[Download] Floola: another iTunes+iPod alternative
Are you sick of using iTunes? Then Floola could be the tool you're looking for. Floola is an iTunes+iPod alternative that is also computer-independent. Just copy the program file to the root of your iPod, and you're good to go. It supports music, play counts, smart playlists, ratings, advanced iTunes settings such as "Skip when shuffling" and more.
Floola has one major disadvantage though: like many of these tools, Floola doesn't support podcasts yet. I also have to warn you that once you start using Floola to synchronize your iPod, you cannot revert to iTunes without losing changes that you've committed after switching to Floola. This is the case with almost any iTunes+iPod alternative and is Apple's fault.
ConclusionIf you don't need support for podcasts, this is an iPod manager that I would really recommend. Keep in mind however that once you switch to Floola, it's not easy to go back to iTunes.
Website: http://www.floola.com/Available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X
Demonstration videoLabels: Floola, iPod, iTunes, iTunes alternative, manage, music, synchronize
[Linux] iTunes, iPods and podcasts
One of the biggest downsides of Linux is, in my opinion, that there's no Linux version for iTunes. Because I have an iPod, I use that program daily. But there are a couple of alternatives that cover its most important features.
Reading from and writing to iPodsSupported. Since the iPod is 'just' a removable drive with media playback capabilities
(audio, pictures and in some cases video), Linux treats this as a regular removable drive.
Reading your iPod music databaseSupported. Programs such as
amaroK,
Yamipod and
gtkpod can read (and play) music, audiobooks and podcasts.
Downloading podcastsSupported. There are plenty of Linux podcatchers available, such as
Yamipod and
gPodder. More information on this can be found
here.
Synchronizing your iPod
Partially supported. Although
amaroK,
Yamipod and
gtkpod can handle the music part, they cannot handle audiobooks and podcasts yet. In some cases, they just drop your podcasts between all your music instead of using the
Podcasts menu like iTunes does.
Plan B: emulating iTunes on Linux. There are some
free and
paid programs that emulate Windows so that you can use Windows programs on Linux. Although these programs are updated regularly, not all Windows programs will work. I don't know if that's the case with iTunes, but I might try it in the future.
Conclusion: Contributors to Linux have filled in the "gap" that iTunes left very well. If you're looking for a tool that has basic iPod support, use
Yamipod. However, it still lacks decent podcast support. If you're more concerned about the looks of the program, try
amaroK.
Labels: Fedora, iTunes, iTunes alternative, Linux, podcast, podcasts, podcatching, SuSE, Ubuntu
