I have tried to use iTunes to sync music to my iPad (3rd generation running iOS 7) via Windows 7 and simply cannot get it to do what I want*. First of all, iTunes is slow and crashy, even on my i7 machine with 16GB of memory and an SSD. It's frustrating to deal with.
Secondly, the interface is awful and keeps changing. I really can't stand learning new software that I use a few times a year. Apple software just plains sucks on Windows. Yes, I know I can get a switchless install and do away with some of the cruft, but it's iTunes that's the issue.
I have searched around and found a few "free" programs, but they have little bonuses like adware and other things that I'd prefer not to have on my machine. I am happy to pay for software that's "clean" of any extras and simply lets me dump music onto my iPad. If it's free, that's a bonus, but most certainly not a requirement.
I also have Linux machines available (VM and real) and am happy to go that route instead.
Does anyone have a suggestion?
* What I want to do is have a playlist I call "iPad" that holds music I generally want to listen to at work. It contains more files than my iPad can fir into storage. iTunes
appears to be able to fill my iPad randomly up to a certain amount but leave a bit of space free (like 2GB according to my settings in iTunes). iTunes, despite this, overfills the iPad and then complains that there's not enough room. Perhaps I'm not understanding the settings, but it's frustrating nonetheless and far more complicated than is should be.
Here are my settings: