Want the music on your friend's ipod? Here's how to copy it all without iTunes!

Sidin Vadukut — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:27:00 GMT

Last weekend a dear friend called up to say how his laptop had crashed and how he can now never take a backup of the music on his iPod. That's because, and most iPod owners know this, there is no way to actually copy back the music on your iPod. It only works one way: PC to iPod. Apple has deliberately created a convuluted database structure that prevents you from hooking your iPod to your PC and then copying back the mp3 files and videos and so on.

If you own one of those regular USB or flash-based players you know how easy it it to just drag in and drag out your music.

Presumably Apple does this to stop privacy and prevent you from sharing tracks with less moneyed and more fiscally prudent mates.

In reality this whole setup is a colossal pain in the service entry.

So last night I decided to see what I could do to avert the problem. I carry all the music I own on my iPod and can't imagine never being able to take a back up from time to time.

The beauty of this solution is that now you no longer have to borrow your friends iPod at work to listen to that rarely Aslam Sabri track or hilarious NPR podcast. With a little piece of software called Yamipod you can copy which ever track that takes your fancy from anyone's iPod and make it yours. Also if you want to simply stream a track off your iPod but dont want to download buly iTunes, yamipod works perfectly too.

Yes, the potential for piracy is rampant. But then in all good things there is a little bad. Like Sreeshant.

Click here to download a copy of yamipod. It worked fine with my newish iPod classic and seems to updated fairly regularly.

This is what the developers site lists are its major features:

stand alone program, no installation required

iPod is automatically recognized

mp3 and AAC files can be copied to/from iPod

read/write access to mp3 id3 and AAC infos

playlist support (On-The-Go included)

playlists import (PLS,M3U)

playlists export (PLS,M3U)

full unicode support

auto-download new versions

advanced song import/export settings

2 restore features

built in music player

iPod informations

2 search features

remove duplicated tracks

find lost music files

easy ratings edit

PC to iPod synchronization

create and edit notes (with unicode support)

automatically update song playcounts

News RSS and podcasts to iPod upload

Growl support (Apple only)

export song lists to HTML or plain text files

multiple iPods support

Last.fm support

Your mp3 player causing problems? Want to backup DVDs? Trouble with external hard drives? Drop us a message and we'll give you a solution or find someone else who can!

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Want the music on your friend's ipod? Here's how to copy it all without iTunes!