Review: iPodRobot Music Copying Utility for Windows

I have so many computers and so many iPods and other music devices that it's a sure bet that any random combination is not going to work, and I've found Apple's iTunes software to be very picky: you can sync with one computer and no more. Period. Want to sync with both your laptop while on the road and your desktop computer when you're in the office? Can't do it (at least, you can't do it with iTunes)

In addition to the scenario I outlined above, where you want to just migrate your library from an old computer to a new one, there are also other reasons why you might well want to be able to grab music, photos, videos and other data from your iPod and put it on a PC other than your "base" computer that serves as the sync device. (of course, you'll also be honoring all artist rights and royalty/license issues, right? I thought you would)

To test out iPodRobot, I downloaded it into a slightly challenging environment: Microsoft Windows XP running in VMware on my Apple Macbook Air. Who says I don't have a sense of humor? :-)

I started with a clean WinXP install that was just the base OS and quickly found that it was a mistake not to have installed iTunes. iPodRobot promptly reminded me:

The notice leads you to believe that you can proceed anyway, but when I plugged in my Apple iPhone 3G (which should also look like an iPod Touch to this sort of application) it couldn't see it:

Even though just seconds before Windows XP itself had told me that the device was recognized and added to the system without incident:

I downloaded iTunes and installed it, then found exactly what I expected when I launched it and browsed the music library on my iPhone:

Everything's greyed out: I cannot copy any of it, not a single track, onto the PC. If this was as far as I went, it'd doubtless be really maddening!

Luckily I had iPodRobot ready to go:

That was certainly promising. I have a fair amount of music and other material on my 16GB iPhone so it didn't surprise me when it took 25 seconds or so to load things up.

Finally, though, I saw:

Very nice! It recognized the device type and, on the left, you can see all the standard navigational elements that are the categories of information I have on the phone (other than the Address Book and Applications, of course).

I clicked on "Music" and selected the tracks from Julian Lennon's virtually unknown album Valotte:

I clicked on the big "Copy to iTunes" button along the top and was prompted asked to confirm the settings of this copy:

I can live with that.

I clicked "OK" and it proceeded:

After a few seconds per track (which would seem slow if I were copying the 500+ tracks I actually have on this device) it was done:

Very promising. The real test, however, is to launch iTunes itself and have a look to see if the music was indeed copied successfully from my iPod, uh, iPhone, into the iTunes library:

Success!

Now, let me say a bit about this review, because it was sponsored by the developer. Don't panic: as you can see, I put the software through the same tests I'd do any utility I was going to write about. Did their payment bias me? I don't think so. On the other hand, I gotta pay the mortgage, so I do appreciate the opportunity to have companies with worthwhile software products and services get on my radar screen through a straightforward business transaction of this nature. But you're the important one, reader. What do you think? Is it wrong for me to accept payment to pay attention to a small vendor with an interesting product?