Comments on: ITunes alternative to get music onto an iPhone?

Question: ITunes alternative to get music onto an iPhone?

gottabefunky — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 13:18:51 -0800

Is there a clean and simple alternative to iTunes for getting music from my Macbook Air onto my iPhone 4S?

Unless I'm missing something, most of the programs suggested in previous similar questions (iExplorer, etc) seemed designed to get music from your iPhone/iPod back onto your computer, not vice versa.

Basically I'd like something that operates like iTunes' "manage files manually" option should, clean and simple drag-and-drop, without all the your-phone-is-not-linked-to-this-library, sure-you-can-do-that-but-only-if-you-erase-your-phone-first bullshit inherent in that bloated monstrosity.

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 13:40:52 -0800

You might try running a demo of CopyTrans (Windows-only) through a demo of CrossOver for Mac.

By: Vhanudux

Vhanudux — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 13:44:09 -0800

Stupidly complicated suggestion: Upload all your music to Google Music (for free,) spend a dollar on one of the 3rd party Google Music iOS apps that supports store offline, and bingo. It still makes more sense than iTunes.

By: Oktober

Oktober — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 14:33:21 -0800

If you haven't used iTunes 11 yet, it's dramatically improved. That being said, your options are pretty much limited to using a 3rd party service like Google Music, Amazon Cloud Drive, or Spotify if you want to completely disentangle your computer from the iTunes infrastructure.

By: oceanjesse

oceanjesse — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 14:35:57 -0800

Dropbox will do it I think, but it's not pretty.

By: OmieWise

OmieWise — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 15:16:31 -0800

Are you on a Mac? Apparently Songbird can do this, but I have no idea how well it works. I played around with Songbird a couple of years ago, but have not kept up with it. iTunes 11 is horrible.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 18:39:41 -0800

[Answer the question, don't just complain about Apple.]

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 18:41:57 -0800

If you can't get CopyTrans working, I suggest perhaps giving iTunes 11 a try and ignoring the haters who likely do not use it. The interface is much simpler and cleaner. Specific to your question, in iTunes 11, one way to add songs to a device is to drag-and-drop tracks or albums from the library onto the device icon in the top-right corner of the window. Devices will be listed whether the device is tethered or over wi-fi, if your phone and laptop are on the same wi-fi network.

By: soelo

soelo — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 20:10:04 -0800

Devices will be listed whether the device is tethered or over wi-fi, if your phone and laptop are on the same wi-fi network.

You have to enable wi-fi syncing from the phone, it doesn't happen automatically. Also, Apple says. "You can sync a device wirelessly with multiple computers, but each type of content can be synced with only one computer."

By: blue_beetle

blue_beetle — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 07:48:01 -0800

The Apple-approved method would be iTunes Match. I've never plugged my computer into my iPhone, but my whole library is visible on the phone and I just download the songs I want from "the cloud".

By: gottabefunky

gottabefunky — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 11:42:27 -0800

(Probably should add that one major issue seems to be that I have my very large music collection on an external drive that isn't always connected to the computer. ITunes doesn't handle this well.)

Comments on: ITunes alternative to get music *onto* an iPhone?

Question: ITunes alternative to get music *onto* an iPhone?

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Comments on: ITunes alternative to get music onto an iPhone?

Question: ITunes alternative to get music onto an iPhone?