Sebby, Why should I have to change my habbits just to suit Apple, as far as I'm concerned, Apple can pound sand.

When I first tried to get Media Monkey from their site, all their download links did was bounce me between two pages that tried to sell me the Gold version. I eventually gave up and went to softonic.com, a download site that mirrors their file and got it from there.

When I started the installer, the first thing I got was a page saying that to install Media Monkey I had to agree to the installation of additional programs from their advertising partners, and that if I didn't want them I could uninstall them after they've been installed. Unbeknownst to me, while I was reading that page the unwanted extra programs were already being installed! So, Media Monkey can go to hell.

Dark,

That's encouraging news about Audio Grabber, it was an interesting sounding program.

Everybody and their brothers all think they know what's good for us, so they force their ideas down our throats.

That was one of the nice things about the Zune software, not only was it very forgiving of changes made to your library outside the program, it adapted to them without a single complaint. Plus, in the easily reachable configuration options, you could set the folders for every different type of media the Zune software handles, so you can fit it to the way you do thingts. That's why I lament that it's user interface is inaccessible to screen readers. Or at least it's inaccessible to JAWS, I never tried it with any other screen readers. I personally would be absolutely thrilled and would be willing to pay for a script that make the Zune software accessible. That's how much I thought of itI keep a copy of its installer just in case that actually happens.

And here I thought iTunes was Apples version of the Zune software. Sheesh, what a laugh!

Presumably because Apple thinks you'll appreciate their way of doing things. I actually quite like it; it makes for very many useful benefits; if nothing else you get a very nice jukebox and media manager. But I've no doubt Saint Jobs was well aware that the sex appeal of Apple's hardware products would be a useful draw for iTunes and its store, too. Just like proprietary media players that only used Windows Media Player's DRM would be just the thing for Microsoft's coffers, for instance. Of course you may provide substitutes for the bits of iTunes that you wouldn't otherwise get (remote and AirPlay, mostly) but it'll be much harder. File-based access only goes so far. You could use something like Stream To Me to get something like iTunes Match without the cloud. UPnP AV as opposed to AirPlay. Bluetooth or infra-red remotes. And so on. But only iTunes wraps it all up in a pretty package that's joyful to use if you're willing to make a few concessions and work a bit harder to get your files all tagged.

Ah, Softonic. I fear that was your mistake. Don't grab files from them again. They are now just like the other parasites CNet download.com, FileHippo, Softpedia, SourceForge and, tragically, MacUpdate. Just do not download from third-party sites.

Dark, I agree with you about iFanatics; they give the rational Apple product users a bad name. Sadly, what they dish out in turns of sheer crass devotion is more than made up by the numerous irrational Apple haters, who mostly take pride in their elitist attitude to technology (usually, it seems to me, on grounds of price) and refuse to acknowledge the genuinely fine points of Apple's ecosystem. Since both sides are equally wrong, I think it's altogether best to let the children fight it out in the playground and just watch from the sidelines.

@Sebby, I disagree the "presumably because apple thinks you will like their way of doing things" attitude has any give and take to it.
It's just like if you had a town with only three supermarkets and no other shops for miles, and one supermarket said "Well not only will we only stock our own produce, but you cannot come in with a shopping bag you didn't buy from us, or park in the driveway, or cook with our products if your mixing them with anyone else's"

It's restrictive monopoly pure and simple. Apple could support file based playback, could support usb transfer, they just don't! and when you go on about clouds and data and what not, my brain goes la la la la la la why can't I just play the files on my computer like I always did? Oh yeah, sinse that wouldn't be making money for Apple.

As I've said before, I don't give a rat's rear end about any fof computery wootery, I don't care how! something works or what fancy names it's got, I care what I can do with it, and if I can't get my! media collection through Itunes without all these shenanigans,, itunes is an inferior program to Winamp pure and simple.
Indeed I do wonder how much of both the marketing of Apple and Microsoft depends upon blinding people with science and the computery wootery, when actually much of the vaunted capabilities are things that could equally be done with any semi good media player, a usb mp3 player and decent file indexing.

@Figment, despite the above semi diatribe about Apple's restrictions, I will say Apple has it's good points,  rabbid fan girls and boys not withstanding.
I've had hours of fun out of my Iphone, and great access to many useful services. My lady had a windows phone, and even with basic phone functions it was infinitely inferior to Ios with it's built in voiceover, not to speak of all the other capabilities and software made for Ios.

There is a good reason Ios is now probably the second most popular platform for audio games and useful applications for blind gamers, and that is because it's  extremely usable, and for the most part highly efficient, despite the inequities with media, indeed it's the good qualities of things like the Ios interface, use of bluetooth, gyro controls etc not to mention Voiceover (which I have to say is a great way of accessing a touch screen), that make the hole Itunes situation get on my pecks so much.

So, personally I would suggesd just as the Appl zealots are wrong, you shouldn't join the ranks of the irrational haters either, but just weight up the good and bad points yourself, use the bits you wish and not the bits you don't.

@Sebby, I'm afraid this is probably where we agree to disagree sinse we perceive the situation differently. You like Itunes organization, I do not.
I've got  no problem about people liking things that I don't, my problem is that Apple have not given those who do not like their way of doing things an alternative, or made Itunes flexible enough to fit the needs of people who just want to do their own organizing by files and folders. Contrast the case of Itunes with that of the Seagate external drive I bought the other day. it has Seagate's own proprietory (and I believe inaccessible), backup software on there if you want to install it.
I however simply deleted Seagate's program and did a bog standard copy of what I want on the drive, no harm, no foul. Now why can't I do that with my Iphone? Just load on what music I want and if I bought music take it off the same way?

I personally do think the motivation for this is intentionally obstructive and meant to create a monopoly, where Itunes is the only purchicing and distribution method people use to interact with Apple devices, indeed they tried a similar thing with the lightning connector system in place of Usb or changing the ring configuration on the standard 3.5 cm headphone jacks so the Iphone would only take Apple licensed connectors.
This is a tendency both Apple and Microsoft have shown. They can give it fancy names like vertical intigration or centralization or what not, but to me it's "You must buy all our products!" No different from those coffee makers that only take refills from the specific company who made them and can't be used to either make coffee from any other producer, or even from scratch.

As I said, if you like Itunes fare enough, however Apple should by rights stop being a hog for those of us who don't and won't be convinced by Apple's propergander that just because the big almighty coorporation say so that doesn't mean it is best or even what we want. Indeed in a lot of ways I personally am capitalism's worst nightmare, a person who knows exactly what he wants for himself rather than being convinced of what he wants by any company.

On a less philosophical level, as I said,I definitely don't regard Apple as all badat all, nor would I confuse the opinions of some fans with the company itself, (I once met a total git who represented greenpeace!).
Itunes and media in general aside, there are many things in the Iphone I really! like, and depending upon the improvements from the Iphone 5, I'll possibly be getting a series 7 phone and maybe still a Mac.

As to your bluetooth speaker player, sounds very similar to the boombox I bought for my dad. It's basically as you describe, but a radio when the stick is out instead of a bluetooth speaker.

As basic as it goes, but perfect for my dad and a great way for me to share my audiobooks with him, indeed it was ironic that though my dad is fully endowed with eyeballs it took a vi product to be simple enough for his technical skills or lack there of.

And that! is definitely a case of something that is no use to me, not with my complex folders and subfolders and what not, but very useful to someone else, however fortunately I'm not forced to use one and can have my Victor Stream instead :D.

Btw, the one problem with the boombox is that it takes no account of folders at all. It'll play all files in alpha numeric order. So when I put stuff on for my dad, I can't even put two episodes of a radio drama if they're in episode folders ripped from the original discs with each having numbered tracks.

@Sebby, even though Drm for all content is something hat Apple have had to relax on, I still am of the opinion the implicit difficulties with Itunes interacting with anything none Apple are entirely intentional on Apple's part.
As to getting stuff from Itunes, several times I tried ripping cds into Itunes to see if I could find them. I could play them with the play menu but could I find the files? could I hell.
In the same way, I never really got the hole sink thing, sinse all I wanted to do was put stuff on my Iphone from my existing library, what did it need to sink for?
When however I did sink stuff, unless I created playlist folders to mirror my own folder structure, I couldn't find them on the phone either, or mirrors of them in the my music/itunes folder.
Of course, Itunes is such an unwieldy hog to navigate with all it's trees and macabre functions (why the hell a media system has to be used for backing up ap data and god knows what), it's entirely possible I made a mistake, however why should! I! have to be the one who has to "Get used to" Apple's program and way of doing things, I'm the customer, Apple should serve me!
Then again I know that's a radical idea for most modern businesses who tend to view customers as simply a convenient way to convert sellables into prophet with no more individual desire than a conveyer belt.

Compare the situation to just plugging in my Victor stream and going copy with whatever the heck I want, indeed the first time I did this last October the ease was amazing! no more difficult than when I used to copy stuff onto my laptop.

As I said, that people like Itunes and libraries and such I don't have a problem with, my problem is the "one way or else!" attitude, which is why until Apple give us a usable file system for putting media on and off Ios devices I shan't be either buying anything through Itunes on my phone or playing any media on it either.

All that being said, I can say in terms of pure hardware and some functions of the Os I do like the Ios system very much, heck I was well impressed last night trying out blindfold breakout with just how fun controlling the bat with a gyro was, ---- reminded me of playing the original Atari version with those twistable paddle controllers.

So, please don't mistake me for a total Apple Hater, ---- I'm just a total Itunes hater :d.

@Figment, while I've made my own thoughts on Itunes very clear, I will say that whatever else, the Iphone is a superior experience as a basic tablet/smartphone, both in terms of it's own native access, and in terms of what has been created for it.
Yes, those developers had to pay Apple, but as I said there's a point of taking the bad with the good, and Ios has a lot of good especially for Vi users. Games, useful aps from satnav to identification software, natively useful functions like Siri etc.

Feel free to try out Android if you wish. For me however the decision to buy an Iphone was always based on the fact of what I could do with it, and with games like king of dragon pass, Pappasangre and much more going it wasn't really a contest, indeed even now in terms of purely usable applications and games and such the Android situation could be better.

I have also heard Android can! still have access problems due to the amount of different service providers mucking about with the os configuration and the fact that one Android device might not have even basic optimized functions for Accessibility, indeed I did hear talkback had troubles with basic html pages outside of Google chrome, though it is entirely possible that problem was fixed.

I'm not going to start the Android debate, particularly sinse personally as Android has far less available games and applications than Ios it was never something I considered or looked into myself, and so my knolidge is second hand. I however would recommend considering that just because Apple's handling of media and intigration is pretty crappy, that doesn't mean everything iss, rabbid fans or not.

Myself, I'll take the good and find alternatives to the bad stuff, which is why I have a pocket in my shoulder bag reserved just for my Iphone, my Victor, and my earbuds which I keep in a very awesome little tin with a dragon on it, because dragons are cool!

@Figment, if I had just wanted a phone, I'd probably have stuck with the nockier I had in 2012. It had no features at all and was at the same time %100 inaccessible, and yet completely accessible, because while it had no speech whatsoever, it was just a phone and did nothing else (even the answer phone was provided by my mobile provider not a function of the phone itself).

Obviously it depends upon the person, but for me I was mainly interested in the Iphone as more than a phone. I got the Iphone rather than the Ipad because it seemed silly to miss out on a talking phone if I was getting the rest, but the phone, including texting and e-mail  was only part of it.

Even if your not at all interested in games on Ios though there are lots of very useful access related aps. One for example I use a lot is blind square, which tells you the locations and descriptions of objects around you. There are also several volunteer services where you point your phone at an object and a person on the other end will identify it for you.
There is a barcode reader that will scan and automatically identify common household products (will it will in the states apparently it doesn't work on none Us stuff), etc.

then there are basic things like Siri, for example when planning my upcoming trip to america I needed an instant currency convertion to see how much my traveller's checks would be so just asked siri to convert the amount. In fairness Android does have a similar thing to siri, though whether it works the same way and is as useful I'm not sure of.

This isn't to say "don't use android!" just to point out that there are lots of bennifits to Ios that for me at least make it worth it despite the cruddiness of it's media intigration.

As to Ios 9, personally with each Ios version I've always wated a good few version upgrades before I bother installing the new os. I did with 7 and 8 and I intend to with 9. That way software gets updated, bugs get squashed, and over all performance gets faster. I recall terrible complaints about Ios 8 slowdown originally, which sinse got fixed, indeed I get the strong impression Apple is very quick to rush out Os updates and then have to fill in the cracks later, though fortunately at least with 7 and 8 they've done this, so I don't see why it'll be different with 9.

I think it was dark who asked about how you retrieve track titles using Audiograbber. It's pretty easy. All you have to do is, once you've inserted the CD and the tracklist appears, go into the CD menu, then click on get track names from Freedb. There's also an option to get track names from the CD itself, although I've never had any luck with that.

Gene, have you tried the icloud backup? If that doesn't work, this may seem like a last resort, but, you're gonna need to jailbreak, open ssh access into your phone, ssh into your phone, then grab everything from the phone in a classic explorer like interface with some differences for copying and pasting. The advantage of this, if you're already jailbroken, is you don't need to use itunes, but the disadvantage, of course, is that you need to jailbreak if not done already. It's a shame that external mass storage hasn't been touched since the older android and windows phones. Apple, finally, has made an iphone compatible sd card reader. In the future, you could probably back up to that.

Figment: no, I'm really not wrong, you simply want a feature out of the box that iOS devices don’t provide. Download Dropbox from the App Store, and put your music and videos in your Dropbox. Now you have music and videos, without iTunes. Or install VLC, which also supports iCloud. There are local disk apps too which pretend to be file servers, SMB client apps for your network shares, public streaming services like Spotify or Apple or Google Music, and of course any protocol that allows remote access will work (Stream To Me, Transmit/SSH, etc). Finally, if it's about the cable, there are still other options for accessing the media folder itself (but not the structure) such as DiskAid, although these rely on understanding a closed protocol. And various alternative media managers, specifically MediaMonkey, support iOS directly, albeit less well than iTunes can. You have, as I said, more choice now than you've ever had. The wonderful irony, of course, is that you are absolutely correct that Apple were once blocking competition; the original iPod was a mass storage device and Apple locked out competitors by encrypting the database file with secrets only known to iTunes, and added insult to injury by inviting you to use that iPod in "Disk mode" to access any free space, which presented an empty drive with a hidden directory on it to operating systems, but no music. That's impractical today because mass storage requires exclusive access to the filesystem, so nobody does it. Happily, nowadays you only require iTunes for the making of local backups, and if you're willing to forego even those, there's always iCloud. It's also the only way to fully restore the firmware on your device, if the need arises, and to access iTunes Match if you want to store your music in the Apple cloud for use by the Music app, which is another effective way to cut the chord. It's honestly a shame iTunes is such a useful piece of software; I'd love nothing more than to see it torn to pieces, so people could pick and choose the bits they want. Perhaps, if Apple ever figures out how to derive all information from file structure, it could be copy-paste-compatible or iOS could move to MTP like Android does (currently unsupported by Mac OS without third-party tools, BTW). Until then the best you can do is tag your files and transfer them using the iTunes manual sync mode. And much as I believe Apple deserves bad karma for lock-in, this doesn't strike me as in any sense anti-competitive; at best it’s just particularly annoying to Windows users.

Interesting history you had there with Apple. FWIW, I had a brief encounter with OS 9 (a musician friend of mine) and it all seemed very parochial then, too. I think that Apple rightly earned its reputation for being, in essence, AOL for computer users. At this time, Apple did not have an accessibility solution of its own. But I didn’t move to the Mac until OS X Leopard in 2008 (I was distinctly unimpressed when Tiger first came out with VoiceOver), when Microsoft were still trying to figure out how to do user interfaces and becoming very envious of the competition with the disastrous result that was Vista, and Apple were simply changing the rules on accessibility with a rock-solid general-purpose OS, and that was a very good time indeed to be an advocate. Not sure I could still say that, but I guess the prove is in the pudding, since I’m not using Windows or Android. There was no contest in the smartphone wars either; by the time Android came out with TalkBack, iOS was already streaks ahead.

Nowadays, I think Apple’s business priorities are distinctly less pro-user and distinctly more pro-business with the success of its stores and iOS and the resulting “iOSification” of OS X, and with the new leadership, I’ve been trying to get off the addiction. Apple’s grasp of accessibility is very good, though, so it’s quite difficult to justify. As things stand, going back to Windows just hurts my head, iOS is buggy but still the best, Android is in what seems to be a perpetual state of near-readiness and OS X is stable and robust, has fewer choices and is clearly in decay as iOS takes it over, but is still a great joy to use. I’m largely all right with the iOS and OS X integration, although I’m increasingly annoyed by Apple’s dumbing down of OS X to meet the needs of iOS users. I’m not convinced this can be totally ignored, but it can definitely be worked around. Even without considering accessibility, I’m a big believer in going with what your needs dictate. It sounds to me like your objections are primarily based on principle, and maybe you’d benefit from looking at the landscape again yourself with an eye out for more practical concerns, to see which actually suits you best. Choices aren’t always optimal. Personally, my sympathies for the positive points of the Windows accessibility market are more than hurt by Windows’ continued lack of user interface flexibility for those who dislike the direction MS are taking, the Win10 disaster and the disrespect for user privacy; likewise for Android’s flexibility as compared to iOS, but for its complete lack of usable accessibility and user privacy. FWIW, I still objectively feel that Android is inadequately accessible at the moment. There are presumably other discussions on here (and ones you could start) to find recommendations for making your Android "Experience" as comfortable as possible, but I'm afraid I don't think Google's commitment in that department is concrete enough, even with version 5 which is undoubtedly a big step forward. You could try Chrome+ChromeVox and ChromeOS, though. It's cheap enough to do, and it's quite good, if a little steep learning-curve wise. Familiarity with VoiceOver commands is helpful but not required, in the sense that the commands are different but the strategy very similar, with two-handed navigation that can be converted to single-handed navigation if required. And ChromeOS itself is very simple to understand and use, has very limited diversification, and is very safe. Totally unlike Android, in other words. I have to imagine that it's a superior accessibility experience only because ChromeOS is big in the education sector.

I used Nokia series 60 back in the day. I was smitten, but I see why it had to die out, eventually. It was a smartphone, with full keyboard control and a screen reader (Talks, in my case). There were quite a few useful apps for it, like an instant messenger and a full-featured SIP client. Great stuff.

iOS 9.2 is now out. Install it, then hard reset your device, to see instant speed improvements. If you were like me and had that awful interface slowdown post-upgrade, the hard reset should fix it.

Backups don’t require libraries. Just choose “Back up” from File > Devices. You can just cancel when you are asked to sync with this library; it’s not important.

payed for their work? I hope you are not that serious
P.S as a musician I also hate piracy, but let's not  think although  publishers are saints of all

As a sidenote that's why so many artists are going independent or are starting off independent, because they can distribute music on their own terms. Artist s get a fraction of what we pay because of the recordlabels taking most of it. On bandcamp, for example, artists can use the name your price method, and they're getting all people pay. Better still, contracted or not, it's just better to pay for music anyways.