Looking for Alternative to Itunes

[Blade10878]

Looking for a good music downloading program compadable with a mac, something like how napster is set uop, were u pay a fee per month for unlimited downloads, or something free.

[gortonsfi]

:twisted: Hmm... I'm not sure. There is this reallllly great program out there right now though. It's called iTunes and you can use it to access the iTunes music store. Which is an online store for the purchasing of music. It's made by a company called Apple Computers (AAPL on the stock exchange) and they allow you to preview songs and then purchase them for the very reasonable price of $0.99 per song. Often they have greater deals if you purchase the whole album. :p

Seriously though I'm pretty sure iTunes is the only online music store that works on the Mac. Lemme know if I'm incorrect in that assertion.

Thanks,

Jeff

[Blade10878]

I was actually looking for free music to be honest, one of the share programs were u share the music and it therefore is not illegal as long as you share. That is what I am looking for

[gortonsfi]

Well free & legal rarely go hand in hand in my experience. If I understand the current Napster set up you pay them a fee and then you're allowed unlimited downloads per month, but to play on an MP3 player or burn discs you pay an additional fee. So it's not really free. As compared to iTunes flat 99 cent purchase where you can burn the songs to disc or add to your iPod or what have you.

Programs like the old Napster and Kazaa allow people to share files in a peer to peer setup. That would be just fine if they were swapping family photos, but when you give someone music without paying the people who own the rights to the song..then you're like the kids from that Apple Superbowl commercial not too long ago.

Bottom Line: The only way to legally download music is to purchase it in some way(or at some time) and the only music store for Mac is iTMS.

Sorry,

Jeff

[Blade10878]

is that napster thing youi was talking about mac friendly?

[kc0arf]

Hello,

A different program is: Limewire. But I fully agree with GordonFi that the legal reasonings should prevent you from even wanting to dive into this type of arrangement.

A lot of the Napster / Limewire / Kazaaa software like to bring in viruslike programs to do things like steal serial numbers, perhaps passwords, and maybe a keystroke logger.

Best advice is to just leave this part of the internet alone, and do not mess with it. If you want to share photos, put them on a webserver somewhere and let people click on them.

Walk away. Be safe.

Christian

[daronb]

On a slightly related note, I bought my fiance an IPOD for xmas and am looking for an alternative peice of software to manage the music on it as I find Itunes to be too limiting....that is unless someone can explain to me a painless way to copy music from an IPOD to a library on any given p.c. Without this function I can't get the music from a freinds IPOD to my p.c. or move merge music from my p.c. to my finace's laptop without having to copy the Itunes folder structure and hack the XML file which stores the file pointers

[hotcha]

On a slightly related note, I bought my fiance an IPOD for xmas and am looking for an alternative peice of software to manage the music on it as I find Itunes to be too limiting....that is unless someone can explain to me a painless way to copy music from an IPOD to a library on any given p.c. Without this function I can't get the music from a freinds IPOD to my p.c. or move merge music from my p.c. to my finace's laptop without having to copy the Itunes folder structure and hack the XML file which stores the file pointers

I found your posting because I am trying to the same thing. Have you found anything yet?

[kc0arf]

Hello,

I wish I could be helpful here, but do not own an iPod. One of these days... unless we get one as a wedding gift...

Christian

[daronb]

I found your posting because I am trying to the same thing. Have you found anything yet?

Ok, although I'm a MCSE and consider Mac's to be on "the dark side"....I've kinda come around full circle with I-tunes. I agree the interface is very good and intuitive but was very pissy to find that you can't copy music from an Ipod to anywhere else. I also heard that the latest firmware version for Ipod updater causes limits to what music can be played as music bought on other online stores might not play on I-tunes.

After a bit of a hunt I found a few pieces of software that allow you to copy the music database from an Ipod to your p.c. Of them all I preferred Sharepod as it doesn't require any install (only works if the Ipod is connected) and seems to work seamlessly. It doesn't copy the folder structure that the original ripping made but copies all the ID3 tags and when you re-index the songs in I-tunes will sort them into their respective albums/genres artists etc. I've attached the software for you to try.

[hotcha]

Ok, although I'm a MCSE and consider Mac's to be on "the dark side"....I've kinda come around full circle with I-tunes. I agree the interface is very good and intuitive but was very pissy to find that you can't copy music from an Ipod to anywhere else. I also heard that the latest firmware version for Ipod updater causes limits to what music can be played as music bought on other online stores might not play on I-tunes.

After a bit of a hunt I found a few pieces of software that allow you to copy the music database from an Ipod to your p.c. Of them all I preferred Sharepod as it doesn't require any install (only works if the Ipod is connected) and seems to work seamlessly. It doesn't copy the folder structure that the original ripping made but copies all the ID3 tags and when you re-index the songs in I-tunes will sort them into their respective albums/genres artists etc. I've attached the software for you to try.

Thanks a lot. I've got my girlfiend's ipod and am supposed to be filling it with songs from my Creative Zen. This might work.

[daronb]

Thanks a lot. I've got my girlfiend's ipod and am supposed to be filling it with songs from my Creative Zen. This might work.

This software is only useful to get music OFF an Ipod onto a p.c./Mac. It won't work unless an Ipod is connected. I'm not sure of how the Zen's work but assume the songs are stored in a heirachal folder structure which is similar to windows, so you can just use the Zens' USB cable to copy the contents to a folder on your p.c. and then use the shipped software with the Ipod (Itunes) to index the songs when you go file, add folder to library . I'm not sure if you'll be able to get the tracknames from the CCD database servers though since you didn't use I-tunes to originally rip them....be interested to find out since I had some MP3 CD's passed to me which I couldn't get the tracknames of.

[hotcha]

This software is only useful to get music OFF an Ipod onto a p.c./Mac. It won't work unless an Ipod is connected. I'm not sure of how the Zen's work but assume the songs are stored in a heirachal folder structure which is similar to windows, so you can just use the Zens' USB cable to copy the contents to a folder on your p.c. and then use the shipped software with the Ipod (Itunes) to index the songs when you go file, add folder to library . I'm not sure if you'll be able to get the tracknames from the CCD database servers though since you didn't use I-tunes to originally rip them....be interested to find out since I had some MP3 CD's passed to me which I couldn't get the tracknames of.

Most of my id3 tags were right and copying them worked out okay. I haven't ever tried to use the CCD. All my expirence seems to say it should be easy. That's what it's for. I've only seen it done but it didn't look to hard or time consuming. The only complication was trying to get the Ipod back usable on her computer. I don't know what she bought a Mac for, but itunes wanted to erace all the songs she had already stored in Itunes. I think she worked it out. Apple sure does want you to buy shit. After a week of bit torrent I realize just how huge 20gb is.

[daronb]

After a week of bit torrent I realize just how huge 20gb is.

lol...In I-tunes, under edit preferences, Ipod tab (you need the ipod connected to veiw the contents of the tab) switch off the automatic sync option. This is what checks the contents of the ipod against the library in I-tunes and wipes songs if they are not replicated in the library. I had the same pain.....once !

[sexytorrent]

Why kill the joy and use itunes when you can use ifree :) Explanation:
Use www.azureus.sourceforge.net as your client and www.seedler.org as your torrent site and you have an unlimited access to mp3's or complete album downloads (if thats the only thing that makes your day). But wait the best part is that you get it all for free. And for a limited time only you get it in 35 languages as well. All for free just because you were the first to actually ask this. Don't you love this deal :)

[tigueww]

Hi Have you tried Anapod explorer on www.redchairsoftware.com it is a good alternative to itunes