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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!
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- 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.
Updated for 2013: 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 or reinstall iTunes on your PC?
Scenario: Your latest download of iTunes got corrupted on your computer 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. I found 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 ” are common errors among others. In my ensuing hours of Google research I found many posts of folks with just these very same issues and even worse! 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 any of the faster more fool proof automated removal downloads below. You may need to run RegCure and then try the process again. You can download a free copy here.
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 problem. 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 please 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 software utilities 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…
Bit.ly URL: http://bit.ly/VmYTco
– Thanks, Staff at ZZ News and Reviews
