XPlay 2

Monday, October 04 2004 @ 10:16 AM EDT

XPlay 2

As an iPod user whose primary computer is a Mac, but who often needs to (well, wants to) transfer files to and from a Windows system, I recently spent some time looking for a way to do just that. What I found was XPlay 2, which is a Windows application described by the vendor as "the first product ever to provide Windows connectivity for iPods, and as the only product ever to provide Windows integration for Mac-formatted iPods." Basically, XPlay 2 is a Windows Explorer integration that gives you access to your iPod. Yes, including a Macintosh formatted iPod. Using XPlay 2, you can perform such interesting operations as dragging and dropping music files to and from your iPod, drop vCard (contacts) and iCal and vCal (calendar) items onto your iPod. Oh, and full access to your iPod as a hard drive. Installation and setup was extraordinarily painless. Very professional and entirely seamless. After setup, it was simply a matter of plugging in my iPod and double clicking the "Explore my iPod with XPlay" desktop icon to begin. While I was mostly interested in hard disk access, I was fairly impressed by the music navigation (see screen shot below). An attractive, understandable way of navigating my music collection using the Windows Explorer metaphor. Beyond navigation (of the music collection, that is) and the expected abilities like copy, delete, rename, etc of songs, XPlay 2 lets you edit tag information on individual songs using the normal right-click/properties operation. Is this an "essential"? Definately, if you have a Mac formatted iPod and want to use it on a Windows system. Even if you're a Windows user only, though, you should find this application remarkably useful. There are lots of features in XPlay 2 that I haven't spent time on (like the iPod showing up as a portable device in Windows Media Player) just because I was interested in a specific purpose. There is, however, a full 14 day trial where you can try out all of the extras for yourself. Pros Complete access to your iPod without using iTunes Professional installation and general high quality throughout Great attention to detail Fast operations Excellent Help Cons Price of $29.95 feels a little high - but then again, you're paying for quality Synchronization between iPod and iTunes is one way only - from iTunes to the iPod. In other words, you can't use XPlay 2 to facilitate using your iPod to synchronize your music collection between two different desktop systems I was unable to get the iPod to "Eject" using the XPlay 2 "Stop my iPod" option and instead had to eject the drive itself under My Computer.