Desperately seeking sync

[rfkam]

After three years with the iphone I purchased an LG L9 and while everything hasn't been smooth I am getting closer to usability everyday. The one thing that has me scouring the internet seeking a solution is syncing my media - music and photos.

Since my phone uses MTP it doesn't mount on the desktop so double twist and everything else that I have tried will not see my phone. I am down to using android file transfer, which puts me back to the days of using drag and drop, except back then I used bluetooth to connect the two devices.

It wouldn't be so bad if I only had a few songs but the playlist I want to transfer is made up of purchased songs and song of the day podcasts that I converted to AAC - found that when I left them in MP3 format my iphone and ipod sometimes didn't transfer them. Minus any that still have DRM it's about 2,000 songs. I like to keep them on my mac and iphone/ipod in the order they are added to the playlist (sorted by date added). Using ATF and dragging and dropping, some of the artwork transferred some didn't and they are in alphabetical order. I ended up erasing the external sd and just adding a handful of songs. I like to keep this playlist on my phone and would love any help in doing so.

I know that it will not be as seamless as the iphone/itunes and that's ok but is there anything out there or do I need to wait until applications and/or mac os can access my phone using MTP.

**macbook pro 10.6.8, android 4.1.2

 

[Jessica Lares]

Have you tried AirSync for DoubleTwist?

 

[rfkam]

not yet. I wanted to find something free. Maybe I should stop being cheap and give it a try. Thanks

 

[Digital Skunk]

Have you tried AirSync for DoubleTwist?

Very good features in DoubleTwist, and I personally like iSyncr.

There are a number of ways to sync pics. I use Dropbox, then there's Picasa, and a few other apps as well.

 

[ageorges]

Not easy

I tried iSyncr but the desktop portion doesn't work on the latest Mountain Lion, it doesn't start.
All free options did not work with Note 2 (4.1.2).

 

[Digital Skunk]

I tried iSyncr but the desktop portion doesn't work on the latest Mountain Lion, it doesn't start.
All free options did not work with Note 2 (4.1.2).

Neither of those were the case for me. I am running the latest version of ML and have a Note 2.

iSyncr starts and works fine for me. I'd check with the app dev to make sure you get that issue resolved. I was a little skittish paying $5 for an app.

 

[3bs]

Neither of those were the case for me. I am running the latest version of ML and have a Note 2.

iSyncr starts and works fine for me. I'd check with the app dev to make sure you get that issue resolved. I was a little skittish paying $5 for an app.

Does iSyncr sync playlists for you? including smart playlists? doubleTwist has been nothing but a PITA for me.

 

[rfkam]

I have tried double twist and just tried isyncr, as well as a couple more last night and still nothing. If ATF is the only way to do this then that means i'll be going back to carrying my ipod and with me. One step forward...

This is getting frustrating. Syncing a smartphone in 2013 should not be this difficult. I have been at this for several days and everything points to having to spend money and hope it works. I don't think you should have to pay to put a playlist on a smartphone.

Sorry for venting, just annoyed.

 

[Digital Skunk]

Does iSyncr sync playlists for you? including smart playlists? doubleTwist has been nothing but a PITA for me.

Yes, I think it updates your play counts as well, but I haven't really checked. It does though, update my 300 most played via iTunes, and since i play my music from my phone the most often, I assume it's updating the play count.

It also does the basics like album art, and playlist creation, etc. that syncs back to iTunes.

Oh, and it does play bought from iTunes in the past that may be locked in a DRM . . . unless DRMs have been removed and I've been living in a hole.

 

[jamezr]

I have tried double twist and just tried isyncr, as well as a couple more last night and still nothing. If ATF is the only way to do this then that means i'll be going back to carrying my ipod and with me. One step forward...

This is getting frustrating. Syncing a smartphone in 2013 should not be this difficult. I have been at this for several days and everything points to having to spend money and hope it works. I don't think you should have to pay to put a playlist on a smartphone.

Sorry for venting, just annoyed.

No please vent away! I agree with you...I have the GS4.....love my phone. But if Apple releases a 5 inch iphone........I am back. I feel like the Android vendors have really let their customers down by not releasing something to sync the phones they make. Samsung has Kies and there are lots of other software out there but nothing really works that well. Plus as you pointed out....we should not have to PAY to get this to work. I want something that will let me import my existing playlists...then let me manage them going forward in a nice graphically pleasing way to manage playlist arrangements. It can't be that hard for a huge company like Samsung to get this done.....

 

[Digital Skunk]

No please vent away! I agree with you...I have the GS4.....love my phone. But if Apple releases a 5 inch iphone........I am back. I feel like the Android vendors have really let their customers down by not releasing something to sync the phones they make. Samsung has Kies and there are lots of other software out there but nothing really works that well. Plus as you pointed out....we should not have to PAY to get this to work. I want something that will let me import my existing playlists...then let me manage them going forward in a nice graphically pleasing way to manage playlist arrangements. It can't be that hard for a huge company like Samsung to get this done.....

What you say is justified, but remember that Apple licenses iTunes. I am sure Google reached out to try to get native syncing in Android, but Apple refused and rightfully so. Same thing with Microsoft and Palm and others.

Just like you have to have iTunes and an iTunes supported device to sync from iTunes to said device, you'll need a device that has a desktop version to sync with the device version.

Hence, DoubleTwist and iSnycr.

Now as far as paying for the function, that's between the dev and the end user. I know many that hate iTunes and don't mind drag and drop while I on the other hand love iTunes, but can't stand limited phones, so $5 wasn't too bad.

 

[jamezr]

What you say is justified, but remember that Apple licenses iTunes. I am sure Google reached out to try to get native syncing in Android, but Apple refused and rightfully so. Same thing with Microsoft and Palm and others.

Just like you have to have iTunes and an iTunes supported device to sync from iTunes to said device, you'll need a device that has a desktop version to sync with the device version.

Hence, DoubleTwist and iSnycr.

Now as far as paying for the function, that's between the dev and the end user. I know many that hate iTunes and don't mind drag and drop while I on the other hand love iTunes, but can't stand limited phones, so $5 wasn't too bad.

But i don't need iTunes except once for the intial sync.....I can even export the playlist to be imported by another application. I want Kies to be able to sync my playlist along with the songs in the order I have them and play counts and preferrences. That is not a lot to ask......I also want it to be able to run on my Mac and not just for Windows. Right now iTunes is free......Samsung should at this point in time with as many phones as they have sold be able to give its customers this kind of software.....

 

[blairh]

How bout AirDroid?

 

[rfkam]

The playlist that I want on my phone is the same one I had on my iphone. It's made up of purchased songs and converted song of the day podcasts, in total almost 2,000 songs. I don't want to drag and drop on the phone then spend hours sorting. This is what I did with my old motorola slider phone five years ago.

I'm also a photographer and I export low res jpegs from lightroom to add into iphoto and create albums. Having those on my phone is a quick and easy way to always have my work with me (a pocketable portfolio). Those photos number around 2,500, and growing. I simply do not have the time or desire to drag, drop and sort all of this stuff.

I thought I did enough research but maybe not. Unfortunately, i'm past my exchange date so it looks like i'll be carrying around several devices.

I know it's apples and oranges but if adobe can reverse engineer almost ever camera manufacturers proprietary raw format and provide support within weeks, if not less, of a new cameras release google could provide a solution if they wanted.

 

[Nabooly]

Google Music? Give it a try. https://play.google.com/store

Syncs seamlessly with iTunes. All your playlists, playcounts, date added...etc. will be synced automatically and uploaded. Once you download the app on your phone you will have access to your whole itunes library. This is one of my favorite parts of Android.

 

[jamezr]

Google Music? Give it a try. https://play.google.com/store

Syncs seamlessly with iTunes. All your playlists, playcounts, date added...etc. will be synced automatically and uploaded. Once you download the app on your phone you will have access to your whole itunes library. This is one of my favorite parts of Android.

I have heard about it but have not tried it. But my understanding was that it streams the music from the internet. So this could eat up any data quotas people might have on their service plans.

 

[rfkam]

I have heard about it but have not tried it. But my understanding was that it streams the music from the internet. So this could eat up any data quotas people might have on their service plans.

From what i've read it looks like you could load music on the phone to avoid any data usage but the music library is still in the the cloud under google control and I don't trust google or apple for that matter. I trust myself and want to be able to control my media the way I want to control it not the way google or anyone else wants me to.

Not trying to sound like some paranoid old fashion crybaby but whatever happen to choice? It's cool with me if google would like you to upload your media to the cloud but that's not what i'm interested in doing. I just want to load one playlist and have it exist on my phone and my phone only and be able to plug my phone into my computer every once and awhile to update that one playlist.

Researching before the move to android I thought double twist would provide this but after trying it and several others it hasn't. I've read that they are working on a solution to recognize phones using mtp so hopefully time will solve this.

 

[mib1800]

From what i've read it looks like you could load music on the phone to avoid any data usage but the music library is still in the the cloud under google control and I don't trust google or apple for that matter. I trust myself and want to be able to control my media the way I want to control it not the way google or anyone else wants me to.

Not trying to sound like some paranoid old fashion crybaby but whatever happen to choice? It's cool with me if google would like you to upload your media to the cloud but that's not what i'm interested in doing. I just want to load one playlist and have it exist on my phone and my phone only and be able to plug my phone into my computer every once and awhile to update that one playlist.

Researching before the move to android I thought double twist would provide this but after trying it and several others it hasn't. I've read that they are working on a solution to recognize phones using mtp so hopefully time will solve this.

Dont blame Android or others. Blame apple for your predicament. Apple locked you in making life difficult for you outside of Apple eco-system. I think it is quite difficult to find a workaround in the "free" world which will work well with the "hermit" world of Apple. If there is one then the rest of the world would have found a way with North Korea.

 

[jcpb]

From what i've read it looks like you could load music on the phone to avoid any data usage but the music library is still in the the cloud under google control and I don't trust google or apple for that matter. I trust myself and want to be able to control my media the way I want to control it not the way google or anyone else wants me to.

Not trying to sound like some paranoid old fashion crybaby but whatever happen to choice? It's cool with me if google would like you to upload your media to the cloud but that's not what i'm interested in doing. I just want to load one playlist and have it exist on my phone and my phone only and be able to plug my phone into my computer every once and awhile to update that one playlist.

Researching before the move to android I thought double twist would provide this but after trying it and several others it hasn't. I've read that they are working on a solution to recognize phones using mtp so hopefully time will solve this.

Do it the way most PC/Windows users do with their music collections, instead of approaching it a la Steve Jobs.

I used only AFT to put music onto my S4. As for playlists? I'll bother with that later. PowerAMP can play any music files iTunes can, except .m4p (Apple Protected AAC (read: DRM'ed)).

 

[rfkam]

Dont blame Android or others. Blame apple for your predicament. Apple locked you in making life difficult for you outside of Apple eco-system. I think it is quite difficult to find a workaround in the "free" world which will work well with the "hermit" world of Apple. If there is one then the rest of the world would have found a way with North Korea.

How is it apples fault for using mtp which seems to be the problem with 3rd party syncing apps? How is it apples fault for google not providing a real sync? Apple has no responsibility to make sure android works with my computer. That's google decision whether they want to take the time and energy to do such a thing and apparently they don't. Others have done it so it's not impossible. Microsoft provides a solution, how good it is i'm sure is open to debate but at least they supply something. Doubletwist and isyncr did it and they don't have the resources google has. Google has made a conscience decision that it's either drag and drop or the cloud. That has nothing to do with apple or itunes and everything to do with google dictating how I use this phone.

I hate that I might be coming across as liking itunes, so, let me just clarify that in the beginning I really liked it. It felt fast and lean and got out of the way but with every update it got bigger and clumsier. I have come to look at it as a necessary evil that should be hacked into pieces and put on a starvation diet. I have 5,000 songs in my library and I don't need them all on my phone just one playlist of 1,950.

I don't want this to degenerate into some apple bad android good war because that solves nothing and this whole "free" and "hermit" stuff is nothing more than perception. Apple and google are two massive companies battling over control, one wants to sell hardware and the other wants to sell you everything and to do that they have to convince you that they are better than the other. All i'm after is a reasonable way to get some stuff on my phone that doesn't involve me wasting hours sorting thousands of songs and photos that have already been sorted.

At this point i'm willing to carry several devices and wait it out because I believe eventually i'll find a solution but for now i've given up on trying because I just don't have the time to waste and it only cause aggravation. After all it's only a phone.

 

[mib1800]

How is it apples fault for using mtp which seems to be the problem with 3rd party syncing apps? How is it apples fault for google not providing a real sync? Apple has no responsibility to make sure android works with my computer. That's google decision whether they want to take the time and energy to do such a thing and apparently they don't. Others have done it so it's not impossible. Microsoft provides a solution, how good it is i'm sure is open to debate but at least they supply something. Doubletwist and isyncr did it and they don't have the resources google has. Google has made a conscience decision that it's either drag and drop or the cloud. That has nothing to do with apple or itunes and everything to do with google dictating how I use this phone.

I hate that I might be coming across as liking itunes, so, let me just clarify that in the beginning I really liked it. It felt fast and lean and got out of the way but with every update it got bigger and clumsier. I have come to look at it as a necessary evil that should be hacked into pieces and put on a starvation diet. I have 5,000 songs in my library and I don't need them all on my phone just one playlist of 1,950.

Not sure what you are getting at here. I have no problem plugging my Android into any NON-APPLE PC and have the PC recognised it as a MTP device. If you are using once again NON-APPLE music library PC app (like WMP, WinAmp) then you can sync your music library to Android phone easily.

The only issue here is with Apple/itunes. It is a closed system and Apple does not allow itunes to sync files to non-apple device. WMP sync to Android phones (eventhough Microsoft & Google are at logger head). So why not Itunes? You should ask hermit Apple for an answer.

I don't want this to degenerate into some apple bad android good war because that solves nothing and this whole "free" and "hermit" stuff is nothing more than perception. Apple and google are two massive companies battling over control, one wants to sell hardware and the other wants to sell you everything and to do that they have to convince you that they are better than the other. All i'm after is a reasonable way to get some stuff on my phone that doesn't involve me wasting hours sorting thousands of songs and photos that have already been sorted.

At this point i'm willing to carry several devices and wait it out because I believe eventually i'll find a solution but for now i've given up on trying because I just don't have the time to waste and it only cause aggravation. After all it's only a phone.

The difference is day and night. Google products run on any platforms incl. Apple. Apple products run on no other.

Whether you like it or not, Apple is the SOLE problem why you are having such issues. Either you get out of Apple eco-system entirely or live with the issues. Apple spend billions of dollars in its tech development to make sure you cannot have the best of both worlds (i.e. have "free" world work together with apple world)

 

[blairh]

I hate that I might be coming across as liking itunes, so, let me just clarify that in the beginning I really liked it. It felt fast and lean and got out of the way but with every update it got bigger and clumsier. I have come to look at it as a necessary evil that should be hacked into pieces and put on a starvation diet. I have 5,000 songs in my library and I don't need them all on my phone just one playlist of 1,950.


At this point i'm willing to carry several devices and wait it out because I believe eventually i'll find a solution but for now i've given up on trying because I just don't have the time to waste and it only cause aggravation. After all it's only a phone.

There really is no need for you to carry multiple devices. You can easily get 2k songs onto your Android device with AirDroid. You'll just need to drag and drop probably 100 songs at a time. (Otherwise it will crash AirDroid.) And it's wireless.

I'm assuming you have a playlist of 1,950 songs because you deem that to be the music you really want access to at all times. You won't be able to drag and drop the entire playlist in one shot with AirDroid, but like I said you can do this in pieces. Probably 20 times in one sitting. It should take you roughly 45 minutes to do the entire playlist.

If things like cover art matter to you then upload your collection to Google Music first, organize the artwork to your liking, and then use the Google Music app on your Android phone to play your music. It will reflect the artwork uploaded to Google Music in the first place. You can also access the playlist you uploaded via AirDroid by tapping 'My Library' and then 'On Device'.

Also if you upload all your music to Google Music you can listen to it for free when you are in a wi-fi area. Tap 'My Library' and then 'All Music'.

If you have questions about AirDroid let me know. It's really a dead simple and excellent application. And free too.

 

[SeanR1]

http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-57582439-285/the-complete-guide-to-using-android-with-a-mac/

This CNET article might help.

 

[jamezr]

http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-57582439-285/the-complete-guide-to-using-android-with-a-mac/

This CNET article might help.

I think most of us have read and discovered the big how tos about syncing with different PC platforms. But I don't want to just sync my music. I have taken the time to arrange playlists for what ever activity I am doing at the time. I have a playlist for workouts. This playlist has the songs arranged in specific order i like to hear them when working out. I have a playlist for when I am driving that plays over bluetooth. So just syncing music is the easy part. But I also want my playlists and in the order i have taken the time to arrange them also.....

 

[SeanR1]

I think most of us have read and discovered the big how tos about syncing with different PC platforms. But I don't want to just sync my music. I have taken the time to arrange playlists for what ever activity I am doing at the time. I have a playlist for workouts. This playlist has the songs arranged in specific order i like to hear them when working out. I have a playlist for when I am driving that plays over bluetooth. So just syncing music is the easy part. But I also want my playlists and in the order i have taken the time to arrange them also.....

Sorry I was too simplistic, I didn't mean to offend (if I did). How about this http://www.tunesync.com/

There is a lite version of the app that is free.