Comfortable iPod-PC Sync

very good
key review info
application features
  • mp3 and AAC files can be copied to/from iPod;
  • (9 more, see all...)

iPods have grown in popularity so much that other developers have borrowed the idea and released new portable devices for both listening to music as well as viewing video files. An iPod is no longer a trend as it used to be, it has exceeded the level of a standard and reached the stage of necessity for every teen these days.

As any Apple product, it is recommended to be used with Apple software, in this case iTunes. And the management of all stored files is a cinch with iTunes, only some users may find the program overwhelming with features and options. They might just need a simple way to manage the music on the iPod with no 60+MB downloads and podcast downloads, radios, TV shows and Apple Store, and which are all good for a desktop application.

However, with an iPod you are always on the run and the need of an easy-to-use, lightweight and portable application that can help with adding new music is definitely embossed in the mind of the users.

Meet YamiPod, a freeware out to handle all music on your pocket-sized music-playing, video-rendering device. It is portable, so you can take it on any computer you charge your iPod on and offers options for wielding stored music.

It brings a seemingly complicated interface, but at a closer look you'll see that all sections are actually the iPod equivalents for artists, albums and playlists. It only takes a different approach to them, more pervasive and easy to get a grip on, as you have all the elements in front of you.

YamiPod will draw its information from your iPod, so every file can be found exactly where it is stored on your device. The moment you select an artist you will be presented all albums available for the selected entry, and in the lower part of the screen there will be all songs of the respective artist or the highlighted album.

The Songs window brings additional details on each listed item, and you will be provided with the length of the audio file, quality expressed in kilobits, size, and if there are lyrics available or not. Sure, album and artist are also present, so you have it all pretty much on a platter.

YamiPod is not only a music manager for your iPod, it also allows you to play that music, either in its built-in player or in the one the file has been associated with. Controls for the built-in player are present in the lowest part of the application window. Everything in this regard is kept down to a minimum, as the options include only volume control, move to next/previous item and a progress bar, which can be used to skip to the desired part of the song.

Playlists on your iPod are not forgotten, and YamiPod dedicates an entire section to them, as well. It also allows you to create new ones and add new songs to the list. If you want to create a new playlist with all the songs of a specific artist or from an entire album, all you need to do is access the right click menu from the Artist or Album panels and select the appropriate option. Also, you can create mixed playlists from the Title list by making a multiple selection and accessing the right click menu for appending the items.

Sorting options for playlists are quite a feast and permit you to order the items either ascendingly or descendingly, taking into account the song's title, album, artist, track, as well as a combination of the three. This way you will not be stuck listening to a genre at a time, but create a mix of plays, thus benefiting from diversity. Or, if you do not want an orderly disorder, you can always choose to shuffle all the items.

The list of songs displayed when selecting an artist or an album brings its own set of options, as well. YamiPod provides the possibility to easily copy songs from the iPod to the computer, and vice versa. A window with some brief settings will appear asking you what exactly should be copied (the application can copy the entire folder with album directory and the selected songs, or just the MP3 file), under what file name and what action to take if a duplicate is encountered (skip, overwrite, auto-rename or ask the user).

In order to add files to your iPod it suffices to drag and drop songs in the song listbox. The window that will appear permits you to customize song information such as title, album, artist name, composer and genre, as well as add lyrics or add it to a playlist. In the Advanced section of the window you can enable auto capitalization of the first letter, or get the song details from path and filename.

A very interesting option regards the lyrics. You can write the text of the lyrics in the application's appropriate window (Lyrics menu), or you can import them from your computer. Unfortunately, we could not add any lyrics to the songs, neither via import function nor through manually adding the text in the lyrics box. The reason was that some songs were not added with a recent version of iTunes or YamiPod, so we conformed to the request and did just that, with the same result, though.

Another glitch in YamiPod prevented us from deleting all artists on the iPod. It simply deleted one artist and, when proceeding to the others, it just refused to remove them. The Delete Artist dialog popped up, but okaying the action simply did nothing.

Glitches aside, YamiPod allows you to choose what should be used to play the files on the iPod, and the options are the external default music player MP3 files is associated with, or YamiPod's built-in player. Check out the Player section in the Preferences menu to make your pick.

Moreover, the application can display a whole lot of information and add to the song list columns such as genre, disc number, composer, play count, ratings, track number and year. Of course, all these details have to be available for the application in the song tags.

If you want a list with all the items in the song list, the Advanced section under the Tools menu provides the necessary tools. You get to choose between HTML simple, HTML style 1 and tab delimited plain text. You can customize the export by choosing only selected items and the add item number.

The advanced section is also the provider of a duplicate remover and searching for files that are on the iPod but not in its music library (that is pretty neat). The duplicate remover makes available several criteria for accurate nailing of the doubles: file size, title, album, artist and track number comparison.

YamiPod makes supplies of marvelous options for an iPod music manager, giving you the possibility to handle all the music items stored on the device, create playlists, synchronize everything with the iPod, search for files, eliminate duplicates, create notes, and more. And above all this it is portable, so it can accompany you on any computer. But there is one thing it can't do, and that is deal with video files. It will see them just like regular MP3 items and handle them as such.


The Good

YamiPod is a lightweight alternative to iTunes, and has the sheer advantage that it is portable. However, it also comes with an extremely user-friendly interface that lets you view at a glance all artists available on the iPod.

Playlists can also be handled with ease, and you can create new ones directly from Album, Artist and Song list. Furthermore, you can easily search for an item or retrieve music from the iPod, even if it is not in its library.

The Bad

There are still some bugs to be solved, such as the lyrics adding or the deletion of data from the Artist panel. In some cases we experienced lags and even brief freezes in executing given commands.

The Online help file is not complete, and some features like the use of Last.fm plugin are not explained (a new user would have to dig up the information by him/herself).

It could not handle the video files that were already on the iPod, and we could not add new podcasts. Also, we were unable to find a way of changing the order of the items.

The Truth

YamiPod brings lots of options to the table, but unfortunately not all of them work properly. However, you can use it for managing your music and have a comfortable view of all artists on the device. It handles well once you get past the glitches, and it can copy items from the iPod to the PC and vice versa with no problems.

Although YamiPod seems stable enough, in our case it did not prove 100% reliable. There is work to be done, but it is a promising application that has the advantage of being portable, so it can be used on any system and it also has versions for both Mac and Linux.

Here are some snapshots of the application in action:

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user interface 5
features 4
ease of use 4
pricing / value 4


final rating 4
Editor's review
very good
 
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