Managing your iPod is simple if you only use one computer. Plug in the iPod, wait for iTunes to open, and transfer songs to and from your iPod. Simple. But what if you have a few computers to listen to music on? What if you have a computer, not only at home, but also at work, and maybe even listen to music when you visit your relatives… so what?
For me, that is almost my life. I have an iPod that syncs with my home computer, which runs Linux. Because of this, I don’t even use iTunes, as Apple doesn’t feel the need to come out with a version for Linux. But that’s okay, because it’s a Linux solution that works. But when I visit my family, what do I do? This app is built with the intention that any iPod can be plugged in, and successfully offers to delete everything on the iPod and sync its music library.
Definitely not what I want to do! As I write this review, I’m currently listening to music on my parents’ computer, through a very nice program called Old Mac.
For the elderly, for those who are weakly inclined, iTunes is dead.
The old man’s pony is one trick up to the program. The only purpose of this program is to allow you to transfer music from iPod to computer, nothing more, nothing less. Seniors can read the iTunes library of any computer connected to your iPod, but cannot copy e songs. It is possible to copy songs from the iTunes library (or simply copy them to a hard drive), but it does not allow the user to bypass DRM on songs from iTunes structured, which is probably good for the author of the program.
To test it, I put a few on my iPod. There are six or seven mp3 files about an hour long – Podcasts on the Internet today. They were free to download and had no copy protection on them. I also have a concert on my iPod that I downloaded and encoded to mp3. The last item I bought on my iPod was a song from the iTunes Store.
In every case except the last one, Senuti was able to take music from my iPod and copy it to a chosen destination on my parents’ computer. This is perfectly worked out. I just highlighted the songs I wanted to transfer, clicked the “Copy” button and watched it work instantly. When the songs were translated, I was able to add them to the itunna library, at which point the Elders also recognized that they were already there. Even the songs (from within the Elder Scrolls, which looks very similar – identical, in fact – to the old versions of iTunes), while the songs were transcribed.
And in the last track, he bought the song from the iTunes store (and therefore blocked the Digital Rights Management to protect it from illegal copying), I came across a little differently, but at the beginning I thought one effort, which in no way reflects badly on Senuti. I was able to copy the tracks without problems. The program had no problems copying and storing bytes on the cards. When I tried to make a file, Senuti recognized that my files were not those of my parents, and it was done.
“This computer is not allowed to play QRFB.m4b,” read the intent message. “If you have purchased this song, you can open iTunes and use this computer to play this song by entering your Apple ID and password.”
Obviously, since this computer belongs to my parents and I trust them, I did it, and the program did not have problems with my DRM-encrusted music, since it knew how to do it well.
Out of time, what is proposed, Senuti is almost perfect. Would you like to someday see, in the future, the ability to copy songs from your computer onto your iPod? Of course I am. But he claims to promote open software for piracy, even though the feature could be used to transfer completely free music, so I can see why that feature was never intended.
Senuti is currently only in version 0.33, but the quality is still very high. I highly recommend it for those on my site, and I look forward to future development of this fine program.
