No iTunes Required

May 11th, 2006

It’s not easy to use your iPod with more than one computer, and there’s no easy way to manage music on your iPod without iTunes. Enter YamiPod.

YamiPod is a freeware application that requires no installation and allows you to access the contents of your iPod from any computer. Plug your iPod into your computer for charging, and you can use YamiPod to browse all of your music and playlists. You can play them on your computer, add songs, create new playlists and more.

Since YamiPod is such a small application and requires no installation it falls into a category of software referred to as portable applications. This allows you to copy it to your computer, a flash drive, or the iPod itself, and be ready to go.

Here is a scenario:

I have iTunes installed on my home computer where I load songs and videos. When I get to work I charge my iPod on my work computer that does not have iTunes on it. By default, it is recognized by Windows XP as a storage device (60 GB Video iPod) and allocated a drive letter (i.e. E:). Since I have YamiPod on the iPod, I can browse to it and double-click. The YamiPod application opens and displays all the content of my iPod by songs, artist, album, and playlists. I can then play songs on my computer sound system. I can also add new songs or copy songs from the device.

YamiPod is certainly not as powerful as iTunes, but having it on your iPod allows you to manage it from anywhere, provided you have your cable, elimination that feeling of always needing to return to “home base.”

YamiPod is available for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux.

YamiPod is available for free here.

Entry Filed under: iPod, Technology

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