WALTR for Mac

Bypassing iTunes – the best way to sync media to an iOS device

iTunes is infamous for rigid adherence to MP3/AAC and MP4 formats for audio and video, but a new Mac application called WALTR has managed to find a way to circumvent those restrictions, allowing unsupported files to be easily added to the native Music or Videos apps without conversion, jailbreaking, or other tomfoolery.

The software is a model of simplicity: launch WALTR without iTunes running, plug in any currently supported iOS device, then dragand-drop one or more files onto the unobtrusive window. After roughly 30 seconds of processing, files will be copied to the device (a 750MB AVI movie took about 45 seconds), ready for playback alongside previously synced media or iTunes in the Cloud media.

Although WALTR works well for bypassing the archaic iTunes sync, the real magic is how the software deftly makes unsupported formats – MKV, AVI, FLAC, APE, WMA and OGG among them – work without the need for conversion software.

Users will want to pay close attention to file names and artwork restrictions though – WALTR will use the first image found inside a folder for a thumbnail. The workaround is to temporarily create new folders for each album or video with only those media file(s) and image. Softorino is working on a more permanent solution. JR Bookwalter

The most userfriendly method we’ve seen for syncing music and videos to iPhones and iPads.

Is that all there is? With WALTR, there’s no muss, no fuss, and no iTunes required to get your media across to an iOS device.