iTunes alternative

Blisterman · 01-07-2011 10:38pm #1

Switched from an iPhone to a Samsung Galaxy SII, and looking for a good way to put music on it.

I have far more music than I have space, so can only put about 4,000 songs on it.
With my iPhone, I had it set to only sync smart playlists, which I set up based on rating, date added, date last listened to etc.

So it was constantly updated automatically based on my listening habits. Is there anything similar for Android? Doubletwist seems closest, but it doesn't seem to have smart playlists, so I'd have to contstantly import from iTunes, every time I synced my phone.

Kenny Logins · 01-07-2011 11:50pm

You can add another SD card, up to 32gigs.

Breezer · 02-07-2011 2:38am

Do you not want to use iTunes at all? You can use TuneSync (available in the Android market) to sync your phone with iTunes. You can set up all your playlists in iTunes just as before, and select which ones you want to sync. Syncs automatically over wifi every time you change something in iTunes, or it can be set to work over a USB cable, or only when the phone is charging.

squire23 · 02-07-2011 8:00am

Breezer wrote: »

Do you not want to use iTunes at all? You can use TuneSync (available in the Android market) to sync your phone with iTunes. You can set up all your playlists in iTunes just as before, and select which ones you want to sync. Syncs automatically over wifi every time you change something in iTunes, or it can be set to work over a USB cable, or only when the phone is charging.

Never heard of this - sounds like a great app.

Blisterman · 07-07-2011 2:34pm

Installed Tunesync. Two issues though:

1. It takes a good 20 minutes to sync, even when only one or two songs are being transferred.

2. Despite ticking the box, it doesn't update the play count, which is a problem, because my playlists are based heavily around date last played.

Is isyncr any better?
http://jrtstudio.com/iSyncr

Riesen_Meal · 07-07-2011 2:41pm

Have you tried Google Music as a matter of interest?

Blisterman · 07-07-2011 3:17pm

Well, I listen to a lot of music on the tube here in London, where there's no mobile signal, so streaming's not really an option.

Jackobyte · 07-07-2011 8:05pm

Blisterman wrote: »

Well, I listen to a lot of music on the tube here in London, where there's no mobile signal, so streaming's not really an option.

Google music doesn't stream AFAIK. It stores files locally and syncs

Professey Chin · 07-07-2011 8:19pm

With Google Music you can mark whatever albums you want to listen to offline then it caches them

Blisterman · 07-07-2011 8:57pm

Oh right. Can you set smart playlists? And can you cache them over wi fi?

Professey Chin · 07-07-2011 9:53pm

Dunno.I only got my invite today so ill have to take a look later

It does have smart playlists alright. Ill check the playlist caching

EDIT: Yep you can. Create the playlist and it appears under your Playlist section in the music app then you can make available offline

Zonda999 · 07-11-2011 3:54pm

Sorry to resurrect this but have a few questions about syncing music to my android (Galaxy S)

Not an inexperienced android user or anything but there a few things i bever straightened out. When i got my galaxy s about a year ago, my ipod classic was still working fine so i just continued to use it as my music player. Now though, my ipod is dying and im gonna switch to my galaxy s for my music

So anyway, using an ipod for music for the last 6 years means itunes was/is the only music management software i have ever used. My listening is always based around playlists of tunes i have recently played or recently added. That means that when syncing my ipod, the tracks i have listened to on the ipod in the meantime became part of the updated recently played playlists on itunes or whatever. As in the play counts on itunes were updated with what was played on the ipod

From what i've seen so far though, the various ways that one can get itunes to sync playlists to android devices(isyncr, doubletwist etc..), it only works one way, as in the next time when you're syncing the android phone, songs you've listened to on the android device in the meantime do not show up in itunes as having being played.

My question is, basically, is there any app that would potentailly allow this with itunes, or any other music management software programme that allows proper syncing of my device the way i have gotten used to being done on itunes?

Cheers!

mathie · 07-11-2011 5:55pm

Zonda999 have you looked at Squeeze Player and Squeeze Commander?

You download the Logitech Squeezebox software on your laptop (it works with Logitech devices but you don't even need them)

You can then just stream the music from your laptop to your phone which is what I do. It can then keep track of playlists etc.

Zonda999 · 07-11-2011 6:02pm

Thanks for the response mathie. Tbh i don't think id really consider a soluion that involves streaming, cal me old fashioned but i'd definitely rather local storage

Since i posted that, i had another look around isyncr and i think it does what i'm looking for

When you say sync, do you mean just copying my music to the device's SD card?
Nope. iSyncr is smarter than that. In fact, iSyncr updates iTunes with what you’ve been listening to. If you know what a smart playlist is then this is the app you have been waiting for.

I'm going to give that a try and see what hapens. This is hard (and expensive) work sorting this out!

BopNiblets · 08-11-2011 10:48am

7digital is an MP3 store and player if you're looking to buy music also, keeps your music in the cloud too if you need to re-download it.

BaconZombie · 09-11-2011 4:38pm

I've used DoubleTwist is in the past, works great for both Android & USB based players.

Zonda999 · 13-11-2011 7:44pm

I really have to say, isyncr is the only app you need in terms of itunes use with android. Been using it for the last week now and it as good as makes your android phone into an ipod. Its greatest feature is how it inputs your metadata back into itunes when you sync, meaning that your smart playlists are always up to date on both your phone and itunes library on your computer. Well worth the €2.50

Should mention too that power amp is a superb music player and will bring out the best sound quality in your device. The equaliser is great, and can be changed very easily. The UI probably isn't the most modern but its very hard to fault the operation of the app, highly recommended for €3.50

Was gonna say as well that a lot of people, when they're considering buying a smartphone, be it either iphone or android, probably feel "trapped" in the itunes ecosystem with their ipods, as regards to playlists, song ratings and all that. I know itunes has plenty critics around these parts but being practically the only music management software i've ever used, changing was always going to be difficult, and although its not the most efficient software around, i never had any issue with it.

iTunes alternative

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