Apple IPod and Winamp: A Guide on Connecting the Two

Many people have serious complaints about iTunes. Some of the most common complaints are that iTunes is slow, and is a resource hog. Also common are complaints about sound and video quality during playback. Although iTunes has improved slightly in the last few releases there are still many bug in it. Yet most people continue to use iTunes, why? Because they don't realize that you can still sync your iPod with programs other than iTunes.

Winamp is a freeware media player, written by Nullsoft. Winamp is the second most used media player worldwide, second only to windows media player. Winamp is considered to be one of the least processor intensive media players, and also has the ability to add plugins, and custom skins. In the newest release of Winamp, Winamp 5.35, iPod support was built in.

Configuring your iPod to work with Winamp is fairly simple. First you must of course install Winamp. Next you should add you music and videos to the Winamp media library. To add files, you simply click File>Add Media to Library. Then simply navigate to your files and click "Add".

After you have added all your music to the music library it is time to start adding it to your iPod. Simply connect your iPod using the USB connector, and your iPod should appear under "Portables" when you open the Media Library. To add music, simple go to "Local Media" in the left pane of the Media Library, and highlight the files you wish to add to your iPod. After selecting all the files you want, right click and select send to "MY iPod" This will add the files to the queue to be synced to your iPod.

To sync your iPod you must click on "Portables" in the left pane, and you should see all the files marked as "waiting". Simply click "Sync" to begin sending the files to your iPod. As soon as the files are done transferring the box will say done, and you must click the "Done" button to continue. If you want to add more files, you can do them the same way as the first files you added. To delete files off your iPod simply click on your iPod under "Portables" and find what you want to delete. Click on the files, and then right click and select "Remove"

Many people prefer Winamp over iTunes for multiple different reasons. Using this guide it will be easy to setup Winamp to work for your iPod or other portable media device, so you can decide for yourself which you prefer!