I'm pretty sure this belongs here.

I have a 160 gig iPod Classic that I use exclusively for travel. The iPod and my Bose QC15s can get me through the longest flight without breaking a sweat.

Recently, I upgraded to iTunes 11. I'll ignore for the moment the fact that it manged to make my DVD drives invisible -- after a little Googling, I find a fix for that. It involved a registry edit, which doesn't faze me at all, but could put off some people who don't like to tinker with the registry.

In addition to my entire CD collection, I also put CDs of music that I write on my iPod -- I may have mentioned that I write musicals in other threads. My current project is what is called "wall-to-wall," meaning that it's almost continuous music from curtain up to curtain down (some musicals are written this way). Previous versions of iTunes could recognize a "gapless" CD, i.e. one that doesn't have a 2-second pause between each track. Version 11, however, does not. Apparently, it consults its own catalog for this information and, if the CD is not there, it inserts pauses between tracks. Of course, my CDs, consisting of MY music, are not iTunes, so I get the gaps.

This is infuriating. I uninstalled iTunes 11 and, after some searching, found a copy of version 10 and installed that. Of course, that necessitated wiping out my music library as well as everything on the iPod. It took several hours to add my ripped CDs to the iTunes music library, and then another several hours to put them back on the iPod. I've just re-ripped the CD for my musical and I'm hoping that all will be well once it's re-synced to my iPod.

This, by the way, is the reason that I absolutely hate Apple, and why my iPod (for which there is no non-Apple alternative) is the only Apple product I will every own. Apple simply assumes that everyone either buys commercial CDs or buys tracks and albums from the Apple store. It never occurs to Apple that there may be perfectly legal home-burned CDs.

Never "upgrade" software on iJunk unless you absolutely have to. They love to "fix" what ain't broke.

http://www.amazon.com/Astell-Masteri...eywords=iriver

Thanks but, unfortunately, 96 gig won't cut it for me. That's why I went with the iPod Classic.

iTunes is great if and only if you use it solely according to Apple's predetermined use cases. Otherwise it's badly written bloatware.

There are alternatives for managing iPods than iTunes, but I'm not sure if they will fix your problem.

Sorry, meant to link to the new one; dual 64GB slots + 32GB:

http://shop.iriverinc.com/index.php/...s-player.html/

But $1299 is a bit insane.

Are there no alternative ways to load music onto an iPod? I remember using other apps back in the day. Doesn't Doubletwist still do this?

Holy cow! If I could afford that, I'd just hire the musicians I like to come on board a private jet and entertain me. The specs of this thing are stunning, though. Even so, they don't match exactly what I master at (32 bit, 96k) as this brilliant little machine tops out at 24 bit, though it will handle up to 192k.

Doesn't mean I wouldn't really like one, though.

There are a few. I haven't tried them to see if they can handle gapless.

Trust me - OP's case is not the worst. At the least, OP can downgrade back to iTunes 10 as iTunes 10 still support the latest iPod Classic firmware.

My case is basically the "armageddon".

I used a factory unlocked iPhone 4S 64 GB from AT&T as iPod (from eBay). The phone feature is only used when I travel internationally. I used Google Nexus 5 in the U.S.

I have been resisting from iTunes 11 due to the elimination of the multiple-window feature. Since only iTunes 11 supports iOS 7, so I was kind of forced to upgrade the whole deal.

This is where my worst nightmare starts. I manual sync my content. I have been experienced multiple issues with syncing. In the end, synced content has been disappeared (mostly songs). Since I have to manage my own playlists (this is why I hate iTunes 11 without actually using it), so imagine how this is a PITA situation for me. Since my upgrade to iTunes 11 and iPhone 4S (from iPhone 4) from last September, I have restored the iPhone more than 10-20 times, including DFU restore.

The best part - every time, I almost had to restore on each iOS or iTunes upgrade.

Some of you may criticize maybe I bought a defective iPhone from eBay. I can assure you that's not the case.

And of course - I did experience the famous DVD issue as well.

I used Anapod Explorer, but it appears the software company no longer exists.

Here is a small list I found... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari..._iPod_managers

iTunes is one of the most poorly designed bloatware applications ever. I wonder how much business it's cost Apple over the years. It's better now that it's not specifically required to get media...but it's still a huge pain if you want to move your own files to an iOS device.

I'll jump on the iTunes hate bandwagon.

Really, I cannot for the life of me understand how Apple developed such a bloated, bug ridden and downright obtuse piece of software. I don't have a Mac so I have no idea if the 'experience' is any better, but for this Windows 7 PC user, I have given up altogether with iTunes.

My 64G iPhone 5 is no longer used for music. I have a SanDisk Sansa Clip Zip with a 64Gb MicroSD with Rockbox firmware. It is so small it fits in my Sony noise cancelling headphone case. Best thing - plug it into a windows machine and I see two drives, one is the internal 4GB memory and the second is the 64G GB MicroSD. File management is totally up to me.....

Oh and video on my iPad Mini is accomplished with a 1TB Patriot Gauntlet Node connected via WiFi-N with VLC streaming directly from the Gauntlet with SMB. File management is as simple as dragging files across a USB-3 connected HDD from my Network connected PC.... There are alternatives for Apples' p1ss poor software.

Hate! Hate! Hate! I wanna Hate on iTunes, too!

I ditched it. I had an iPhone 3GS for two years - great product, except for iTunes - but my next phone was an Android. And the phone after that, too.

With an Android phone, I can load any music player I want, keep my music in almost any format I want, and all of the mainstream Android devices have MicroSD card slots. Android phones almost all have replaceable batteries (unfortunately, the tablets tend to not).

Choose wisely, PT. You can get an Android phone or small tablet to take the place of that old iPod. Heck you don't even need high capacity; just carry a few 64gb MicroSD cards in your wallet and swap when you want to listen to one thing or another. It's not like you'd be swapping cards every 5 or 10 tracks, and there's no way that you'll listen to all 160gb of music on a single flight, even on a long-haul, so swapping cards instead of pre-loading everything onto the onboard memory is not a deal-breaker.

And you still have a choice - you can either buy an Android phone to serve as a combined device, i.e. your phone and media player in one, or you can buy a second, separate, used Android phone that's no longer on a carrier, and use it just for music, the way you use your iPod.

And then you can kick @#$%@ iTunes to the curb.

With all due respect, this is the Apple attitude personified.

I don't listen to tracks, I listen to albums. I don't know what I want to listen to until I want to listen to it. That is exactly why I bought a device -- the only device -- that can store my entire music collection in a single, portable form. When I fly I . . . um . . . "self medicate" . . . with whatever the vodka the airline has chosen to make available, and keep myself in a nicely buzzed state while I listen to whatever music strikes my fancy at the moment. The last thing I want to do is shuffle tiny micro SD cards, trying to figure out what album is on what card, and THEN open up my phone, remove the battery, take out the card that's in there (careful not to remove the SIM card by mistake), insert the new card in the tiny slot, close everything up and then wait for my phone (I have a Droid Bionic) to boot up.

What is not a deal-breaker for you because of the way you listen to your music is absolutely a deal-breaker because of the way I listen to mine. Like Apple, you assume everyone listens to music the same way.

I uninstalled iTunes 11, installed iTunes 10, and had to let it resync my iPod 3 times (no idea why it took 3 times), but it seems that now everything is okay. I haven't checked the iPod, but at least the iTunes music library plays my musical gapless. I didn't have to buy a bunch of micro SD card, or a $1,300 studio-quality player (which looks REALLY nice and I REALLY want, but can't afford). All it took was uninstalling iTunes 11 -- plus some registry edits, and searching for and removing some files Apple installed deep in the OS -- finding, virus scanning and installing iTunes 10, and 48 hours to re-scan my ripped CDs into the iTunes music library, re-download the album covers, and resync the iPod.

And people wonder why, when they tell me they have a Mac, I ask why they didn't get a real computer.

Not at all. I am also an album person and I don't listen to individual tracks, only whole albums.

Depending on the bit depth of your music, you can fit a lot of albums onto a 64gb card and a 32gb phone. Together they equal 96gb, minus a few gb for the OS and apps, giving you 2/3 of the storage of your 160gb iPod.

I never know what I'll be in the mood to listen to, either, but I load up my phone with 20 or 30 of my favorite albums and pick from them while I'm traveling. If I were doing a long-haul and would be traveling for 30 hours, I might run out of music toward the end of the trip and repeat, or if I had additional albums on a spare 64gb MicroSC card I might swap the card once during the trip.

This is only an issue for long-haul flights. On short-haul flights, you won't have to swap cards at all, because 20-30 hours of music will be more than enough to get you through a 2-6 hour flight with plenty of album variety and choice.

In time, MicroSD cards will be available in 128 or 256gb capacity and eliminate the need for swapping to equal your 160gb iPod. But even at 64gb, you only need 3 cards at the absolute max to equal the 160gb iPod, and only 2 if you count the internal storage of a 32gb or 64gb phone.

I understand not wanting to go through the 2-minute odyssey of swapping cards and rebooting while you're "in a nicely buzzed state", but you've got to come out of your stupor at some point during a long-haul, if only to eat without spilling your food all over your lap.

This isn't impossible, PT, it simply requires a little advance planning and the right equipment to get what you want - freedom from iTunes.