iPod iTouch

[[AK]Nuts]

okay, this thread has peaked my interest. So let me understand correctly (I'm a Winamp User and run it on my media PC to stream music from an external 1tb drive to my stereo).

I can install ITunes to organize my music, handle things like cover-art and ID4 tags. It won't convert any of my mp3 (I don't have an IPod, I like my Nomad)? But I will have to create new playlists, right?

Also, will it handle syncing to non Ipod mp3 players or will I have to use my own client?

edit:
Some bloatware comes FREE with Itunes, eh? AppleMobileDeviceService.exe, gee, maybe you should ask before you install a service for devices that I don't have.
ITuneHelper.exe. 15mb of RAM is being used before I even launch the application. Good so far.

[[AK]StitchJones]

I started to read Nuts post,,, then all of a sudden I went into a Beavis and Butthead coma...."Words......words.....words....." lol


Nuts, Itunes is for playing music and such locallly or with Ipod hardware. Non Ipod devices will not be recognized by the program.

ITunes will allow you to convert CD's into a few different formats. Including MP3's. It will download album art and bind it to the songs/album. As far as .PLS or .M3U playlists, it does not create those. But inside of Itunes you can create your own in program playlists. After you mess around with it a little it's amazing how well integrated everything is. And the Bloatware or Apple's version of self plug and play can be disabled to make your life easier if your paranoid about how many running services you have on your machine. It's not like it's the first time you've typed Service.msc from the run line ;-)

[[AK]Nuts]

I've got it running here on my work PC. Where the hell is my Right-Click options?? Ya, Ya... it's Apple, I know.

Seems okay so far and rather simple to use. Hence, this may work out better for the wife on our media PC downstairs on the big screen.

It's a shame that they don't integrate well with other mp3 devices like my Nomad, but oh well.

I've turned off some of the services that are wastefull and it was rather quick at indexing my 18gb of music and collecting cover art.

[[AK]Clay]

Nuts, could you post which specific services you turned off that are unnecessary but were forced upon you by iTunes?

I note iTunes installed Quicktime media player. My last experience with Quicktime was a few years ago, and I found it was an intrusive and horrid little program. I use the codec in windows media player to play quicktime files instead. I want it Quicktime gone - can I remove it without removing iTunes?

[[AK]Squidly]

Yes, you can remove quicktime, but I question that decision.

Give the new version a shot. Why remove it if it's working fine now?

[[AK]Clay]

Yes, you can remove quicktime, but I question that decision.

Give the new version a shot. Why remove it if it's working fine now?

Oh my biggest complaint with the original is that it embedded itself in my browser and screwed up some things from working right, and would randomly start playing and doing strange things it seemed. This was a number of years ago, so perhaps it's smoother now.

My second biggest issue is resources. My approach to PC operations is that programs should NOT auto load when I boot up my machine and should NOT be resident in memory unless specifically called upon. Resources are limited, why waste them on something I'm not using? I see now that there's a little QuickTime icon on the bottom of my PC screen when I boot up - which oft means such is preloaded into memory. This slows down my computer and slow computers make the Panda sad. If I can play the media via Windows Media player which I have already, why have two?

Nonetheless, if removing quicktime screws up my iTunes functionality, and iTunes really is all that as folks are saying, perhaps I should give it a shot for a few days

[[AK]Nuts]

I have a couple of .bat files that are full of net stop and start commands.

I have a standard one that turns off everything I don't regularly need like messenger and print spooling... I just don't need them on a daily basis

I have one that turns back on all the defaults (good for troubleshooting a problem)

I have another for gaming... it turns off damn near everything I can get away with... bare bones here. And of course one to flick those back on.

Like clay, I watch my resources as I do notice an improvement in performance when I can shave off 64mb of RAM usage.

[[AK]Nuts]

I keep my PC's running pretty bare so I already had most of the quicktime things turned off.

I disabled the service: "Ipod Service"

In the program I disabled:
"Look for remote speakers connect with AirTunes"
"Show iTunes icon in system tray"
Podcasts / "Check for new episodes=Manually"
"Check for updates automatically"
"Look for Apple TV's"
"Disable automatic syncing for all iPhones and iPods"

I had to kill the process "AppleMobileDeviceService.exe" but I couldn't find the .exe anywhere so I'll have to play with that one.

I hate software that wants to automate connectivity and synchronization. These usually result in process, services and TCP connection (either to localhost or to external sites)