Calling PS technical wizards; Help with ipod shuffle

[Steel]

So my Sony ''nothing fancy- but it works'' MP3 player died last week. Following a short memorial service I discarded the corpse and bought myself a fancy schmancy ipod shuffle (third generation).

But, how the heck I am supposed to use it? I have plugged it into the PC, charged it and heard the voiceover tell me to download itunes.

That is all well and good but I dont want to use itunes. I want to drag and drop my MP3''s. I did this and rather than playing my rather shameful and unpopular music, the faceless and increasingly irritating voice over tells me to download itunes.

Did I just throw €55 down the potty?

Can you tell me if I can use this machine like my old MP3 player?

My cranky pants are on

.

Help me please!

 

[tlh]

I am pretty sure you have to download itunes. That is how the hook ya. Make you stick w the brand so you don''t ahve to download all your music again once you''re on itunes... but I''m not a techie. I just had a sony, and then went to ipod 5 years ago, and my old stuff wouldn''t work, so I had to start reloading again from scratch.

 

[MonkeyPie]

You need itunes, but it''s free and you drag and drop your music in through it. It sucks to have to download it just to use the ipod, but once you get used to it, it''s really easy.

 

[Steel]

Thanks tlh & MP.

I spent a happy few hours on Google coming to a similar humbug conclusion.

The joy of the matter is that I am in the sticks and had been attempting to download ratting itunes since 6 pm. I cancelled it at 20% downloaded at 8.45pm. I rang long suffering DH who will take my laptop into work with him (he works in the city and had superfast broadband there). So problem solved.

I bought the pink one which I think is very sweet so I really hope it all works out.

Thanks again

.