iPhone troubles: frustration of a long-time MM user

[NukeRiskGuy]

I have been a MM user for many years (at least 5 but probably more). In the early days, back when my kids were younger and a phone was just a phone, I listened to music on CDs then I bought a car that could listen to mp3's burned to a CD: imagine hundreds of songs on one disc instead of only 80 minutes or so! It was at that point that I really started running the wheels off of MediaMonkey - burning mix CDs, putting songs on miniature iPods that my kids had; life was great back then!

At some point, I succumbed to the hype and got an iPhone. Getting music to my iPhone seemed to be simple. I boasted to all my friends how I could buy my music wherever I pleased, without DRM, and much cheaper than on iTunes. In fact, I could do this without using iTunes - what a genius I was! Then, something changed ... I don't remember when it was, but my kids got older, my job got more demanding. Suddenly, I couldn't get my music to my iPhone any more. I panicked, but was patient; something would come along. This d_itunes4.dll script/add-on thingie. Ugh, I had to start using iTunes. Well, that wasn't too bad; now that I had 4 iPhones in the family, we could manage our apps better. I couldn't make custom playlists in MM any more and get them straight to my phone. The documentation, advice, help, etc. was scattered throughout MM forum posts, often buried in dozens of pages of posts. Yikes, I no longer had hours to spend trying to find answers, put everything together. At some point, I was able to get most of my music into iTunes, so I did not change a thing, for a year or two at least. Suddenly, my kids are teenagers; they want me to buy (not from iTunes, I still know how to get my music legally at much lower than iTunes prices) the latest dub-step, the most up-to-date thorax-compressing bass medleys know to man-kind. I love my kids - I bought them The White Panda, Mac Miller, Flux Pavilion. No problem, I will download the latest MM (I am a gold member, did I mention that?!?), fire up the latest version d_itunes4.dll and sync everything up with iTunes; it will work, just like it always did ...

Well, it didn't. It insisted on re-syncing every flippin' song I had - all 25,412 of them. OK, no problem, it only took 2 days, but it did it. I went and bought a few more songs for my kids. No problem, let's see ... open iTunes, open up MM, right-click on d_itunes4.dll and hit Auto-Sync. Wait for it to build up the list of changes and ... Copying 1 of 17888 ! What the ---; holy BEEP? I am going to have to wait 2 days again to sync 2 or 3 new songs. I wish I had all the time in the world like I seemed to have when I was younger. I spent an hour or so looking through posts, doing google searches for 'sync mediamonkey itunes', etc. I just don't have the time ... I have to go get tires for my son's car.

I love MediaMonkey, I hate iTunes, I like buying my music outside of iTunes, I love listening to my music on my iPhone. What do I have to do to make this work? Please don't send me to some post with hundreds and hundreds of entries to go through. There has to be a solution - I don't care if it is not a simple solution; I just want a list of steps that I can follow to get my life back so I can listen to my Velvet Underground, Flaming Lips, Dead Milkmen, They Might Be Giants, ... and my kids can listen to their crap - each on our own phone. I don't like being the mean Dad who refuses to spend $$$ on iTunes just to make things simple - I just want it to work!

Anyone?

Thanks,
NukeRiskGuy

[Lowlander]

Questions about Addons should be asked in the Addons own forum topic: http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... lit=itunes

Also MediaMonkey 4.0.7 can sync directly to iOS5 and iOS6 (iTunes does need to be installed).

[NukeRiskGuy]

Thank you for your prompt reply. I am glad now that I am able to use MM again to sync directly with my iPhone - life is good! Any idea if I should hold off on updating to iTunes 11 - things are good with version 10 and I don't want to ruin a good thing.

Thanks,
NukeRiskGuy

[Lowlander]

If you're not using iTunes there is no need to upgrade. Some users have reported there are problems when installing iTunes, others say it works fine: http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... 12&t=68793

[nohitter151]

I can confirm MM still syncs with iPhone and iPad after upgrade to iTunes 11.

[Peke]

Same with iPod Touch