Anapod Explorer is a program that allows you to transfer music and
audio books to your iPod as you would in Windows Explorer. If you
don't need other functions in iTunes, such as a music library,
importing tracks from CD, and buying from the iTunes store, you could
use it instead of iTunes. The only thing you would still need iTunes
for is the initial configuring of the iPod so that Anapod Explorer
will recognize it (as I described in my earlier message) and for
updating your Shuffle. Since the configuring only needs to be done
once, a sighted person could help you with that. The update dialogs
seem very standard, so my guess is that they will read without
scripts. So in that case, you wouldn't need the scripts.
The only other drawback of Anapod Explorer is that with the previous
Shuffle, you could only transfer Format 4 Audible books using it;
lower formats wouldn't play if they were transferred using Anapod
Explorer. I don't know whether the same is true for the new
Shuffle. With early versions of the old Shuffle, Format 4 books
would play, but your place would be lost when you turned off the
iPod. This isn't true with later updates, but before you purchase
Anapod Explorer, I would suggest trying the demo to make sure this
isn't a problem with the new Shuffle.
The program is available from
www.redchairsoftware.com
When I bought it in March 2005, the version just for the Shuffle cost
US$20, and the version that worked with all iPods cost $30. There is
a demo; I don't know whether its functionality is limited.
