iTunes Library Recovery Option Two- Shareware

So far I have looked at free software- or ‘freeware’ – as a way of getting hold of the tools you need to get your iTunes songs back from your iPod and onto your PC or Mac hard drive. The second option is shareware.

Shareware just means that you can download a program for free but there are strings attached. There are limitations built in to encourage you to buy it. With shareware you pay after a trial period and then you get what the people selling it call ‘additional functionality’. This means you can try it free to test it out for a limited time then it expires. Basically, the software company will share it with you – but put limitations on what the software can do to get you to buy it.

For example:

1. It can mean that it is good for – say – five hundred tunes and no more.
2. Or, it can mean that it will let you transfer maybe ten or twenty songs from your iPod music and then the transfer will stop. You will get one of those pop up messages asking you if you want to buy it now. You click something like ‘later’ and it continues for another ten or twenty songs and then it stops and you get the pop up again
3. Or, it will let you transfer songs but not let you use all the features available

OK, when I was researching how to get my iPod tunes ‘back to where they once belonged’ (as The Beatles nearly sang) I was going into a lot of chat rooms and forums to see what people had said about the shareware options. By and large they were saying ‘Yes they work!’ but the restrictions were a pain in the butt. I was reading stuff from a few guys saying the process took hours. One guy wrote that he just watched a couple of DVD’s on TV with his laptop next to him dumbly clicking ‘later’ every ten songs!

Other people were saying that they had gone through the process but were always worried. Because the process kept stopping they had this nagging fear that they were screwing something up.

Here are my feelings about using shareware to get my iPod tunes back:

1. Life is too short.
2. Pop Up boxes really frustrate me. I lose concentration and click the wrong button
3. I am convinced that if something can go wrong with copying iPod tunes to my hard drive it will do!
4. Why spend hours getting my tunes back when the full program is dirt cheap? The programs are not expensive. Typically they are between $10 and $30 dollars

So, despite the opportunity to ‘try before I buy’ I am afraid this time around it is just not worth it

I am not going to use shareware to get my tunes back – I would rather go for drug rehabilitation, or – as anyone with experience says – drug rehab

This entry was posted on Monday, September 22nd, 2008 at 9:41 am and is filed under free software, freeware, hard drive, iPod, ipod music, iTunes, iTunes library, Mac, PC, shareware. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.