Manage iPad Content with ANYTHING other than iTunes???

Good grief is iTunes a E36 M3ty program. I've got files on various computers/laptops, but I can't "sync" with more than one iTunes at a time. All I want is to drag and drop some files, but that would be too simple. For whatever asinine reason Apple wants to make this as difficult as possible to use.

I tried migrating files from another PC to the one the iPad is synced with via jump drive, adding files from that jump drive to the library, and syncing, which works, kind of. If I delete the files from the jump drive and add other files to it, I can sync the new files, but it deletes the original jump drive files I had previously synced from the iPad. I can't save the files from the jump drive onto the original synced PC, so that's not an option.

I've downloaded and tried a couple different 3rd party iPad managing programs, found via Google search, none of which have worked.

Any suggestions for a non iTunes program for PC that will actually work to get the files I want on the iPad?

I use iTools. It's a lot more direct, a lot less heavy handed. I am not sure it will "sync" like you have been doing though.

http://itools-for-windows.en.softonic.com/

Media Monkey is popular, but I don't know if it integrates with an iPad.

Email yourself the files. Kind of a dumb workaround, but it works.

See, now this would Just Work if you had only one Mac desktop/laptop, but you have multiple PCs like some kind of heretic. Obviously you're doing it wrong

It's not on by default, but make sure that "Manually manage my music" is checked. I'm sure you already have, but that trips up a bunch of people.

Basically, letting iTunes do it, it will update the iPod with whatever music is on the device you're connecting to. Telling it that you'll manage it allows you to copy only the files that you want.

Kinda sounds like what's going on with you, but I may be wrong.

-Rob

If its just files you might be able to get away with using a DropBox style tool to get them to the iPad.

Videos, too large to email myself.

So far Anytrans 4 seems to be working, not drag & drop but it's allowing me to add individual files without "syncing." It was one of the programs I tried earlier, but couldn't ever get it to connect to the iPad. I reinstalled iTunes, and then reinstalled Anytrans, and finally got Anytrans to realize there was an iPad plugged into the laptop.

I tried iTools that Aircooled suggested, initially I thought it didn't work, but it looks like it stuck the file in a "home movies" folder instead of the "movies" folder that everything else is in.

If the pc's are all on the same network, you should be able to transfer/copy the files across the network to a single location where you sync to/from your iPad.

Similarly you can share those files with the other systems if you want to access them outside of the iPad.

I just realized I'm set up to do this

I've got a NAS drive on my home network that has a UPnP/DLNA server on it. This sounds like a difficult thing to set up, but it's just a Dlink 321. It's discontinued, but I'm sure there's a current version (Here's a list from PC Mag). Since it's coming off a NAS drive, you can access the drive directly with a Mac or a PC, and since I have the NAS set up as a RAID device I've got some backup for my files.

The iThingies have the 8Player app (http://08software.com/products/8player/) on them, which can stream video/pics off the UPnP server. It's not limited to the usual Apple formats, either, it'll read most formats.

8Player will let you save video/image files to the iPad.

Voila, media available across all platforms, no synching required and you can transfer stuff to the iPad.

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Why not lock threads like this?

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