iPhone/Windows file manager advice?
May 25, 2010 10:23 AM   Subscribe

Looking for recommendations for a iPhone media file manager running on Windows XP

I own a iPhone 3G (OS rev 3.1.3) and my music/podcast media (entirely mp3) reside on PCs running Windows XP SP3. I hate, hate, hate iTunes for Windows. I want to be able to manage my media files on my phone the way I do on my computer and my Sansa mp3 players, moving files back and forth using Windows Explorer (or something that works like Explorer) but leaves them accessible by the phone's iPod application. I do *not* want to fool around with 'libraries,' ruling out WinAmp and MediaMonkey. I'd rather not Jailbreak the phone.

There are programs out there that claim to do this, but it's hard to get a read on their quality. Can AskMeFi recommend something that meets my needs? Free would be neat, but I'm willing to pay for quality.
posted by mojohand to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)
 
I'm pretty sure that your only option is going to be jailbreaking the phone.
posted by DWRoelands at 11:12 AM on May 25, 2010


The music on a iPod/iPhone is not stored in a human-readable directory structure, so if you want to do this you will be reliant on something like iFunbox which has apparently reverse-engineered the storage method and presents it to you with a pretty face.

I think, but don't know for sure, that jailbreaking is required to even get at these directories.

For example. here's the beginnings of the music on my iPhone as viewed by iPhoneExplorer:


/User
  /Library
    /ITunes Control
      /Music
        /F00
          AOAU.mp3
          AOVY.mp3
          EVVF.mp3
...


There are 49 F## directories. I'm sure there's some database file on the phone somewhere that records that "AOVY.mp3" is some song by Toto. iFunBox has apparently reverse-engineered that file, which undoubtedly will change in the future, requiring changes to iFunBox, lather, rinse, repeat.

The robust solution is going to be putting up with iTunes for the few minutes it takes every now and then to sync your music library. You can set it to do nothing else, and it will leave your music files where they are if you want.
posted by chazlarson at 11:58 AM on May 25, 2010


Oh, it seems on a quick read that iFunBox claims to manage music without jailbreaking. Huh. The may-break-in-future caveat still applies, though, as seen in their blog.

I don't mind iTunes, though, and even let it manage my files [never lost a one in however many years] so take my comments with that caveat.

I do use iPhone Explorer to do things like install wallpapers and suchlike on my jailbroken 3G, but leave the media management to Apple's tool.
posted by chazlarson at 12:04 PM on May 25, 2010


I tried finding something that let me keep my directory structure, etc, without jailbreaking, and had no success. Just for clarity's sake, why do you dislike libraries?
posted by antifuse at 12:57 PM on May 25, 2010




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