-n-drop copying to and from your iPod. As with most of these tools, the developer warns against running SharePod and iTunes at the same time as the two don’t talk to each other and could get the database out of sync. There’s a built-in media player and there’s a restore function in case things go bad. The only downside to this tool is that it requires Microsoft’s .NET Framework 2.0 to work. Still, nice interface and plenty of help.

Songbird
Type: Freeware
Platform: Windows, Mac OS, Linux

Songbird is one of the projects being support by Mozilla and at the moment is still in pre-release. It looks likely to become THE third-party tool for iPods and MP3 players in general with a huge list of features, very cool interface and the ability to skin it. There’s a reasonable list of requirements to get it working and although only at “proof of concept” stage, it works and can be used with an iPod now. At the moment, only the Windows version is being offered as there are recent reports from Songbird that the Linux and Mac OS version are having trouble but definitely check with the site regularly. This is going to be the iTunes alternative to watch.

vPod
Type: Freeware
Platform: Windows

vPod is a fairly raw iPod song transfer utility and has never made it out of beta. Still, it continues to be available despite no release since 2005. It works with older iPods (including the iPod Shuffle) but it looks like all bets are off for any recent generation iPod. It needs at least Windows NT but works with Windows 2000 and XP. There’s little in the way of help but you can contact the developer directly. Really only for diehard fans of vPod though.

Winamp
Type: Freeware (Commercial Pro version: $US19.95)
Platform: Windows

Since version 5.2, Winamp has built in support for iPods so you can use your favourite audio player to manage your iPod. Currently at version 5.35, Winamp does plenty and all you need to do is make sure you have your iPod plugged in. It’s one of the few tools that has some support for Windows 98/Me however I’ve not tried it with an iPod so best to stick with Windows 2000 and up for which iPod drivers are available. Still, if you’re sick of iTunes, this is definitely well worth trying out.

There’s also Winamp Pro but the freeware version handles syncing.

XPlay
Type: Commercial ($US29.95)
Platform: Windows

XPlay is a simple drag-n-drop approach to uploading and downloading music to and from an iPod. Although we’ve not tested it, the good news for Windows 98SE users is that this one claims to work with 98SE and Me. While it supports Windows 2000 and XP, there is no Windows Vista support as yet although this is expected some time in Q3 2007. It supports playlists and allows you to keep a backup of your music on your PC. Given that Apple doesn’t support older Windows operating systems, this is likely one of the only options to get an iPod working on older computers.

YamiPod
Type: Freeware
Platform: Windows, Mac OS X, Linux

This one needs no installation and supports most of the major operating systems. Among its features is the ability to copy MP3 and AAC music to and from the iPod. This is also another option for Windows 98SE users. It handles syncing of your iPod to your PC and supports news and podcast uploading. There’s even a built-in music player and it can detect and remove duplicate tracks. It’s also available in 28 different languages.

 

Conclusion: Although iTunes is obviously the preferred option for your iPod, there are plenty of alternatives regardless of which operating system you plan to use. We think Songbird, Winamp and YamiPod are the pick of the bunch but we also like the look of MediaMonkey too.

NOTE: Techlogg.com takes no responsibility for your use of these software tools and provides no warranty for them. Use at your own risk. Always read the licensing agreements before using any software and beware that your iPod warranty may be void by using them.