Free iTunes Alternative Froddle Pod
Most users would probably agree that Apple's iTunes software is not a lightweight application. To the contrary. The application is huge and some will see it as an overkill if you only want to transfer music from and to an iPod. That's where iTunes software alternatives come into play.
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.
Update: The Froddle Pod website is no longer available on the Internet, and the program itself seems to have been taken off of the Internet as well. I'd suggest you use an alternative such as Media Monkey which is available as a free and paid version.
The program ships with everything that you may need, including full iPhone, iOS and iTunes compatibility. Any version of MediaMonkey can sync with any iPod, iPad or iPhone. The media management features are excellent and go beyond what iTunes is offering. You can for instance use Media Monkey to identify tracks. Other features include synchronizing and backing up Android and iOS devices with your music library, recording and converting music, and burning audio CDs.
If you still want to, you can download the latest version of Froddle Pod from third-party download sites such as Softpedia.
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iTunes is free, BUT it is a bloated piece of proprietary crap not worth installing. Mediamonkey is much better anyway.
Can anybody please let me know if Froddle Pod supports IPOD Classic 6th generation. Will it support MP4 video files as well? What about voice memo files?
Someone said that WinAmp is 100% compatible with IPOD. Appreciate it if someone can tell me if it is also compatible with 6th generation IPOD classic and can handle photos, as well as video files. What about voice memo files?
best, free & small. very good programme
I was looking for something really light software to transfer stuff to iPod, iTunes is really heavy and i hardly use half of the features on it!
If you ever want to hear a reader’s feedback :) , I rate this article for 4/5. Decent info, but I just have to go to that damn google to find the missed pieces. Thanks, anyway!
For me the best iPod and IPHONE Manager is CopyTrans Manager.
Fully compatible, very light and fast. I love it!
Of course, totally FREE.
http://www.copytrans.net/manager.php
If by “iPod compatible” you mean can play songs then yes, but I’ve tried winamp and it could not put songs on my ipod, and could not translate the files correctly so all the information for most of my music was lost. The titles of the songs were random letters and it took me 3 days to fix it all.
Most people don’t know that WINAMP is 100% iPod compatible.
Hey guys does this software also supports the option of voice menue’s ?
@ Chris: thnx for the website: http://savemp3.net/
Im using http://savemp3.net/ to download songs for my Ipod.
I really hate iTunes, but I only use it to purchase songs. I’d switch to Froddle Pod if only it had a feature to connect to iTunes store. In fact, I am searching hard to find such an iTunes alternative that has that feature. None so far. If anyone knows of any, please mention it through here. Thanks. :)
@MasterTech,
Thanks for the software recommendations, I use CCleaner to do my cleaning and it works perfectly. I’m glad you don’t have to use iTunes, as I am required to because of my iPod touch. I understand the points you have made, but after some tests I have done, iTunes indeed slows down my computer, even after cleaning the leftovers. I am still firm on my point that iTunes is unnecessarily bloated and I dread launching it.
Melik,
I understand where you are coming from. Please note that after installing and testing iTunes, I have noticed that the total over all installation did grow to include several hundred MB of temp files (much like Nero does). Using a simple program call CleanUp! (by Steven Gould – and it is malware free and freeware) in its default settings allows for quick removal of the extra files that are no longer needed (bringing the installation back to around 80 MB). Yes, the files are scattered all over the hard drive but this is normal with any installation (including the initial installation of Windows (all flavors) hence the need for defragmentation software (insert your software of choice here) which will of course spread files all over the hard drive during installtion also.
As for the registry – there are a few programs available to defragment and clean the registry but I suggest using them with the greatest of caution (too much “cleaning” of the registry will cause as many problems as having a corrupted and “dirty” registry).
Services you say! Windows is full of unneeded and sometimes dangerous services. There is a fairly inexpensive program available (The Ultimate Troubleshooter from http://www.answersthatwork.com/) that lets you choose what starts up and what does not start up as well as letting you set what services run and what services do not run – it even lets you email unknown service information to the Answers That Work support team if you are not sure of what to do with a particular service. Suffice it to say that there are enough options available to even the average user so as to make 80 MB of used space not worth worrying about – even if you have to install some other software to make everything on your computer run the way you need it to.
As for iTunes – I no longer use it and not because it adds 80 MB extra to my hard drive. I found an alternative to iTunes that works better for me (Anapod Explorer from http://www.redchairsoftware.com/anapod/).
Just my two cents worth…….
@MasterTech – Yes, 80 MB is not much in this day, but installing software isn’t like storing files. Software registers itself to thousands of places, adds many, many files to many, many different folders. Also, it may add services, which also run in the background, thus perhaps slowing down your computer. 80 MB may also be compressed. It might be much larger when installed and all files are taken in to account.
Needless to say, after all the modifications that the software does to your system, an 80 MB copy of iTunes will slow your computer down more than a 4 GIG movie you got stored on your hard drive, though it has a smaller file size.
If you are worried about 80 MegaBytes in this day and age then you must have a really really really old hard drive. With hard drives passing the 1.5 TeraByte range these days and 500 GigaByte hard drives being as common as air (and almost as inexpensive – around $100 USD) then why be overly concerned about 80 MegaBytes?
@Mich – “Nothing is really free”? There are tons and tons of great free software out there, most without spyware. So take your over-generalization to a blog that doesn’t specialize in free software.
Nothing is really “free”, anyone know if this app comes with some spyware?
FRODDLE YOUR POD!!! What a great piece of software, and totally free! Very easy to use, works great and covers all of the ipod functions that the majority of people require, leaving out all the confusing options that you would never use on itunes! I will be keeping my eyes open for future updates!
I don’t think anything will replace iTunes for iPhone and iPod touch because of the firmware upgrades and things.
By the way, Martin, you wrote “iPhone touch” instead of “iPod touch.” Hehe.
Good find anyway.
John, normalizing audio files means making them all the same volume. I can see how it would be a cool feature to use on an iPod as it would stop having to change the volume on your iPod from song to song because when you download or rip mp3’s from different CD’s the songs usually come out at different volumes when you listen to them.
I don’t actually have an iPod though. Will this application also normalize audio on other MP3 players? Most audio normalizing applications are really fiddly, I like the sound of a one click thing.
I use Floola for my iPod mgmt. It can keep a copy on my iPod and play on any computer.
I’m a little worried about the extra 80k as well…
For my sake, what does normalized music mean???
Thanks!
Froddle Pod is awesome. I was using yamipod and now I’ve tried out this app, I don’t think I’ll be going back to yamipod. Froddle Pod already has heaps of features yamipod doesn’t. I loved the normalization feature, just plugged my iPod in, clicked normalize iPod, went and got a bite to eat and came back to an iPod with completely normalized music. Froddle Pod is definately worth the download!
“Microsoft Visual J# Distributable which takes up 80 Megabytes of space on the hard drive.”
yikes!
i’ll stick with YamIpod. it’s a single, standalone executable at 15MB that i keep on my ipod to transfer music. oh, and it’s available for windows, linux, and mac.
http://www.yamipod.com/main/modules/home/
“Free iTunes Alternative”?
I had no idea that iTunes costs money…
This post didn’t say or imply that it does.
“Free iTunes Alternative†= “iTunes Alternative that doesn’t cost anything”
iTunes is free and worth every penny (but not a penny more!)