iTunes Alternatives To Get Music Onto Your Pre
If you’re one of those unfortunate Pre users that updated to iTunes 8.2.1 without seeing our warning, there are two options. You could either downgrade to iTunes 8.2, or use one of these alternative apps and future-proof yourself.
The problem with downloading to iTunes 8.2.1 is that isn’t quite as straightforward as replacing the iTunes app. You have to replace some other support files. The easier way is to use one of these four options. And, you have the freedom to update iTunes to any future version without worrying about whether or not it’ll mess up Pre syncing.
1) doubleTwist, by DVD Jon. [Download]
doubleTwist lets you access your iTunes Library in that you can see all the music and playlists (even smart ones) you’ve already established. Once you connect your Pre in USB mode, all you have to do is drag playlists or individual songs over to the Pre to have it sync. There’s no library view, as in you can’t drill down into artists, so you should organise your songs into playlists you want to sync inside iTunes first.
The downside of this method is that there’s no progress bar so you can’t see how much of your sync is done. The syncing process also isn’t foolproof, and froze on me mid-sync. But it does have the ability to import YouTube videos, which is kinda awesome. And, it doesn’t support the actual playlist function on the Pre, so your songs are going to be in one big pile. (You can sift through Artists, Albums, and Genres, of course.)
Best all-around experience since this is a media-manager in itself
Doesn’t support playlists, and lack of progress bar when syncing
2) Just dragging music over into the media folder
One feature of iTunes that not many people know about is its ability to just drag and drop songs from iTunes the app to any location. So if you open up iTunes to the playlist, select all the songs inside the playlist and drag it into the Pre’s USB drive.
Drawback to this method is that it’s still one-way sync (you can’t uncheck or check a playlist to sync or de-sync easily), so you’ll have to clean things up yourself after your sync. It has the same no-playlist support problem as doubleTwist
Easiest method
Bare bones: no playlist support, no song management
3) iTunes Sync on Windows [Download]
It’s essentially a very simple version of doubleTwist, where you can select playlists one by one and sync them over to the Pre while it’s in USB drive mode. This does have a progress meter, but it’s Windows-only.
Progress meter is a plus
Windows-only
4) iTuneMyWalkman [Download]
Mac-only, but it creates a M3U playlist when you’re syncing music.
There are other utilities, of course, but one of these four should be enough to get you started. If you have one that does something better than the ones here, feel free to share them in the comments.
Playlist support!
Mac-only
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Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
DoubleTwist has the added bonus (at least last time I used it) of liberating your DRM'd iTunes music so it can be played anywhere and not limited to iTunes and iPods.
ahow628
mediamonkey is actually quite easy to use. I used doubletwist for like 10 minutes and it was slow and I kinda wished I didn't HAVE to register with them for a "free" program
Ah, those pre users probably don't want to buy anything from itunes anyway. Smart move, Apple, show people how you like to jerk them around.
Les Mikesell
I prefer just updating to major releases from now. I've had alot of problems from doing minor increments-updates that don't offer solutions to problems I -DO- have.
Maybe people will finally stop using that craptacular excel document they call a media player. Seriously, on Windows, iTunes is just the worst media player out there. On OSX you just don't have a choice.
Anyone else think its tard-tastic that Palm could come up with their own music syncing software and is relying on Apple to do it for them? Geez, I can't use nVidia drivers on my ATI card.
drag and drop, for sure
iTunes store the music in fragmented files with no way of knowing which is which. Total crap.
clevin
@32ndnote: Yeah, it's cool. It needs some more work, and hopefully Palm will help the team to make it better. They are based in SF, so it's down the street from Palm pretty much. They could do business together for sure.
crap
@
@MrThunderfield: Yes I do, thanks!
How about songbird which can sync with itunes and then the pre... i think that would work and songbird is great
@Eugenia: I was really surprised at how painless it was to install Songbird and get it up and running. I still prefer iTunes for playing music on my computer, but Songbird is extremely easy to set up if you want songs on your Pre.
Honestly, I would have done this from the start. I run both iTunes and Doubletwist on the mac, and I think that Doubletwist gets the job done even if it isn't as good as iTunes. It sounds stupid to run software to sync with your device that wasn't originally designed to do so. Plus, Doubletwist supports a wider range of devices, other than just the iPod/ iPhone.
"downloading to iTunes 8.2.1" 'Scuse me? Don't you mean "downgrading to 8.2"?
You could also use media monkey, song bird, or even Windows Media Player.
reluttr
That's why you should NEVER update without checking the gadget blog world first. Having said that, good job with for being fast on the draw for the HowTo, Jason.
USB_Humping_Dog
How about Salling Media Sync. You can select to sync with playlists and even podcasts. It gives you a progress update as well.
http://www.salling.com/mediasync/windows/
Amelia Smith
In my experience doubleTwist is buggy as hell.
dbett
Just use Songbird. It works fine for the most part, and it lets you use your iTunes library as is, without having to re-import it.
Only thing missing really is album art support for AAC files, but that particular feature is scheduled for an August release, and CD ripping/burning a bit later. Everything else is pretty much there though, and it should work fine.
I dont have a Pre but I think Apple is wrong on not letting Pre sync with their crappy Itunes
Buy an iPhone. Best solution.
you gotta figure that at some point all this lock down shite that apple pulls is going to result in a nice little anti-trust investigation.
htifun
@theguywithshoes: I Second that. And Palm should also sponsor songbird so that their users start using it.
@theguywithshoes: I'm guessing Engadget doesn't have an edit button in their comment threads?
@citizen024:
Why can't they just be proper citizens and not use products in ways manufacturers don't want them to be used..
They're offering iTunes as a service to us, I think its absolutely ridiculous that they're getting any flak over this at all. Palm is the shady hackers behind all of this.
I'm not Apple fanboy, I guess you could call me a Terms of Use fanboy, why bite the hand that feeds?
Colin Cassady
why cant you guys be more like lifehacker and include linux when it comes to these kinds of posts.
iTunes has DRM Protection. It can not be directly imported to Palm Pre. What you need is just DRM Remover Software that could legally remove any DRM protection and convert iTunes video, music, movie and other popular video & audio even HD video. With this powerful DRM remover, you can customizable output profiles with your own style.
mayaalouis
thank god I have never even thought of using Itunes to sync my music library to my mp3 players
Songbird seems to work just fine for me :)
I like doubleTwist, but I asked a few months ago... no flac support. Worthless without flac
Poison_Shroom
I really think we'll see a dedicated pre/webOS sync solution from palm eventually. They had to get to market with this handset to keep from being pummeled by the competition but they didn't have all their ducks in a row and iTunes was the stop-gap solution. Thankfully they allow their device to work with 3rd-party software with other solutions unlike others.
tnt-tek