CopyTrans Manager, by WindSolutions, is a FREE iTunes replacement for Microsoft Windows. It’s much faster and lighter (uses less memory) than iTunes, however, it is also much simpler. It does, though, still have all of the important features that iTunes has – adding media to your device, edit song tags, album artwork, create/manage playlists, play music, etc.

There are many great features that CopyTrans Manager has, however, there are also some (not too bad) down sides to it. The newest version, v0.919, is now compatible with both iOS 4 as well with the iPhone 4 which is great considering the fact that already 3 million+ people now own the iPhone 4. The Manager is great for (very) simple use. There’s no fancy buttons or menus with endless options to go through which makes it extremely easy for non-computer savvy people to use (like my mother :D). It does offer some other benefits, however, like it’s usage of less memory than iTunes (not to mention there’s no installation needed).

Now this is not a complete iTunes replacement. You can’t buy music from it and your device must be plugged in for you to use it. The reason why you need to plug in your device, though, is because it’s an iPod manager, not an iTunes manager. This program isn’t meant for you to just open it up and listen music from it like you would with iTunes. It’s specifically meant to manage the media that’s stored on your devices.

Also what I found, was that I had to run the program as an administrator (right click the icon and select “Run as Administrator”). This is most likely due to the fact that I’m running on a 64-bit machine. I didn’t like the UI (user interface) that much just because it seemed a bit out-dated (don’t let the UI reflect upon how the program performs). In the next version, I’d like to see a new UI, one that possibly resembles and works with Windows Aero theme that is present in both Vista and 7. Other than that, though, the program works just as advertised – fantastically, but be sure not to mistake it for an iTunes manager, it’s an iPod manager (two completely different things). You can download it for free from www.CopyTrans.net.