as far as you just want to sync music you don't have to install itunes.
if it's a brandnew ipod i think you have to format it first and put the firmware on it with the updater program that came with it on the cd. when the ipod is recognized by your system it will be recognized by MM. in that case you should be able to use it without itunes.

I'm thinking about a Nano for travel. Will I have to install iTunes first, or can I use MM only? I really hate the idea of installing iTunes on my box.

I also hate itunes with a passion that is somewhat irrational, but real nontheless. I think it stems from apple's "cute" image that seems a thin veil for expensive fluff with relatively little user control.

But I do think one additional advantage is that itunes can do nested playlists, or have playlists be part of other playlists. This may someday be a feature in MM, as I understand it.

The freeware version of MM also does not allow for "smart" playlists, such as sorting by rating, number of times played, and such things.

I have an ipod video, and mediamonkey does a great job to sync with it, but I would point out that I still can and do use itunes to manage the photos and videos on the ipod. There are few (if any?) good 3rd party programs out there that do this.

So while itunes has a few advantages and is ultimately still necessary (for video and photos at least), it has some major drawbacks. Itunes is a relative computer resource hog (load times and resident memory), and it leaves little room for customization. Mediamonkey is MUCH faster at every function that any other program I have used. Mediamonkey has a great forum with very helpful users, and some pretty helpful people writing cool custom scripts (I wish I knew how to do this, but others think of better scripts than me anyway). Bottom line, if the feature seems useful and is not present in mediamonkey, there is either a script for it or an update on the horizon. We must keep in mind that MM is a great player/organizer with the ability to sync to the ipod, and while they do a great job keeping this up to date, it is not the sole purpose of the program.

Finally, I think it's worth noting that you should commit one way or the other, at least as far as syncing MUSIC goes... While you can import play counts and ratings from itunes to MM, I don't believe it is possible to go in the other direction. So if you build up a good playcount and rate a lot of songs with MM, you will lose all of these by going back to itunes.

I ramble on too much...

well for me the picture feature isn't that important. i only use MM for managing my mp3s and to synch them to my ipod. that job is perfectly done by MM. but you're right it's often better to use "specialized" software than an "all in one" solution. i.e. MM offers a cd-burning feature too, but i don't use that. for that i allways use nero (in some ways it goes to an "all in one" too ).

btw. i forgot the video feature of the newest ipods. that isn't supportet by MM too.

but for the music managing and synching i just use MM as the only one.

Good to know. There is a program called Markable by ipodsoft.
http://www.ipodsoft.com/index.php?/software/markable

I might spend the $15 for this, as it seems to be a very quick way to combine audiobook files and convert them to "bookmarkable" form.

It actually seems like a more elegant solution that iTunes as it handles a lot of formats and has more options.

This function would be a good model for new features in MediaMonkey, no?

I'm perfectly willing to use more than one program, if they do a better job as a whole than iTunes does.

I've found with many different kinds of software, that single, specialized programs usually do a better job than "All-in-one" type programs, and I think this is definitely the case with iTunes. A perfect example is PC Security. ZoneAlarm is the best firewall, but their Suite includes a crappy antivirus program. The best antivirus program has a suite that includes a crappy firewall.

So even though it's a little more work using more than one program, you get the best of all worlds.

one thing you can't do with MM ist sync photos to your ipod. the audiobook feature of the ipod isn't supportet either as far as i know. but if you only haver music to sync, just try it out. the MM ist free in the standard version.

I haven't used Media Monkey with iPod yet, because I don't have my iPod.

I hate iTunes with a passion, though, and would use ANYTHING before iTunes.

My question: What's missing from MediaMonkey that you get in iTunes? Are there functions that iTunes can do that MediaMonkey cannot (yet)?

I'm just curious if there is anything I'm "giving up". Most likely, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. iTunes is a horrible resource hog, and I'd love to be able to drop it entirely. Especially now that they bundled Quicktime with it.