alternatives to itunes

[tybomb]

I have a 3gs. It's my first apple product (probably my last). I want itunes off my computer completely. It's a wretched curse and every time I have to open it up (or every time it opens on it's own) my blood pressure shoots through the roof. I have never experienced a program that locks up or seizes as much as this piece of crap. Simply loading a photo onto an iphone is a huge production and in the end can only be accomplished if you first give up your free will and hand over your computer to Apple!
If I can't find an alternative program that will just mind it's own business and do what I want it to do I'm ditching the phone altogether.
Does anyone here know of a simple program that does the job?
I've already jailbroken it. I bough it a few years ago because it was the best smart phone at the time and I needed constant access to the internet. Once I no longer needed it I happily threw it in a drawer for a year. Now I need it again while I wait for the new Samsungs to come down in price. (if I can wait that long).


Also, is there any hack or App that allows a person to simply drag and drop files on to the iphone like any other electronic device made since the freaking cold war?
No wonder you never see iphones in any high tech spy movies.
"The suspect is dead, I'm looking through his computer now", "Hang on, I've found a picture of the mole. I'm gong to load it on to my phone and send it". ..... "Hang on, I have to download itunes first".... "server is slow should be another 20 minutes"......" It's asking for my credit card number hang on".... "I've gotta sync the phone now"...."It's searching through the entire computer for media files to make a library how do I stop it?"..... "I clicked on something and now the whole program is frozen"....
lol. .

 

[PapaNoHair]

It may not be the exact approach you are seeking but you might check out Google Music. You can access it anywhere.

 

[tybomb]

Google music looks like it's basically the same thing except they're trying to sell you music without bothering to control the functionality of your device. I have no desire whatsoever to get involved with a company that's trying to sell me music on a regular basis. I just want to be able to use my phone.
Plus I've read enough about googles information gathering practices over the last couple years to cause me to stay away from all things google as much as I can. They recently annoucned they were amalgamating all their data from their various programs and services in to one big bank of personal customer information. I don't trust them.

I'm sure it's less prone to freezing and crashing then itunes but not really what I'm looking for.

I just want to be able to put files on and take them off my iphone without some huge hassle. I don't need any help finding the files or organizing them or backing them up etc.

 

[zig9449]

What kind of files exactly are I talking about. Music? Photos? PDF's?

Music is kind of easy. You can get ProTube and download YouTube videos as mp3 files, SSH into ProTube folder, drag the music file to desktop, then drag then to iTunes and sync.

Sound kind of complicated but once ya get the hang of it, it sooooo easy. There ate also alternatives, but then again, in not exactly sure what "files" you are trying to transfer. Details help.

 

[tybomb]

I just want to be able to transfer ANY file I want without the buggy burdensome itunes freezing and crashing all the time. I'd like to not have to "sync" at all. That whole syncing thing was invented by Apple to excuse the lack of basic functionality.
If I can't just plug it in and drag and drop then I want the next best thing. No store, no signing up, no freezing, just plug it in and transfer files.

There's a program called iphone suite and another called itunes alternative. Anyone have any experience with these?

 

[EWyatt]

I have a 3gs. It's my first apple product (probably my last). I want itunes off my computer completely. .

Just to add my vote, I agree!!!

Nevertheless, good luck with your situation.

 

[zig9449]

Oh. Well in that case it just got much simpler for you.

i-FunBox.

Quick and easy. I keep all my jailbreak tools and and I even have i-FunBox itself stored on my phone.

I recommend you store files in "Raw file system"> Volumes>. Either one of the "Volumes" folders should be sufficient enough to just simply "hold" files you want.

Just make sure your click "refresh" in iFunBox before unplugging.

This is only good for simply "holding" files.

Now media on the other hand,........well i-FunBox can transfer literally "any" type of media to your respective folders ( videos, photos, music,etc). This can all be done with i-FunBox. For every type of media file, there is a specific place for it to be. But there is no way to just drag and drop "any" file and just have it go where it is suppose to be automatically.

This is called "SSH".

Except this is much better than wifi FTP clients like WinSCP or Cyber Duck because it uses USB to make the transfers and all you have to do "literally" is open i-FunBox, and plug in your phone. BAM. instant access to your entire file system for storing, modifying, and simple transfers.

Note: this is only useful if you are jailbroken.

Note: If i-FunBox says "jailed" beside your devices name then you simply need to install a package from Cydia called "afc2add".

If you jailbroke with redsn0w, then you won't have to install anything. Redsn0w enables USB SSH auto automatically.

 

[tybomb]

Thanks, that might be exactly what I'm looking for!!! I can't believe I actually have to jailbreak an $800 device and install a rogue app just to do something my 10 year old $20 mp3 player can do. lol. Oh well!.

 

[zig9449]

I know. Ridiculous. That's Apple for ya. Control control control.

That's why it is somewhat rewarding to jailbreak your idevices and do things Crapple would never approve of.lol

 

[tybomb]

Just took it for a test run. First I plugged my ipnone in and had to wait for 5 minutes while itunes popped up, started performing some random task that never made any progress, then locked up when I tried to stop it, then had to be closed from the task manager.....

Then I opened ifunbox and and in a fraction of a second I had complete access to everything on my phone. That's exactly what I was looking for.
It's kind of sad all the work that goes into trying to make an iphone act normal. Reminds me of that Simpsons episode where they go to the American Embassy in Australia and the toilet there has that massive contraption on it just to make the water swirl the correct American way.

Anyway, thanks for the tip. This should keep me sane for a while. Now I'm going to have an Itunes uninstall party!

"Congratulations! Heard you got rid of Itunes!!"

 

[zig9449]

Just took it for a test run. First I plugged my ipnone in and had to wait for 5 minutes while itunes popped up, started performing some random task that never made any progress, then locked up when I tried to stop it, then had to be closed from the task manager.....

Then I opened ifunbox and and in a fraction of a second I had complete access to everything on my phone. That's exactly what I was looking for.
It's kind of sad all the work that goes into trying to make an iphone act normal. Reminds me of that Simpsons episode where they go to the American Embassy in Australia and the toilet there has that massive contraption on it just to make the water swirl the correct American way.

Anyway, thanks for the tip. This should keep me sane for a while. Now I'm going to have an Itunes uninstall party!

"Congratulations! Heard you got rid of Itunes!!"

Haha. Good. I'm glad you liked it. But I highly highly recommend you DO NOT uninstall iTunes. You will need it in the future. For restores, updates, that kind of stuff.

And you don't have to have iTunes open automatically as soon as you if in our phone. This can be disabled. Just go to the "Summary" tab after you click on your device in the left side of iTunes and uncheck the box that says "Open iTunes automatically when this device is connected". Simple. Having iTunes open every time I plug in my phone would drive me crazy.lol. So I disable it.

It is definitely not a good idea to remove iTunes from your computer. You will need it to restore and update. If you are jailbroken, You will not be able to use the update feature in the settings app. It will fail. Of YPU do uninstall iTunes. You will regret it in the future. You have been warned.

You can also disable automatic syncing when you phone is plugged in when iTunes opens or is already opened.

The only thing I use iTunes for is syncing my music and restoring and setting up as new. Nothing else.