Syncing a mac with a Galaxy S3

[WRXHokie]

So painful.... I mean terribly painful....

Android file transfer doesn't work, doubletwist doesn't work... you have to use Kies (which blows by the way). Half the time Kies won't recognize my phone, and when I sync it puts movies I want on my SDcard into the camera folder on the sd card instead of the movies folder. Ugh! I can't wait until AFT or doubletwist are updated to work.

 

[b24pgg]

doubletwist doesn't work

They're working on fixing this: http://support.doubletwist.com/doubletwist/topics/mac_wont_open_doubletwist

 

[MRU]

So painful.... I mean terribly painful....

Android file transfer doesn't work, doubletwist doesn't work... you have to use Kies (which blows by the way). Half the time Kies won't recognize my phone, and when I sync it puts movies I want on my SDcard into the camera folder on the sd card instead of the movies folder. Ugh! I can't wait until AFT or doubletwist are updated to work.

Be grateful, as sucky as Kies is..... at least Samsung have bothered.

HTC have yet to release HTC Sync Manager for the Mac, and have indeed dropped most mention of it from their website. The HTC One X has only been out 6 months and still no mac software to support it from them.

This is another example of a type of android fragmentation. What we need is Google to take control and release a universal piece of software for syncing android devices to a mac & iTunes libraries.

It's almost as if most Android manufacturers work on the assumption that the mac doesn't matter as most will be using an iPhone.

 

[paulsalter]

It's a shame Apple cant be bothered to write Android versions of their apps so people can have a choice and easily use Apple ecosystem

but using the right software, syncing is easy

 

[MRU]

It's a shame Apple cant be bothered to write Android versions of their apps so people can have a choice and easily use Apple ecosystem

but using the right software, syncing is easy

But it shouldn't be Apple's issue. Microsoft don't provide one themselves either for Android..
But the manufacturers of Android handsets all support Windows OS with their own syncing solutions, so why they can't be bothered to give Mac users the same is quite annoying.

Google themselves have the most to gain by providing decent Mac software (and Pc software) and as it is their own phone OS and it would help dispel the issues of fragmented user experience.

Microsoft DO provide a software solution for WINDOWS PHONE OS to sync them with your Mac, regardless of your devices manufacturer. This is all I want Google to do. Is it so much to ask for ?

 

[alent1234]

It's a shame Apple cant be bothered to write Android versions of their apps so people can have a choice and easily use Apple ecosystem

but using the right software, syncing is easy

apple has had public API's for others to sync itunes with their devices for many years. i've sync'd my blackbery with itunes years ago. same with an HTC phone.

its up to the device manufacturer to use the API's to write the software like RIM and HTC have done

 

[paulsalter]

But it shouldn't be Apple's issue. Microsoft don't provide one themselves either for Android..
But the manufacturers of Android handsets all support Windows OS with their own syncing solutions, so why they can't be bothered to give Mac users the same is quite annoying.

Google themselves have the most to gain by providing decent Mac software (and Pc software) and as it is their own phone OS and it would help dispel the issues of fragmented user experience.

Microsoft DO provide a software solution for WINDOWS PHONE OS to sync them with your Mac, regardless of your devices manufacturer. This is all I want Google to do. Is it so much to ask for ?

dont know about windows side of things as dont use windows

Apple want you to use their eco system so have syncing with it
Google want you to use their eco system so provide syncing with it

Do iOS devices sync with windows media player?
Can iOS natively sync with Google media?
Can iOS natively sync my Amazon media?

You want Google to sync with other companies, how about Apple doing the same

I have no problem with Google doing this, I just dont see it as Google's issue

If I want Amazon data I use Amazon App
If I want Google data I use Google App
If I want Apple data I use.....A third party

 

[paulsalter]

apple has had public API's for others to sync itunes with their devices for many years. i've sync'd my blackbery with itunes years ago. same with an HTC phone.

its up to the device manufacturer to use the API's to write the software like RIM and HTC have done

And I sync my iTunes currently with my Android devices

As you say, you sync your HTC phone with iTunes, so whats the big fuss about getting google to write an app for it

 

[MRU]

dont know about windows side of things as dont use windows

Apple want you to use their eco system so have syncing with it

Do iOS devices sync with windows media player?

But iOS devices come with their software iTUNES which works on PC alongside MAC

Google want you to use their eco system so provide syncing with it

That's my point.. THEY DONT!! That's what I want them to do !!! I want google to provide a universal software solution that allows me to sync my data on my computer to their device and back.

That's the point. Why is there no 'official' software for Android that comes with my Android device. I don't care if it's locked to the Google eco-system, I just want a reliable means to do so without having to turn to a third party.

 

[paulsalter]

But iOS devices come with their software iTUNES which works on PC alongside MAC

So Apple are forcing people to move to iTunes to get syncing working

Easy on Android then, get people to use Google play for Music etc, no extra software needed

That's my point.. THEY DONT!! That's what I want them to do !!! I want google to provide a universal software solution that allows me to sync my data on my computer to their device and back.

That's the point. Why is there no 'official' software for Android that comes with my Android device.

The official software for Android is Google play, everything is there and synced to all your devices

Google use cloud services, not local apps, store your data in them and all works perfectly

If you want to use Android with third party products (iTunes) get a third party app or get Apple to write an app...EASY

 

[MRU]

So Apple are forcing people to move to iTunes to get syncing working

Easy on Android then, get people to use Google play for Music etc, no extra software needed




The official software for Android is Google play, everything is there and synced to all your devices

Google use cloud services, not local apps, store your data in them and all works perfectly

If you want to use Android with third party products (iTunes) get a third party app or get Apple to write an app...EASY

And even though you have to use iTUNES you just copy your existing library of music into it, and it syncs with your phone. Easy.

Why can't google provide a simple music / media managment application to do the same ?



As for google music, That would be fine if Google Music was outside of USA but isn't.

Your making excuses for them unnecessarily. I want to be able to sync my music to my phone, make playlists, download and upload files, back up my applications, especially the big games, and that is why I want a synching solution.

I'm not asking for it to sync to iTUNES. i'm asking for a solution that does access my music and data on my mac.

Microsoft with Windows Phones do it...
Even BlackBerry does it.
Why not google??

and don't say because it's cloud, because that's not appropriate until they offer full google services everywhere. At the moment they dont, or for syncing music and photos on your computer or accessing the downloaded content, or checking for updates to your handset etc..

Google are being lazy, it's easier to just let the phone manufactures to write software (or not in the case of HTC) even if it's poor. This hurts the Google Android experience.

 

[paulsalter]

And even though you have to use iTUNES you just copy your existing library of music into it, and it syncs with your phone. Easy.

Why can't google provide a simple music / media managment application to do the same ?



As for google music, That would be fine if Google Music was outside of USA but isn't.

Your making excuses for them unnecessarily. I want to be able to sync my music to my phone, make playlists, download and upload files, back up my applications, especially the big games, and that is why I want a synching solution.

I'm not asking for it to sync to iTUNES. i'm asking for a solution that does access my music and data on my mac.

Microsoft with Windows Phones do it...
Even BlackBerry does it.
Why not google??

and don't say because it's cloud, because that's not appropriate until they offer full google services everywhere. At the moment they dont, or for syncing music and photos on your computer or accessing the downloaded content, or checking for updates to your handset etc..

Google are being lazy, it's easier to just let the phone manufactures to write software (or not in the case of HTC) even if it's poor. This hurts the Google Android experience.

Agree on the services not available outside the US, this sucks

Good luck with getting the rest, while you battle for it I will enjoy using those features via a third party/google

 

[WRXHokie]

They're working on fixing this: http://support.doubletwist.com/doubletwist/topics/mac_wont_open_doubletwist

I wish google had android file transfer working for it... thats what i really want, but i'll take doubletwist.

 

[theluggage]

I'm not asking for it to sync to iTUNES. i'm asking for a solution that does access my music and data on my mac.

The Android File Transfer app doesn't work on the Note 2 either - nor does 'Camera Mode' (iPhoto recognises it but doesn't actually work).

The Kies application available from Samsung sort-of works for me, but it is a bit temperamental and buggy (the WiFi option won't work for me though).

If you install WinAmp on both Android and OS X then it will sync selected playlists from your iTunes music to your phone via WiFi - not wonderful though - rather slow, doesn't let you sync to the 'external' SD card, and syncs the music files but doesn't create playlists. The Android part of WinAmp looks like a better music player than the standard one, though.

Best solution so far seems to be to get a MicroSD card for the phone, initialise it in the phone to create the directories, then extract it, plug it into the Mac using a USB card reader (or a microSD-to-SD adapter if your Mac has an SD slot) and it will show up as a drive: 'just' drag-and-drop your music files into the 'media' folder - but that's no substitute for proper sync.

I've got my own kludgey command-line script that, once you can write files to the SD card, will do a 'proper' sync of some or all of my iTunes library - it reads the 'xml' version of the iTunes library, finds the music files, creates an 'image' of what needs to be on the device (using symbolic links), creates .m3u playlist files then uses 'rsync' to update the SD card efficiently. One of these days maybe I'll re-write it into something that other people might be able to use... I think I could also make it work wirelessly if a phone has a SSH server and the rsync binary installed.

 

[Wrathwitch]

Very easy and painless solution is iSyncr. I use isyncr wifi and it syncs all media that is not drm protected. Wirelessly, quickly and easily. Customer support is very swift and good.

 

[WRXHokie]

Very easy and painless solution is iSyncr. I use isyncr wifi and it syncs all media that is not drm protected. Wirelessly, quickly and easily. Customer support is very swift and good.

Yeah, that would be a last resort just because no matter what you use, syncing movies over wifi is painfully slow.

 

[towg]

I gave up on syncing my music via mac so just signed up for the US version of Google Music and it took four days to upload around 15000 songs.

Still at least I know its available all the time and I can download certain playlists if I need them offline. Much better than endlessly faffing around with Kies, Easy Phone Sync, iSyncer and the like.

 

[Dolorian]

I gave up on syncing my music via mac so just signed up for the US version of Google Music and it took four days to upload around 15000 songs.

Still at least I know its available all the time and I can download certain playlists if I need them offline. Much better than endlessly faffing around with Kies, Easy Phone Sync, iSyncer and the like.

Indeed, this is what I did too, synced my iTunes library with Google Music and now I keep my music in iTunes in sync and access it with my S3 or from any computer by logging in with my Google account, can access them on my PS3 too and I will also have them available instantly when I get my Android tablet next month. It is really the best way to manage your music if you have an Android device imo.

 

[atticus27]

kies is pretty good for syncing media files, so is isyncr. I like using google's play music app for when I forget to sync my phone (it uses a good amount of data though if you aren't on an unlimited plan).
getting a micro sd to sd card adapter is good too, but I agree with everyone else it's kind of a pain to sync. Google needs to make a cross platform app similar to kies for easy syncing.
That's the one thing the iphone does better for me.

 

[GoCubsGo]

Look up Missing Sync. Any non-Apple device I've ever had was so much better when paired with this app.

 

[Dolorian]

I like using google's play music app for when I forget to sync my phone (it uses a good amount of data though if you aren't on an unlimited plan).

You can set it up in the preferences to only stream music when you are on Wifi. You can also download the songs you listen to the most to your phone so that it doesn't needs to stream them.

 

[MRU]

Indeed, this is what I did too, synced my iTunes library with Google Music and now I keep my music in iTunes in sync and access it with my S3 or from any computer by logging in with my Google account, can access them on my PS3 too and I will also have them available instantly when I get my Android tablet next month. It is really the best way to manage your music if you have an Android device imo.

and are in the states.... Sadly a lot of us will never get to experience this synchronicity.

 

[Dolorian]

and are in the states.... Sadly a lot of us will never get to experience this synchronicity.

There are ways to make it work outside the US. I use it and am not in the states

 

[MRU]

There are ways to make it work outside the US. I use it and am not in the states

Yeah but I cant be bothered paying for a VPN or proxy DNS

 

[Dolorian]

Yeah but I cant be bothered paying for a VPN or proxy DNS

No need to, Tunnel Bear is your friend.

You only need to use it for the initial sign up on Google Play Music. After that, you can turn it off and continue to use it without problem.