My iPod is dying. What other MP3 player can I use?
 

I love using my iPod to play my 30GB of music, especially with the ease of creating playlists. Now my iPod is dying and I don't want to fork out $$ to buy a new one.

I know I can add all my music on a USB stick, but is there a way to create playlists? Or is there another MP3 player I can use which will let me create playlists?

Buy a replacement battery for your iPod from ifixit.com - takes 10 mins and costs less than $20 to have it like new. I did this with mine for the same reason.

Yep. Buy a replacement battery. (About $10) Depending on which generation you have, it could be a really quick fix. You'll need a couple special prying tools so that you don't damage or scratch the ipod.

Didn't think of that! Hopefully that is the issue and changing the battery will fix it.

Otherwise, if you just want to use the music in the car, a USB flash drive will do the things you want including playlists. I use a free program (Windows) called Playlist Creator 3.6.2 from oddgravity.de to quickly create playlists on the flash drive and they work well with SYNC.

If you want an MP3 player so that you can use it other than in the car, there are a host of them on Amazon at a variety of price points. I got one made by AGPTEK when my Sansa died and have been very pleased with its performance.

I tried using a USB drive but didn't work (not sure if something is wrong with the USB drive).

Will any MP3 player purchased from Amazon work the way iPods work? Do they come with their own programs so I can create playlists similar to the way ituens works?

You have to ensure that the USB flash drive is formatted in FAT32 format. If formatted as NTFS or another file system, SYNC won't be able to read it.

Nothing other than Apple original devices work like iPods. Other MP3 players don't come with a program like iTunes because it's not necessary. Just use your computer to copy MP3 files into folders on the player. You can create playlists on your computer or using the MP3 player's controls but it's generally easier on your computer.

Also, be sure to use a USB 2.0 drive. I tried a 3.0 in my 2017, and it wouldn't play from it. Said the device uses too much power.

But, if you want to spend a little extra money, and like good sounding music, check out the Fiio players. They're a pretty good alternative to a modern day iPod.

I'd say try this or save up for a new iPod.

Ok so I found a Fat32 USB for $20 (64gb) that works with Sync, and I used Windows Media Player to transfer all the songs and it works just like iTunes!

My only issue is my playlists aren't showing up in Sync, even though I copies over the playlists from WMP into the drive. Is there something special or another step I need to follow to add the playlists in the drive so that Sync will recognize them?

The playlist files contain information about the MP3 files including directories (folders) where they are stored. If the directory structure on the flash drive doesn't match what's on your PC then copied playlists won't work.

The easiest way to fix that is to put all of your music on the flash drive in whatever folder structure works best for you (commonly \Artist\Album\Track) then create new playlists in the root of the flash drive using Media Player or whatever other playlist software you prefer. Creating new playlist files from the flash drive (rather than copying from a computer) will ensure that the contents match the folder layout on the flash drive.

So are you saying to click on the flash drive in WMP and create new playlists instead of copying the existing playlists to the drive from WMP? Thanks! Ill try that tonight.

I tried adding the playlists and no luck. I know how to create playlists in WMP, and I drag it into my USB drive. But Sync doesn't recognize it. Can someone provide step by step instructions? Maybe I'm doing it wrong?

I'll just say again...fix your iPod. It's cheap and easy and way easier than the USB drive thing. Ford has full instructions in the Sync manual though, available online and in print.

My iPod Classic got stolen and instead of replacing it I got a premium subscription to Spotify. Any song I can think of is on there

Pandora Premium is the same. However, you can't search Spotify or Pandora via voice like you can an indexed iPod.

When you say that SYNC doesn't recognize the playlist, do you mean that it doesn't show up as available or that you can see it but not open it to play the tracks?

If it's not finding the playlist at all, try using Save As in Windows Media to save the WPL file to the root of the flash drive.

If it finds the playlist file but won't play anything in it, you can use a text editor like NotePad to open the WPL playlist file and check that the entries labeled "media src" actually point to the correct locations on the flash drive. Remember that all paths must be relative (i.e. they can't be absolute paths with drive letters).
For example:
will work but
will not work.

An alternative is to use the freeware program Playlist Creator instead of Windows Media Player: http://www.oddgravity.de/app-opc.php. It's much easier for adding folders and individual tracks (you can browse or drag-and-drop) and creating playlists. It also creates more standard (less Microsoft specific) M3U playlist files... although SYNC should be fine with WPL files since it was written by Microsoft.