iPhone to Captivate roadmap?

[Avaren]

I am coming from an iPhone 3g and purchased a captivate today. I am really happy so far, but there are a few looming shadows that frighten me still.

The first is iTunes. I have a ton of music and podcast subscriptions in iTunes. I HATE the software, so I'm not really looking for some way to let it sync to my phone, but more to replace it with something better. Is there a best program to use, and can I import my iTunes library with it?

The second is the customizability of android. I know you can get custom keyboards, sms apps, media player apps.. etc etc. It is VERY overwhelming. I am a pretty hardcore nerd so with time I will surely find everything I need, but I wish there was a starting point.

Also I know there are some things I can do on this phone that I couldn't with the iPhone, but I don't necessarily know what they are.

I was thinking that if people wanted to help me out, and maybe we could kind of groupthink a roadmap that would help other people who switch from their iLife to Android freedom :]

Thanks in advance.

 

[mongstradamus]

I think media monkey or double twist can sync your music so you won't have to go to itunes anymore.

 

[Thare187]

iSyncr also works well. You still use iTunes, but it works well. It's only $2.99.

 

[chicknlil]

In terms of customizing...I'm also pretty nerdy, and likewise was a bit overwhelmed initially at alllll the options. I jumped in by checking out this thread and then asking lots of questions while I tweaked things on my own, trial by error. I haven't yet bothered with a custom keyboard (I use the Samsung one still).

In terms of iTunes, I don't use it (haven't for years) but I seem to recall some on here saying there was an issue with DRM and that had to be resolved before you could get your playlist set up on the Captivate. I could be mistaken though!

 

[alphadog00]

If any of your iTunes music is DRM protected it won't play on Android without removing DRM first. Also, AAC files are a pain - their tag format is slightly different from MP3 and Android doesn't like it much. Finally iTunes does some weird things with tags and I had to retag most of my songs. I used MP3tag to retag my files - make sure your album art is embedded as a tag and not a jpg file or you will see it your picture library.

I use mediamonkey to rerip and manage media. I like the Samsung music player but it has one major flaw - it won't use playlists made outside of the player - so if you have lots of music you can't really create separate playlists for different groups of music and syn the playlists.

As for customizing and what Android can or can't do - it depends on your needs. There are some things missing on the captivate in regards to Exchange integration, but if you don't use Exchange, it is pointless to list them all.

I like some of the Touchwiz features, so for me I made a black background and moved my icons and deleted some widgets and changed the number of homescreens and i am happy.