Print Man, iTunes really got a kick in the shins when it updated to its latest iteration. The music library software totally took a beating--or, at least, a berating--from its faithful fans when it changed its icon, changed the way it displays album covers and launched it's own social network. Well, I went out in search of ways that you can beef up iTunes a bit and get it doing what you want it to do with these wonderful free apps. Maybe they'll change your mind about that blue iTunes icon, or maybe--just maybe--they'll remind you how wonderful iTunes is because it takes care of all your iOS devices.
And since you need iTunes to sync your iOS devices, I found two applications that will allow you to bypass that whole iTunes mess and deal with your devices all on their own. Psch, we don't need no middle man!
NoPing
No. Sleep. 'Till Ping is off my machine! Right, so, while changing the lyrics to that one Beastie Boys song doesn't translate too well on the internet, you're probably still lamenting the fact that everyone in your work place or classroom is attempting to utilize Ping to tell you all about said Beastie Boys song. Well, that's when you implement NoPing, a simple and effective way to get rid of Ping in iTunes 10 without actually killing off iTunes. The software basically hides the Ping buttons and Ping sidebar without really removing it, so there's no software manipulation that will render Ping completely useless. If you do decide you want to opt into Ping, you can reverse the hiding process and rejoin the lemming masses in their quest to convert the world to their genre of music.
Bonus
iTunes Button changer
The new traffic light buttons in iTunes are sort of awkward. Change them with this nifty free app, which also gives you the option to hide the Ping buttons after song titles, which would pair perfectly with the NoPing app.
iPhone Explorer
Pfffffft, iTunes. Puh-leeease. Give me something that lets me extract every little file on my iOS device, and gives me complete control over bricking my device. It's a free country. Everyone's doing it, why can't I?!
Anyway, use iPhone Explorer to turn your boring phone (yep, that phone with all the apps, it's totally boring) into a USB flash drive for those times you need to hide some super secret files. You can also use it to drag and drop files and folders from your iPhone and iPod touch. But, if you have a jailbroken iPhone, the experience with iPhone Explorer becomes even more grand. And that my friends I leave to you, because I still haven't jailbroken an iPhone or iPod touch (but Online Editor Robbie says that it's even more awesome with jailbroken devices, so have at it!).
VLC Player
We don't need no stinkin' regular movie player! We need an Open Source piece of software that lets us bypass the iPad movie player and play our own movies that we've downloaded off the internet, and we don't want to have to wait around for the video to convert if we don't want to. The freedom! It's glorious, just like this iPad app.
Follow this article's author, Florence Ion, on Twitter.
Wenchien Ko
October 10, 2010 at 3:23pm
Step 2 of the NoPing software:
Step2:
WARNING!
If you want to get rid of the Ping sidebar entry on the
left, the iTunes Store entry will also disappear.
There is no other way to do it.
Do you really want to hide them?Note: You can undo this at any time
kylerwalker
October 09, 2010 at 7:56pm
it's so great that you don't have to convert movies to your ipad
