Hi Guys,
I am new to the world of Windows Mobile having got my TP2 on Saturday which is my first Windows Mobile phone. Prior to this I had an iPhone 3G. I am trying to find a media player which has similar functionality to the "smart playlists" available in iTunes. I would like to be able to create some playlists based on ratings (e.g All Tracks with 4 stars).
So far I have found Pocket Player 4 which has some of these playlists built in but I have been unable to find a way to create my own ones. I know I can hack the existing ones but I was looking for something a bit cleaner. Do any media players for WinMo exist with this kind of functionality? I have tried some of the free ones (Kinoma Free Play, Nitrogen etc) but I have been unable to find what I'm looking for. Does anyone know if any of the pay ones have this available? If not I guess I will just stick with Pocket Player but I don't want to buy it yet incase something better exists.
Other than this minor issue I am loving my new toy .
have you tried creating a smart playlist with windows media player on your computer...then sync it (using windows media player) to your phone?
Yeah, but as soon as you copy the playlist to the device it just becomes a static dumb playlist. I was looking for proper smart playlist support on the device itself where they playlist would update on the device without the need for syncing.
I'm thinking I will just settle on Pocket Player and hack the files to suit my needs. I am quite surprised that such a feature is not in more of the WinMo media players though.
groovebiscuit said:
Yeah, but as soon as you copy the playlist to the device it just becomes a static dumb playlist. I was looking for proper smart playlist support on the device itself where they playlist would update on the device without the need for syncing.
I'm thinking I will just settle on Pocket Player and hack the files to suit my needs. I am quite surprised that such a feature is not in more of the WinMo media players though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
so you're saying you add a song to a certain playlist then you want the mp3 to automatically download to the phone when in a data connection? thats a nice feature but alot of people wouldn't want there phone to use that much data at once, i believe if i'm already at a computer adding to my playlist i might as well have my phone synced because it will be charging and adding the songs the much much faster. But i do see how it could be useful, for instance if you're not at your home computer and want to add 1 or 2 songs to a playlist. But i guess the would only work if I actually PURCHASED all my music,
p-slim said:
so you're saying you add a song to a certain playlist then you want the mp3 to automatically download to the phone when in a data connection? thats a nice feature but alot of people wouldn't want there phone to use that much data at once, i believe if i'm already at a computer adding to my playlist i might as well have my phone synced because it will be charging and adding the songs the much much faster. But i do see how it could be useful, for instance if you're not at your home computer and want to add 1 or 2 songs to a playlist. But i guess the would only work if I actually PURCHASED all my music,
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Click to collapse
No, no; that's not what I mean at all. I've probably just not explained it very well.
In Windows Media Player on the PC you can create an auto playlist. So for example I create a playlist called "All Songs With 5 Star Rating" and set it to play all songs that are rated 5 stars, it would then list all the tracks in my Library that have 5 stars. Then if I play a couple of tracks from my Library that are not rated and I rate them with 5 stars they would then automatically appear in my "All Songs With 5 Star Rating" auto-playlist; I would not need to add them to it manually.
I would like to be able to emulate this functionality on the device. As it stands at the moment if I create such a playlist in Windows Media Player and sync it to the device it will only sync the songs currently in the playlist. I cannot then give tracks on the device a 5 star rating and have them automatically added to the playlist on the device UNTIL I do a sync with the PC.
I hope I've explained it a bit better.
I'm thinking I will either just live with the Windows Media Player route for now and pick up Pocket Player at some point in the future.
Thanks for the input though guys, much appreciated.
groovebiscuit said:
No, no; that's not what I mean at all. I've probably just not explained it very well.
In Windows Media Player on the PC you can create an auto playlist. So for example I create a playlist called "All Songs With 5 Star Rating" and set it to play all songs that are rated 5 stars, it would then list all the tracks in my Library that have 5 stars. Then if I play a couple of tracks from my Library that are not rated and I rate them with 5 stars they would then automatically appear in my "All Songs With 5 Star Rating" auto-playlist; I would not need to add them to it manually.
I would like to be able to emulate this functionality on the device. As it stands at the moment if I create such a playlist in Windows Media Player and sync it to the device it will only sync the songs currently in the playlist. I cannot then give tracks on the device a 5 star rating and have them automatically added to the playlist on the device UNTIL I do a sync with the PC.
I hope I've explained it a bit better.
edit: nevermind i fully understand now, you want the phone itself to create the autoplaylist. windows mobile media player sucks and isn't that advanced but i defintely would agree with what you want. hopefully they are able to port the zune hd music player to their phones.
I'm thinking I will either just live with the Windows Media Player route for now and pick up Pocket Player at some point in the future.
Thanks for the input though guys, much appreciated.
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oh ok i understand. I do have mine set up like that. if you try to use the auto playlist that populates by windows media player then it will not work, but if you create your own auto playlist that picks up every song lets say abover 4 stars, you can then sync that playlist to your phone. i have mine set up that way. on my desktop its called favorites and everytime i rate a song it will show up in favorites if its rated above 4 stars, and when i sync it will then be synced to my phones playlist. Basically what you want i do all the time.
p-slim said:
oh ok i understand. I do have mine set up like that. if you try to use the auto playlist that populates by windows media player then it will not work, but if you create your own auto playlist that picks up every song lets say abover 4 stars, you can then sync that playlist to your phone. i have mine set up that way. on my desktop its called favorites and everytime i rate a song it will show up in favorites if its rated above 4 stars, and when i sync it will then be synced to my phones playlist. Basically what you want i do all the time.
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Click to collapse
Yes, but I want to be able to rate a song already on the device itself and have it added to the auto playlist on the device without the need for a PC. Does that make sense?
Some forewarning: I tried this a few months ago and it didn't work. I am currently running Bionix-V. I have tried this on two Windows 7 machines and it worked on both. I do mean Zune Pass protected content too, not just the phone showing up in WMP as a syncable device.
Here is what I did:
1. In USB Settings, set it to prompt. Simply setting to Media Player should also work.
2. Connect to PC. In my case drivers where installed as it was the first time I had connected the phone since putting Bionix-V on there. The MTP application should start up automatically and connect.
3. After driver installation the auto-run dialog appears. The top option for me is Sync digital media to this device using Windows Media Player
4. After a few moments you should see the vibrant in the top right corner as a syncable device. The Next Device link will allow you to sync to the SD card.
5. Either wait for the slow as hell media search to find/update media, or simply use Windows Explorer to drag and drop into the right pane.
6. Sync!
7. A subsequent reconnection using this procedure resulted in WMP not finding the device. Repeating steps 1 and 2 was enough for WMP to find the device.
So that's what I did. Depending on response I may come back and put up a better guide. The moral of the story is that it's at least possible, possibly after a bit of star alignment since this previously didn't work. I just did this today so I'm not sure how updating the DRM time-bomb works, worst case is delete/re-add.
confused
I'm confused...
Are you talking about using your Vibrant with the Zune Pass service? (unlimited music downloads $x/mo, DRM makes sure music only plays when subscribing)
Does the Vibrant understand the Zune DRM? (I would find that surprising)
Are you just talking about the Vibrant showing up as a music device in Windows Media?
Robert
I pose the same question....
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Sorry for the confusion.
I do indeed mean that it accepts Zune Pass DRM'd WMA's. The Zune software won't work with it (it's strictly for Zunes). The key is using WMP. I honestly think the whole thing is a loophole in how WMP works with the Zune Pass content. I've used this method on a Cowon DAP for the last year or two. I wouldn't be at all surprised if WMP was actually downgrading the DRM to one of the older, more standard ones. Based on experience with my Cowon DAP though, the DRM is definitely still intact after being transfered to the device.
I'm not sure why it works now when it didn't work before though. Previously WMP wouldn't recognize my phone, even though the MTP app was running.
Further info for you, just checked the details in the default Music Player app on one of the tracks. Media type is audio/x-ms-wma. Further down is a "Right Status" section with the data
Type: Date
Validity: - 2011/3/16 22:44:36
yea, I've been doing this since I first got my phone. The songs do expire if you cancel your subscription or don't sync with Windows Media Player for a while - and there are quite a few songs that won't sync (because of their DRM licenses). It works ok though. Good enough if you want some of your music with you all the time.
Honestly, I love the Zune Marketplace subscription service and have always just been m'eh on my player. Still I find I use my Zune more for music than my phone though because with the player I can have all my music with me. I wish there was an Android Zune app, but we all know that will NEVER happen.
megatherian said:
yea, I've been doing this since I first got my phone. The songs do expire if you cancel your subscription or don't sync with Windows Media Player for a while - and there are quite a few songs that won't sync (because of their DRM licenses). It works ok though. Good enough if you want some of your music with you all the time.
Honestly, I love the Zune Marketplace subscription service and have always just been m'eh on my player. Still I find I use my Zune more for music than my phone though because with the player I can have all my music with me. I wish there was an Android Zune app, but we all know that will NEVER happen.
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You could always use audiogalaxy to stream all your music from your pc to your phone over the network
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
Zune Pass
Does this work with Andriod, WMP?
So, I got home with my Lumia 920, plugged it in to my PC, and found it does not sync with Zune. In my Zune library I have about 16k songs, and about 10 auto-playlists based on songs I "like", most played, etc. So, I figured its not the end of the world, and I downloaded the WP8 sync client for Windows 7 from here http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/how-to/wp8/windows-phone-app-for-desktop . This app is an extremely basic sync application that reads your entire music library every time it loads and allows you to select music and playlists to sync. For it to load completely, and go through my entire music collection, took about an hour. BUT, when it was done, I was able to select my artists and auto-playlists to sync, and they synced fine. So, a few hours later, I plugged my phone in again... the app had to reload my library again, and didn't save any auto-sync information... so I cant just plug my phone in and forget about it. This is very, very weak sauce... not so much for artists, but for auto-playlists, which is the primary way I listen to music.
So, then I decided getting all of my music into the XBOX Music cloud is the way to go, as that music automatically shows up on the phone. So, I took an image of my w7 machine, and upgraded to win8. I then opened the xbox music app, and nothing showed up, even though my libraries were configured. Why, you might ask? Well, my music is on a network share that doesnt support indexing, so microsoft has deemed it useless. No video or music from that store will show up in my native microsoft video/music applications. Sigh... ok, fine. So, then I copied 100gb of music to my data drive, and it showed up in the xbox music app fine. Then, in the xbox music app, I went to the playlists tab, and nothing showed up... BUT there was an "import playlists" button. So I went ahead and clicked that, and that imported all of my auto-playlists... which then shortly after showed up on my phone as well in the xbox music app, as they were synced to the cloud. So I figured I had finally gotten it, but I wanted to run one test. So, I opened my zune software, and marked another song as "liked", making my "songs I like" auto playlists go from 269 songs to 270. I then rebooted, and opened xbox music again, and the "songs I like" playlist would not update. So, it seems the import only imports the playlist as static, and not "auto". So, I figured I would try deleting all of them, and importing again. While that would be extremely clunky, I could deal with that. That worked, and the updated "songs I like" playlist showed up... but now they have a (2) after them. As a geek, that drives me crazy, so I wanted to go on and try another, automagic, solution.
So, I opened WMP, and let it import my music collection. No zune auto-playlists showed, so I created them in WMP. However, now WMP wont sync half of the songs on the autoplaylists, because the songs are "not supported by device". These are .wma zunepass songs... however, it will sync SOME .wma zunepass content... just not all of it. I havent figured out what it will and wont, yet.
So, thats where I am at now. WMP is working well enough, for now... definitely not a permanent solution. My biggest issue, now, is that I dont know if song plays on the lumia 920 will register in WMP, and there is no way to rate the songs on the lumia.
Oh, and one more thing, I listen to a podcast that doesnt (and wont) show up in the xbox podcast library, and there is currently no native solution for custom podcasts.
To summarize... Frankly, XBOX Music sucks. Ok, great, now music is in the "cloud" and we no longer have to plug in a cable. With wireless sync, we werent that far off from that anyway, and at least then we still had full zune functionality. Right now, XBOX Music doesn't even begin to compete with the likes of spotify, etc... XBOX Music is a very, very, basic solution for listening to music. For the most part, your only option is searching for an artists and listening to an album of theirs. Playlists are manual, and you cannot rate music, period. For me, that's enough reason to use another service with more functionality.
I didnt create this thread as a flame MS thread. Obviously, I like MS... I went to the ATT store 10 minutes after it opened to get a lumia 920, and I had a lumia 900 before that. I want this software to improve.
I feel your pain. Not as big a collection. Not sure how this works completely with xbox music in cloud. But I did the trick on my surface to show external music on microsd to show in libraries.. I am seeing playlist and some of my music in the cloud.
loudog3114 said:
So, I got home with my Lumia 920, plugged it in to my PC, and found it does not sync with Zune. In my Zune library I have about 16k songs, and about 10 auto-playlists based on songs I "like", most played, etc. So, I figured its not the end of the world, and I downloaded the WP8 sync client for Windows 7 from here http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/how-to/wp8/windows-phone-app-for-desktop . This app is an extremely basic sync application that reads your entire music library every time it loads and allows you to select music and playlists to sync. For it to load completely, and go through my entire music collection, took about an hour. BUT, when it was done, I was able to select my artists and auto-playlists to sync, and they synced fine. So, a few hours later, I plugged my phone in again... the app had to reload my library again, and didn't save any auto-sync information... so I cant just plug my phone in and forget about it. This is very, very weak sauce... not so much for artists, but for auto-playlists, which is the primary way I listen to music.
So, then I decided getting all of my music into the XBOX Music cloud is the way to go, as that music automatically shows up on the phone. So, I took an image of my w7 machine, and upgraded to win8. I then opened the xbox music app, and nothing showed up, even though my libraries were configured. Why, you might ask? Well, my music is on a network share that doesnt support indexing, so microsoft has deemed it useless. No video or music from that store will show up in my native microsoft video/music applications. Sigh... ok, fine. So, then I copied 100gb of music to my data drive, and it showed up in the xbox music app fine. Then, in the xbox music app, I went to the playlists tab, and nothing showed up... BUT there was an "import playlists" button. So I went ahead and clicked that, and that imported all of my auto-playlists... which then shortly after showed up on my phone as well in the xbox music app, as they were synced to the cloud. So I figured I had finally gotten it, but I wanted to run one test. So, I opened my zune software, and marked another song as "liked", making my "songs I like" auto playlists go from 269 songs to 270. I then rebooted, and opened xbox music again, and the "songs I like" playlist would not update. So, it seems the import only imports the playlist as static, and not "auto". So, I figured I would try deleting all of them, and importing again. While that would be extremely clunky, I could deal with that. That worked, and the updated "songs I like" playlist showed up... but now they have a (2) after them. As a geek, that drives me crazy, so I wanted to go on and try another, automagic, solution.
So, I opened WMP, and let it import my music collection. No zune auto-playlists showed, so I created them in WMP. However, now WMP wont sync half of the songs on the autoplaylists, because the songs are "not supported by device". These are .wma zunepass songs... however, it will sync SOME .wma zunepass content... just not all of it. I havent figured out what it will and wont, yet.
So, thats where I am at now. WMP is working well enough, for now... definitely not a permanent solution. My biggest issue, now, is that I dont know if song plays on the lumia 920 will register in WMP, and there is no way to rate the songs on the lumia.
Oh, and one more thing, I listen to a podcast that doesnt (and wont) show up in the xbox podcast library, and there is currently no native solution for custom podcasts.
To summarize... Frankly, XBOX Music sucks. Ok, great, now music is in the "cloud" and we no longer have to plug in a cable. With wireless sync, we werent that far off from that anyway, and at least then we still had full zune functionality. Right now, XBOX Music doesn't even begin to compete with the likes of spotify, etc... XBOX Music is a very, very, basic solution for listening to music. For the most part, your only option is searching for an artists and listening to an album of theirs. Playlists are manual, and you cannot rate music, period. For me, that's enough reason to use another service with more functionality.
I didnt create this thread as a flame MS thread. Obviously, I like MS... I went to the ATT store 10 minutes after it opened to get a lumia 920, and I had a lumia 900 before that. I want this software to improve.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can't help but totally agree with you. This is a major oversight, especially since they didn't ease us off the Zune Player...
Well, after a few days WMP started tanking explorer.exe when trying to sync with my phone. So, I reverted to my win7 image and im using the windows phone app preview to sync music again.
un-fawking-beleivable. My computer kept tanking while trying to sync music, and I found out why. To sync, you have to unlock the phone, which I knew... but, if the phone re-locks while your syncing, the whole process is done for, and explorer will just hang until you remove the phone. SO, if you want to sync to your pc, you basically have to turn off the password lock on the phone.
I have the exact same way of organizing and syncing my music as you have. We're probably not alone and I hope this is somewhere high on the priority list.
Like you, I came from Zune with several smart playlists, most of them including the 'love track' option. It was a step back from iTunes with its 5 star range that let me create even more precise smart playlists, but it worked.
No Spotify in WP8 either, at least not for me. Can't find it in my marketplace. Last year I sidestepped to Spotify, hanging in after a good tryout deal, but Spotify lacks a lot of the songs I have listed in my playlists. So I was ready to move to XBOX Music, same idea, more songs - I had read somewhere. Jumped in with the one year deal, too quickly, too confidently.
Now I'm stuck with renaming formerly smart playlists and some songs that won't play because of some errorcode. No clue how to keep my playlists uptodate with ratings. Mind you, I've only been messing with this for two days. Time to go looking for workarounds while praying for a software update.
Guys, try MusicBee.:good:
This is a sad story, but I guess this is how it's "supposed" to be. I mean, MS kinda started from scratch (again) with their WP8, so they had to create some quick and working apps for basic needs (WP8 client). I think in time everything will get back, hopefully implementing WP8 support in Zune.
I for one I am very happing not having to fire up that Zune app everytime I want to deploy something on the phone, thought the Zune music was fine (especially with that zune pass).
PS: did you try with the Metro-style WP app?
This makes me think I should get another device for music... I have about 15gb of music I carry with me. Using Zune, its not a problem. Using something that needs to index everything at launch and not keep track of things already on the device is a problem.
In an effort to loose the "computer" requirement, they lost some basic features.
Sent from my SGH-i917 using Board Express
You could always use Google music? There's 3 decent apps in the store that work efficiently enough. Google music's uploader is optimized for...shudder...iTunes, but you can manually select folders, playlists should upload too as long as they're in the same folder. Of the three apps, I use CloudMuzik. Back in WP7 it worked BETTER than the google music app for ANDROID. Not sure now, I've only had my phone one day, but that's my suggestion.
Google's song limit is 20,000 songs, and you can have multiple users on the same account. "I really like your music library!" "Oh, really? let me hook my account up!"
Is it me or is Apple the only ecosystem that makes media synching simple across all computing devices? As an Android user, Google music is tolerable, but not great. After reading your experiences I feel like adopting WP8 would be a misstep in this regard at this point in time. Sad how behind and out of touch with the consumer market MS has been. I too hope these weaknesses become a priority with MS, especially with the launch of their next gen console this year.
How hard is it to develop official native apps that allow music (and other media) with playlists to sync seamlessly across pc, tablet, phone, and game console without having to pay the piper for cloud storage? Its 2013 for gosh sakes. Every operating system ecosystem should have this implemented and polished by now. It's not breaking news that media junkies want their data accessible on all their devices in an easy to manage manner.
I'm very tempted to invest in Apple as an ecosystem for simplifying this solution. I really hope by some miracle MS can sway me before my cell phone contract is up later this year. Honestly I want to believe they can do better than the offerings you folks are currently left frustrated with.
Since Zune is now useless for syncing in WP8, I've decided the time has probably come to uninstall it. However, I'm loathe to let the iTunes virus onto my PC after a bad experience several years ago, so what is the best alternative music player/manager?
What are you using?
I still use Zune because I like the interface but you can also still sync with Windows Media Player.
winamp,foobar, mediamonkey or VLC - take a pick
but i tend to just listen to xbox music and dont use the local storage anymore.. shame actually
but smart dj is just a nice random mode
I agree with sinister1, Zune is amazing. Still using it.
I use Windows media player and Zune, but Zune is much better sounding than WMP.
Sent from the fetal position using XDA Windows Phone 7 App
Winamp has been my choice for the last several years, but I recently decided to try foobar2000. Foobar...... lacks a lot of functionality in comparison to winamp. Still, the majority of Winamp's addons haven't seen updating for over 5 years (literally), and winamp being owned by AOL has some downsides (the installer tries to give you a lot of ****).
I don't think I'm going back to winamp, but that decision is more of a vague whim, since foobar can be very.... patchy. The modular nature of foobar means UI functionality across the program is incredibly inconsistent, even among the default components! People keep assuring me "everything is configurable" but that just doesn't seem to be true, short of writing a component from scratch to make it work the way I want. Still I've managed to overlook these flaws and settle in comfortably, I think.
Mediamonkey is fat. That might not matter on a newer computer, but I'm biased against software with inefficient (bad) programming. (Full disclosure, Winamp's modern skinning engine is fat- don't install that, it's optional, and get an older "classic" skin).
I found this app named MusicBee. I'm in the process of syncing all my music as far as tags once I'm done I will wipe my phone and try to sync using it, I will keep you posted; I have a very large collection so it might be a while.
Too bad someone can't hack Zune and make it wokr for WP8 just like they made WMDC work for WP7.
I used the Windows Phone 8 apps (both metro and desktop versions) and music syncing was pathetic. It also took up too much space and had no playlists. I removed all music from my L920 and set up sync with Windows Media Player. I got all my songs and playlists and increased my available storage by about 10GB. The only downsides are that I don't prefer WMP over Zune (who would??) and now nokias Rinstone Maker doesn't recognize pretty much all the songs as they are WMA and not MP3
Sent from my RM-821_eu_euro1_342 using XDA Windows Phone 7 App
AIMP 3
I am coming from an iPhone and boy boy BOY do I miss the seamless syncing between iTunes and my iPhone..
It was nothing short of great.....
Now that I am rocking an S4, I am definitely missing this feature. I am using Winamp right now, but its not very good at deciphering stuff..and Samsung Kies is a joke.
I am looking for a piece of software that would rock at syncing my music with my S4 in a nice fashion. Any suggestions as I am really REALLY missing my iPhone 5 now simply because of a very simple feature...
EpicMango said:
I am coming from an iPhone and boy boy BOY do I miss the seamless syncing between iTunes and my iPhone..
It was nothing short of great.....
Now that I am rocking an S4, I am definitely missing this feature. I am using Winamp right now, but its not very good at deciphering stuff..and Samsung Kies is a joke.
I am looking for a piece of software that would rock at syncing my music with my S4 in a nice fashion. Any suggestions as I am really REALLY missing my iPhone 5 now simply because of a very simple feature...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Songbird for sure! Here's the Google Play link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.songbirdnest.mediaplayer&hl=en
and here's for the desktop client http://www.getsongbird.com/
Really? Plug in phone, copy Music folder on PC to phone.
Not sure why you would want to use crappy software like itunes when you can just drag and drop your whole music folder.
I'd recommend isyncr, it works flawlessly for me
Sent from my Nexus 4
MHousos said:
Songbird for sure! Here's the Google Play link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.songbirdnest.mediaplayer&hl=en
and here's for the desktop client http://www.getsongbird.com/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use poweramp. Will it still work seamlessly with it?
EpicMango said:
I use poweramp. Will it still work seamlessly with it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know it will with the SongBird app, but not sure about PowerAmp...here's a thread on the subject though http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1562816
DoubleTwist works the best for me. Not sure about the other apps. It has a slight (but not very much) iTunes feel.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using xda app-developers app
iSyncr works great!
I'll also go for doubletwist. It has an integrated podcast manager as well.
geoldr said:
Really? Plug in phone, copy Music folder on PC to phone.
Not sure why you would want to use crappy software like itunes when you can just drag and drop your whole music folder.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree, if you are plugging the phone in, just treat it as a drive and drag and drop. Syncing with iTunes is a big pain and a waste if you don't use song counts or any of that nonsense. If you already have your music organized by artist and album, then copy/paste is a lot faster.
alphadog00 said:
I agree, if you are plugging the phone in, just treat it as a drive and drag and drop. Syncing with iTunes is a big pain and a waste if you don't use song counts or any of that nonsense. If you already have your music organized by artist and album, then copy/paste is a lot faster.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly. Especially since Android runs a media scanner whenever you unplug, so all your Music apps like stock or Poweramp will see the changes instantly. And you can sort by folder so this is a great solution.
Reviving the topic, to see if anyone has a suggestion for PC software to sync music with the Galaxy S4.
I would prefer to have a program to handle this, so I don't have to manually build the folder structure (artist\album\file.mp3) and also, so I don't have to remember which new files I've gotten that need to be uploaded. Right now I'm using Windows Media Player, it worked reasonably well with my Xperia Ion, but with the Galaxy I have to stop and restart the sync and then stop it again, since it never reaches 100% even though all the mp3 files were uploaded. Also, it is not really syncing, if I change anything in already uploaded files, like tag or artwork, the changes don't go through, even if I manually delete the old file from my phone card.
I've tried Winamp, it doesn't recognize the SD card and wants to upload the files to the phone internal memory. Both Kies and Songbird never really connect to the device, they stay trying to connect for a long time. And Doubletwist Desktop does not update the music library when some files are added, deleted or changed.
SPOTIFY... 8 bucks a month for an unbelievable amount of music. The offline mode makes tracks accessible without and data and you can share music with your friends. You can also check out what they are jamming to and discover new music. I don't even know what people use iTunes anymore. Spotify also has a desktop interface so you can enjoy your music at the office on the Pc or Mac
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Thanks for the info. I'm not at all interested in all the "social" stuff, I just need an efficient way to sync my PC music library with my phone. I considered Google Music at some point, since it was offering 20,000 songs (double my library) for free, that you need to upload. Problem is that there is no easy way to tell the program to store it in a specific folder in the SD card. Also, I don't think you can just make the whole library offline, you have to do it track by track, or maybe album by album. How is Spotify in these two issues? Although, quite frankly, for almost $100 a year I'll probably stick with WMP for free.