JetAudio iAudio U2 MP3 Player

Two software applications are bundled with the iAudio U2. One is the JetShell software which servers as an audio player, CD ripper, MP3 encoder, playlist manager and file transfer agent for the player. Since the player shows up as a removable drive in Windows Explorer, a dedicated file management program isn’t necessary, but the extra features are pretty useful if you don’t have a solution already to perform these functions. Currently I have a separate CD ripping/encoding application, audio player and then use Windows explorer to transfer music to the player. The JetShell software isn’t the prettiest player around, but it is very intuitive to use and offers all these functions in one package.


JetAudio6 Basic is also included on the CD. JetAudio6 is JetAudio’s fully featured media player that they offer as a for-purchase product. It plays video files as well as audio in nearly every format you could think of. As implied by the ‘Basic’ tag, the version of JetAudio supplied with the U2 is a cut-down version. The playback functions are left mostly intact with some of the higher-quality sound output functions being reserved for the paid version. Encoding and recording functionality is also stripped down but those aren’t high on my list of needs as I’m generally only ripping from CD and the JetShell software offers MP3 encoding. One annoying ‘feature’ of JetShell is that the first time I started it, a pop-up box with advertisements for JetAudio products appears. It only came up the very first time I used it, but it still bothered me. All in all, JetAudio6 is prettier and has a bit more functionality than JetShell, but since it’s essentially a demo, there isn’t much point in using it. If you want to play more than your MP3s, then it might be worth a purchase, but I found JetShell to be more than adequate.


You can decide if this is really considered software or not, but another feature to add to the ‘cool’ list is that you can change the startup logo on the iAudio U2. Each time you start up the player, the default JetAudio animation is played before you are dropped at the playback screen. These are simply files stored in the directory structure of the player. You can download new logos from the iAudio website that are created by JetAudio or by other users that have submitted them to the forums. I found quite a few unique animations on the site but if there is nothing there that suits your taste, JetAudio makes a tool called JetLogo which you can download from their website to make your very own logo.

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