Froddle Pod is such an iTunes alternative. It certainly is not as feature rich as iTunes but it provides access to the main features that iPod owners need: It can copy music and videos from and to an iPod which is definitely the main feature that any iTunes alternative should support.

The software can also backup and restore all data that is stored on an iPod. Another feature is music normalization for all or selected music on the iPod. It is currently unclear if it supports album art.

Supported are the following iPod models currently: iPod Nano (all), iPod Mini (all), iPod Classic (3rd to 6th generation). No support for the Apple iPhone or iPod Touch yet.

The software did check for and download the Microsoft Visual J# Distributable which takes up 80 Megabytes of space on the hard drive.

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With the right strategy and advertisement they could build a service that would be able to compete with iTunes. Before I go on I would like to add that I personally think that all services are inferior to P2P even with the risks involved but it will be a long time before the Music Industry will acknowledge this.

Back to Amazon. To compete they have to do better than iTunes otherwise not many users would want to make the switch to Amazon considering Apple’s coolness factor with the kids and nerds.

Amazon tries to achieve this by offering DRM free albums that have a maximum price of $9.99 while most are sold for $4.99 to $8.99 compared to Apple’s price of $9.99. Some albums are even priced lower than this. The cheapest that I was able to find was priced at $0.99.

The license agreement grants the user the right to copy, burn, store and transfer the music downloaded for private use not mentioning any maximum number of computers or devices that you can transfer the music to. Every song can be listened to for thirty seconds before deciding whether to purchase it.

I did make a test purchase of course and have to say that the speed is excellent. I paid $0.89 for Smells Like Teen Spirit from Nirvana. The song is using 256 Kbps and has all the mp3 tags needed as well as cover art included. Amazon does store a song Id in the mp3 tags.

Visiting the site again it told me that I had purchased that song already at today’s date.

Amazon does offer a download manager that users could use to download the songs but this is not a must. I decided to download the song without the download manager. I suppose it could be a good idea if you do download a lot of albums from Amazon.

The download manager can automatically add the songs to iTunes or Windows Media Player when the download finishes.

The only real problem that I see at the moment is that the amount of songs that are offered is inferior to Apple’s catalogue. Several major labels are not represented yet at Amazon’s Mp3 store. This should be a top priority for Amazon.

Users should compare prices between iTunes and Amazon Mp3 if the album or song is available at both stores and most likely the Amazon store will be cheaper if the song is available there.

Read More:

Amazon MP3 Beta

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Floola has some major advantages over iTunes – it is faster and more responsive, can copy music to and from the iPod to your computer, can be run right from the iPod to use it everywhere, has methods to fix the iPod and is able to search for files and duplicates.

The major disadvantage is of course the missing link to the iTunes music store, if you never use it – like I do – you won’t miss it. If you have troubles using Floola download the user guide which explains the basic features thoroughly.

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The first great feature of the software is that it does not need to be installed and therefor does not mess with your system. Download, unpack and run: thats all. Second it does offer a great overview of your songs and albums at startup making it very easy to rename and delete albums and songs. The main window displays all playlists as well with the option to create new playlists using drag and drop.

Yamipod offers to add lyrics to your songs as well as most features of iTunes like synchronising your iPod with the songs on your computer, remove duplicate songs and export songs and playlists.

Let me know if you are using a different (freeware) tool which offers the same functionality, always looking for better tools..

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