Apple makes a dead simple use on iPod on a Mac. Just plug it in and iTunes will automatically
launch and give you all kinds of options for syncing your media. But if you're going to use a Mac
with one of the hundreds of non-iPod mp3 players out there, it can be a little confusing. The first
thing you want to figure out is what kind of mp3 player you're dealing with. To connect the mp3
player to your Mac and see a little hard drive icon on the desktop, then you’ve probably got a
player that connects using a USB protocol called UMS or MSC which is basically a generic USB
storage mode used by thumb drives and digital cameras.
This is a good thing since all you have to do is find the device in the music folder and drag and
drop your computers music files over to the drive. Just make sure the files you're copying are
compatible with the player. If you’ve been ripping your CDs in iTunes, they maybe in an AAC
format that not all mp3 player support.
If you connect the player and nothing happens or the mp3 files you copy over don’t take, then
you’ve probably got an mp3 player that uses MTP. MTP is a USB standard developed for
Windows that isn’t very friendly with Mac. Fortunately, a lot of mp3 players has settings that can
be switched from UMS or MTP.
You can check this by diving into the player settings menu and look in for a USB mode option.
To something like this, it sends a clip here. You may need to go to send this website and grab the
new firmware to get this menu option. Some players though will only work in an MTP. The
creative zen here is on example. To get files on here with a Mac, you'll need to download a free
app called XNJB. It's not the prettiest thing in the world but it will let you transfer your music,
playlist and other data to most popular MTP devices.
To set the program up with your iTunes library, go into the applications preferences, check the
iTunes integration option and restart the program. XNKB has some quirks but it's one of the only
games in town for syncing MTP devices on a Mac. Finally, there’s the zoom. Microsoft special
mojo makes this thing impossible to sync with a Mac. Use this special variation of the MTP
protocol called MTPZ that requires zoom its own software to unlock the device. Until they come
out of the zoom client for the Mac, the zoom is unfortunately a PC-only device.
So there you go, those are some tips on how to get a non-iPod mp3 player to work on a Mac. For
cent.com, I'm Donald Bell.
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