If you need to quickly transfer media back and forth to an iOS device, but are tired of iTunes limiting how many iOS devices you can connect to your PC, erasing media found on your phone that it cannot find in your media library, and insisting on the time-consuming syncing and/or backing up a connected device … then we have good news for you.
PhoneTrans is a free program for Windows which connects to any attached iOS device.
It acts as an iTunes alternative and allows for moving music and media from the PC to the phone or the other way around, moving media from any iOS device onto the hard drive. It does not care about whether you previously synced with iTunes or not, or about which devices you are connecting to and whether you’ve done the million things that Apple apparently wants you to do.
A little story:
One of the things that I am happiest about since moving from iOS to Android is the ease with which I could move files back and forth across the device. But I still have my iOS device (for app review purposes), so when my mother sent me a stack of CD’s to rip and her brand new iPod Touch to copy the music to, I thought it would be a fairly easy thing. I still had iTunes installed, and I thought it would be a pretty simple procedure. Needless to say, iTunes insisted on syncing her iPod with my machine (which would have deleted everything on the device in the process ), it insisted on creating a backup (which I neither wanted no’r had the time or hard drive capacity for), and it gave a limit to the number of devices I could add to iTunes. In short, it was a complete user-unfriendly mess.
Enter PhoneTrans. A very simple program that, once installed, enabled me to simply drag and drop the music I wanted to transfer to the device, and it was done.
What I like about this program:
- Lets me drag and drop my media and music and transfer to the iOS device.
- It supports Apps as well as media.
- Supports all generations of iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch.
What I do not like about this program:
- Requires that iTunes be present on your machine. Although it should be said that it does not require that the iOS device have any relationship to the iTunes install.
- The ‘donate/share’ screen which appears at the end of each use feels remarkably like a nag screen.
The verdict:
If you are looking for a quick and easy way to transfer music and media to or from your iOS device, without being subject to Apple and iTunes’ constant obsessive compulsive supervision, definitely give PhoneTrans a shot.
Get PhoneTrans Here. (Requires MS .NET Framework 3.5)
