OUR REGISTERED MEMBERS HAVE IMMEDIATE ACCESS TO POPULAR TOP NAME BRAND SOFTWARE AND SPECIALLY DISCOUNTED PC PRODUCTS FROM SUCH VENDORS AS MICROSOFT, LOGITECH, ELECTRONIC ARTS and many others. See our members area and find out more...
Top Rated Accessory Software for iPod / iPhone / iPad and iTunes
Some of our readers have asked us to recommend a review of popular, reliable and user friendly software applications and services for expanding the power and use of your iPod, iPhone, and iPad. Especially as it relates to iTunes software and managing music to get the most out of your Apple products. We have recently been provided with a short list of some excellent software from an email newsletter recently published over at Rockbridge Reviews. We have reprinted it here with their permission.
We hope you fine the information and links useful… especially to help you get the most out of your “i” investments!
| ||||||
| ||||||
- Reprinted with permission from Rockbridge Reviews Newsletter
You can investigate and learn more details from the More Information / Developer’s Homepage links. There is also a reprint of an article submitted here at ZZ News and Reviews about Media Monkey as an iTunes alternative if you want to evaluate a more advanced and user friendly alternative to iTunes software for your Apple and Android devices!
Many people have become totally frustrated with the overhead and unnecessary complexity of Apple iTunes software. While iTunes does a good job connecting customers to the Apple iTunes Store, it is restricted in its ability to organize and manage music files on your PC which are not related to iTune store purchases! Like burned CDs and other downloaded music and videos from various other vendors and sources regardless of where the files came from.
We have written articles in the past assisting our readers that have had problems installing or uninstalling itunes. Over the course of this year several of our almost 3,000 subscribers have asked if we could do review or recommend a good alternative to iTunes that would do a much better job of moving any music file from their PC on to their iPod, iPhone, iPad and visa versa.
We did some research and found that MediaMonkey (MM) turns out to be the 3rd most popular media file manager software behind Apple’s iTunes (of course) and the stock pc Windows Media Player (no iPod support). The really cool thing we like about MM software as an alternative to iTunes and Windows Media Player is that it interfaces and syncs with iPods, iPhones, iPad and even the Android! AND… This is important…! They are also vendor neutral (not tied to Apple or anyone else) and are working to provide a media management solution for ALL smart devices over time independent of operating system and device manufacturer!
In our opinion this is clearly one of the better and more popular alternatives to iTunes out there. It allows you to sync music files with your iPhone, iPod or iPad and as we said even the Android. What’s also nice is that they have both a FREE VERSION and a GOLD VERSION you can download.
MediaMonkey
- Organize music and edit tags in your audio library with a powerful, intuitive interface.
- Automatically lookup and tag Album Art and other metadata.
- Manage 50,000+ files in your music collection without bogging down.
- Manage all genres of audio: Rock, Classical, Audiobooks, Comedy, Podcasts, etc.
- Play MP3s and other audio formats, and never again worry about varying volume.
- Record CDs and convert MP3s, M4A, OGG, FLAC and WMA files etc. into other formats.
- Create playlists and let Auto-DJ & Party Mode take care of your party.
- Sync iPhones, iPods, & MP3 players, converting & leveling tracks on-the-fly.
- Plus much more…
So… if you are looking for a very good alternative to iTunes, its certainly worth checking out MM’s free version and see first hand if it will do what you will need it to do…! Also at the same time, the gold version is also reasonably priced below $20 the last we checked which is not bad. Regardless, if you are fed up and frustrated with iTunes and you are looking for a very good alternative to iTunes which also syncs to your iPod, iPhone, iPad or Android you will want to at least check this product out and evaluate it.
Looking For a Perfect Software Uninstaller Utility ?
Going nuts trying to remove software from your PC? Removing problem software applications from your PC can be a very frustrating experience. We have found several websites and products however which are dedicated to assisting folks on how to properly uninstall software that is difficult to uninstall. Two have free or trial versions that do a great job. Some have a premium or pro level that does deeper cleaning for really difficult to remove complex software.
At the end of this post are a few links you might want to check out if you are having trouble uninstalling or removing any of the following very complex programs: Adobe Software, McAfee Anti Virus, AOL Toolbar, AVG Anti-Virus, Norton 2006/2007, Avast!, AVG, ESET NOD32, Internet Explorer 8, OovoO, McAfee, Microsoft Office, Nero, Sims 3, iTunes, Norton Security, and any others that are difficult to remove. This type of software utility is just simply good to have on your “desktop” because it removes software much better and more thoroughly than the Add / Remove Applications utility fournd in your Windows Control Panel.
The reason special software uninstallers are sometimes needed is that the more complex the software is, the more difficult it sometimes becomes to remove because of the registry key entries the Add / Remove program often leaves behind. Fixing this can make you go completely nuts, and in the process really mess up your PC. The links below are all excellent recommended software products that can help keep you from spending hours of research on Google trying to find out why you can’t remove an application from your Add / Remove area of your Control Panel. Perfect Uninstaller for instance is one of the more popular widely used utilities to remove problem software. All three of these sites assist in removing problematic software.
Their instructions and software products, focus on PCs running Windows software only, not MAC or Apple. We will be looking for other websites and products that can assist our readers with Apple computers in a future article.
- Perfect Uninstaller – Probably the most popular free software removal utility – may need registry cleaning upgrade however
- Revo Uninstaller – They have a free trial version of the Pro version which is excellent and works great. Our favorite.
- Uninstall My Software – Has a growing number of how to articles to remove problem software using these utilities
- How To Uninstall iTunes – Website that contains special step by step instructions specifically on how to remove itunes software which is often extremely difficult to remove and reinstall properly. They also have added some very good reviews on alternatives to iTunes software as well.
These sites all recommend various uninstaller software programs to assist you — some have a Free Demo that often works without and upgrade or Trial Version that will uninstall software for both simple and complex removals. For instance How To Uninstall iTunes is a website focused on helping people removing iTunes and/or installing iTunes after proper removal.
Clean Me Up Scotty!! Sometimes PC registries get so messed up that you have to clean them or you can’t use Add/Remove properly. Even after using a special uninstaller program you may still need to clean up your registry if the uninstaller did not have an automatic registry cleaner built into it. Perfect Uninstaller requires the paid version to get the registry cleaner. If you have pre-existing PC registry problems you may have to run a good registry repair tool like RegCure first. You can find RegCure and many other top free PC optimizer software, tools, uninstallers and utilities over at Rockbridge Downloads in their Freeware Section available for immediate download. We recommend RegCure if you have severe registry problems! It works great.
Good luck…
P.S. we don’t recommend that you try and fix your PC registry manually by hand. Use a good automated registry cleaner like those mentioned in this article unless you know exactly what you are doing. Messing with your PC registry is a sure way to crash your entire PC’s windows operating system and end up with a permanent visit from the dreaded “blue screen of death” !
Here is a great site for obtaining unlimited ebooks for your new iPad !!
- Access to the fastest iPad downloads on the net!
- Members have unlimited access, no restrictions
- Unlimited free Novels, Comics, Newspapers & more!
- Free 24 hour Technical Support
- No monthly or “Pay Per Download” fees
- Huge Media Selection – over 30,000+ titles available!
Updated for 2012: How To Completely Uninstall and Remove All Traces of iTunes – (So it can be properly reinstalled or deleted!)
Are you going crazy trying to completely uninstall iTunes from your PC?
Scenario: Your latest download of iTunes got corrupted on your system somehow, or was interrupted during installation. Doesn’t matter how. It happened to me. I realized I had to uninstall itunes and then reinstall iTunes. So I thought I would just download the latest version first and try reloading it. No dice. So I thought ok, I would first remove it using the ADD/REMOVE feature in the control panel and try again. Not so simple. Lo and behold I could not remove the iTunes program off the Programs list! Reloading itunessetup.exe gave errors and would not start! Errors like: ” iTunes could not connect because an unknown error occurred 0xE8000003 ” is another common error among others. In my ensuing hours of Google research I found many posts of folks with just these very same issues and more! So let me share with you some of the answers, tips and software that I found from all the forums and sources I researched that will help you solve this problem once and for all and keep you from going completely nuts!
First here is your overall objective:
1. Before you can reinstall iTunes you must first remove all remnants of the following applications listed including all “left over” files from your registry. Yep… that scary place on your PC !! :
First try removing each of these with their own “uninstallers” directly or by using the ADD/REMOVE application located in your Control Panel. Start –> Control Panel –> Add/Remove Programs. You must remove them in the order you see them below. If you are lucky you will be able to remove all of them just using your ADD/REMOVE program and everything will be fine after a registry cleanup and re-boot.
- iTunes Software
- Quicktime
- Apple Software Update
- Apple Mobile Support
- Bonjour (especially Bonjour, the most problematic and most difficult component to remove properly! )
- Apple Application Support (iTunes 9 or later)
- iPhone (if you have it loaded)
- and anything else related to iTunes — that’s the tough part where you need to be careful, for instance ver.10 they started adding the Safari browser which should also be removed during an uninstall just to be safe due to the tangled registry network apple is using! **
After these steps run a Registry Cleaner like RegCure to clean up left behind registry keys. This is especially important if you plan on reinstalling iTunes after you remove it, otherwise iTunes may think you still have the original copy installed and the new install will not install properly. This is also important to run if you try using the faster fool proof automated removal downloads below. You may need to run RegCure and then try the process again.
If you are lucky the above process will work first time around!
If all else fails there is an excellent detailed manual written and designed specifically to REMOVE ALL TRACES of iTunes from your PC. It also includes special removal software in the download. You can obtain it from the links below. It’s less than ten bucks but it kept me from spending hours going nuts trying to fix this. They include detailed step by step instructions and software that does the registry changes for you automatically. You must follow the instructions STEP by STEP and in the order given and be sure to read all the instructions carefully first and it will work fine in the majority of cases (it works for > 95% of users unless you have other serious problems in your PC registry). RegCure might help in this case. They offer no guarantees but it did work perfectly for me and judging from the rest of the feedback here on our site, it worked perfectly for the vast majority of our readers who have used it. Here are a few different sources if you want to find it and try it:
Check for the latest version and to find best deal at the download sites below:
E-Junkie: http://www.e-junkie.com/rockbridge/product/371521.php
Rockbridge: http://rockbridgedownloads.com/ebooks/
Amazon: There is also an iPad / Kindle version over at Amazon as well: ( B003VD1IRM )
PayLoadZ: http://store.payloadz.com/go?id=514696
**Note: The downloads at E-Junkie, PayLoadZ and Rockbridge both include special uninstaller software in the download that does a full and complete registry entry cleanup automatically They include it within the downloadable zip file / package. It works great if you decide you would prefer to use automatic removal software to remove iTunes instead of making all the registry edits yourself manually which can be dangerous and crash your pc if you make a mistake! Obviously there is no download software in the Amazon Kindle version but there are references to the links above or you can get only the software if you are a registered reader here – but without the instruction manual – be careful if you don’t know what you are doing if you use it. Compare the cost alternatives first and choose the one that makes the most sense and works for you !!
P.S. Some of you have also asked us to update this post and recommend some really good software other than iTunes to manage and organize your music. We did some research on a number of iTunes alternatives and found that an excellent top rated alternative is one called MediaMonkey. This software actually has a free trial version so you can check it out yourself, which we always recommend, and the program also syncs music files directly with your iPhone, iPod, iPad and even the Android and other new smart phones. Certainly its worth checking out if you are looking for a better alternative to iTunes!
If you found this post useful consider registering with us to gain access to our software download area. Registration is free. Once registered you will be able to download free PC utility software such as RegCure, RevoUninstaller and CCleaner along with special discounts and vendor coupons on the latest brand name software. We provide this access as an added benefit and value added service to our registered readership… Learn more…
– Thanks, Staff at ZZ News and Reviews
