Music Apps?

[Julian]

So I've not been using any music playing apps for a long time, and I just bought an iPhone 6 for my wife and she asked me to sync the music on our server to her phone. After banging my head on itunes for an hour I give up! This is one seriously crappy interface, or I'm missing something very basic! Now I must say that while I was in India my wife connected the phone to itunes and said she was forced to create a new itunes account....so I've no idea what she did....but it really shouldn't be this f'ing hard!!!!

That said.....I'm a Droid user anway.....

So what apps do you guys like for playing your musing (MP3s)? Looking for something that I can load on the computer, iphone and Droid, that will build playlists fast (like the genius does) and syncs easily to all!

 

[Glassman]

do you have Amazon Prime?

I've been using and abusing their app lately....free, it's my favorite word.

 

[sstegh]

I'm a Droid user anway.....

 

[DonWon]

I'm a fan of Spotify.

 

[RightStuff]

+1 for Spotify... What are these Mp3s you speak of?? All I see are playlists of absolutely any music I want, and it's awesome. Only downside is get use to a few ads (frequency is still less than a radio station), or pay for the Premium version @ $10/month. If you have more than one account (like you and your wife) check out the family plan to get a discount on the additional account(s).

I did use Google Music for awhile back when it started (such a hipster thing to say) and it was ok, I know they made some changes since I used it last, so that's probably gotten better in the last yr or so too. I know that worked a lot like iTunes, you could upload a bunch of MP3s and play them thru the app. So that is a good option too.

 

[Julian]

do you have Amazon Prime

No.

My wife wants her music and playlists on her phone to work out to.

 

[4x15mph]

I have amazon prime, google play, and the free version of Pandora. My kids love music and I couldn't keep up with iTunes anymore and the idea of playing back the same music.

I would say that most of my family uses google play as the go to app which let's you download music for off-line listening (aka, no data charge). Amazon is probably just as good but we used google early on and now Amazon is free to us since we have Prime.

When I go to the gym, I use Pandora since I like some of the playlists that I have set up. I can take the ads since there are not too many and I get different music than I listen to outside of the gym (i.e. Google play app).

You can't go wrong with any of them and I definitely think that iTunes has past its time. I have over 80,000 songs and I never go back to it or the ridiculous backups that I used to manage.

 

[DieselCamel]

+1 for Spotify

 

[Gumbeaux]

If she wants her music and playlists, then iTunes has been working great for that for me. We have 25K plus songs. Load it all into iTunes. Then you can create playlists and download only those playlists to the phone so you won't have your entire library stored locally on the phone. Then, you can always access the entire library via the iCloud and download things on the fly if you want.

Spotify is the best thing going. On the computer it can access your iTunes playlist and library, essentially duplicating it in your Spotify list. If you pay monthly, you can also download songs locally to the phone...

Amazon. If you have Prime they just came out with some neat free Prime playlists. We often just spin one of those up in the house and let it ride. Works great.

If we actually ever BUY music I do it via Amazon and then import to iTunes (it's automagic on the Mac). That way, it's in my Amazon cloud and then iCloud as well.

 

[Murf'n'surf]

You need to import your music into iTunes then create playlists.

 

[Julian]

I'm looking for an alternative to iTunes.....

 

[smthng]

MediaMonkey. Does everything, including making USB sticks for car radios and syncing to just about anything including iThings. Try the free version. If you dig it, I find the gold version is worth the price. Http://www.mediamonkey.Com

 

[JetPowered]

Spotify Premium if streaming/local download is an option. Download the copies locally. Listened to Spotify in offline mode with my custom playlist on the plane last night.

While iTunes is far from ideal these days, it's really not that hard to get it setup and sync locally and over WiFi.

 

[biffdotorg]

I'm looking for an alternative to iTunes.....

You have an iPhone, iTunes is what is used and apple controls that. Media Monkey, above is one of the few I have ever heard of that can maintain your music on an iphone. I didn't see that ability on their site, but SMthing says it can.

That being said, just because you have to use iTunes, doesn't mean you have to go buy all your music there. Download like you normally would and import into iTunes like mentioned above.

I personally love Pandora and paid for the subscription. But I hate to stream on the boat and chew up data. So I heard some folks have setup a proxy that sits in the middle of the Pandora stream, saves an MP3 file, saves it in folders by Artist, Album and even hits up Amazon and Google to download the artwork. When loaded on iphone or USB stick, the artwork shows when playing the songs. It will also automatically create a playlist for the particular Pandora station you are recording.

Don't ask me to tell you how to do it, as I personally have never done it (smile) A google search will tell you how to setup the proxy and create a massive collection of your favorite Pandora stations and do all the playlist work for you. Let's just say there is USB stick in my truck and in the Alpine in the boat that are well stocked for this summer.

 

[Julian]

I left figuring out iTunes to my wife....and her new iPhone! I've heard Apple support is amazing....hopefully she'll use it! In the meantime...I just listen to XM! I've not loaded any music on my Droid.....as I typically always have access to XM.