Help me ditch my iPod

[scrondar]

OK, finally moved up from my 20th century feature phone to an Android device, dropped a 16GB card in it, and am using PowerAMP for music (excellent app, BTW). Now I'd like to find a substitute for iTunes that will let me download podcasts and sync them and music on my phone. I am so used to the Apple paradigm that I'm completely unaware of how else this gets done, so please, help a budding Android brother out! BTW, on my Win7 64bit machine, Media Player knows about my phone when I connect, but nothing else. That's a start, but I'm hoping something better is out there. Many thanks.

 

[DroidXcon]

OK, finally moved up from my 20th century feature phone to an Android device, dropped a 16GB card in it, and am using PowerAMP for music (excellent app, BTW). Now I'd like to find a substitute for iTunes that will let me download podcasts and sync them and music on my phone. I am so used to the Apple paradigm that I'm completely unaware of how else this gets done, so please, help a budding Android brother out! BTW, on my Win7 64bit machine, Media Player knows about my phone when I connect, but nothing else. That's a start, but I'm hoping something better is out there. Many thanks.

Have you tried DoubleTwist, it has an interface very much like itunes and you can very easily just transfer your playlists over.

And congrats on the upgrade

 

[scrondar]

Hmmm, found Songbird and Winamp, both of which look like they might do the trick. Forgot to mention I tried DoubleTwist, didn't really care for it, but perhaps I should give it a second look. Any other suggestions? TIA.

 

[dcusick1]

Does anyone really use their Android device as a daily MP3 player? Real reason I am asking, is that I have both a Droid X and an Ipod Touch. I would LOVE to drop the Ipod, and just use my Droid. But I listen to my music at least 8 hours a day at work. I can't see it being possible for my battery to last for that. And if I had it on my charger all day, wouldn't that hurt the life of the battery?

Sorry, didn't mean to hijack the thread, just happened to be thinking of this, when I saw your post...

 

[Ricky Babalu]

Does anyone really use their Android device as a daily MP3 player? Real reason I am asking, is that I have both a Droid X and an Ipod Touch. I would LOVE to drop the Ipod, and just use my Droid. But I listen to my music at least 8 hours a day at work. I can't see it being possible for my battery to last for that. And if I had it on my charger all day, wouldn't that hurt the life of the battery?

Sorry, didn't mean to hijack the thread, just happened to be thinking of this, when I saw your post...

I use it all the time to listen to music. I have started with a fully charged battery and have listened to Pandora for 6 hours, the battery level dropped to 70%. I have listened to my music and have generally the same results. So no need to worry about battery drain.

 

[ls377]

Does anyone really use their Android device as a daily MP3 player? Real reason I am asking, is that I have both a Droid X and an Ipod Touch. I would LOVE to drop the Ipod, and just use my Droid. But I listen to my music at least 8 hours a day at work. I can't see it being possible for my battery to last for that. And if I had it on my charger all day, wouldn't that hurt the life of the battery?

Sorry, didn't mean to hijack the thread, just happened to be thinking of this, when I saw your post...

You should give it a try one day, just to see what it does in your case. I use my Aria as my mp3 player and don't have a problem, but I don't do more than two hours a day listening. 8 hours might be pushing it.

 

[irish22022]

If you're using 8 hours a day of MP3's, you're going to need a separate player. It'd kill the battery too much, IMO.

As for the original post, I admit I've only tried doubletwist to sync from itunes. I'm not partial towards it either, though i've used the airsync a few times and it works fine (good feature). I always kind of figured doubletwist is pretty easy and it works fine. I like iTunes too much to leave to a different software, so i'm just looking for something that gets the job done. doubletwist is it.

 

[eye4ni]

I just sold my ipod touch 64gb on craigslist this past weekend because I am now confident that I do not need it anymore. I bought a 16gb sd card for my evo, have an extended battery, and a Slacker Radio Plus subscription (cache my radio stations to my SD card), what else could I need?

If you like streaming radio (pandora) but want to conserve battery, you might want to look at Slacker radio plus. A plus subscription gives you ad-free listening, unlimited skips, and station caching. Playing a cached station is much easier on the battery because it does not even use your data connection at all.

 

[BSG75]

I dropped iTunes and use Winamp now. I like it better than doubleTwist. It seems to have more features, and I don't like that dT looks just like iTunes.

The usb syncing works fine in Winamp, but the Wifi sycning, although free, does not have all the kinks worked out yet. It's it and miss, but they have been active with the updates.

I use Google Listen to download podcasts straight to my phone. Since I don't need the desktop app for podcasts, I actually don't have to sync all that often. I also buy music with the Amazon mp3 app. With Winamp, it detects "new" songs and you can copy them from your device via usb or wifi to your machine easily. That is pretty slick.

I use PowerAmp for listening, also.

Yes, extended listening is a drain on the battery. I have a a 2250 extended battery. I recommend putting it in Airplane mode to turn of the juice-draining radios if you are going to keep it awake and listen to music.

I use it for car listening, mostly. I copied my music to my work computer from my sdcard and have Winamp running on my work computer.


Winamp will import your entire iTunes library with playlists and ratings.
You can create "Smart Views" which are like "Smart Playlists."
There is a learning curve for it, though.

 

[joggy]

Odd timing...I'm on week 2 sans iPod.

I use iSyncr for tunes (itunes playlists) and DoggCatcher for my podcasts. Both offer a wireless solution too which makes things nice 'n easy.

It usually requires a charge half way through the day, but I sit at a desk all day, so that's not an issue for me.

iSyncr for PC - Android app on AppBrain

DoggCatcher Podcast Player - Android app on AppBrain

 

[bigk]

OK, finally moved up from my 20th century feature phone to an Android device, dropped a 16GB card in it, and am using PowerAMP for music (excellent app, BTW). Now I'd like to find a substitute for iTunes that will let me download podcasts and sync them and music on my phone. I am so used to the Apple paradigm that I'm completely unaware of how else this gets done, so please, help a budding Android brother out! BTW, on my Win7 64bit machine, Media Player knows about my phone when I connect, but nothing else. That's a start, but I'm hoping something better is out there. Many thanks.

Both double twist and Winamp I allow for wireless syncing. I haven't used the feature but it sounds interesting.

Does anyone really use their Android device as a daily MP3 player? Real reason I am asking, is that I have both a Droid X and an Ipod Touch. I would LOVE to drop the Ipod, and just use my Droid. But I listen to my music at least 8 hours a day at work. I can't see it being possible for my battery to last for that. And if I had it on my charger all day, wouldn't that hurt the life of the battery?

Sorry, didn't mean to hijack the thread, just happened to be thinking of this, when I saw your post...

I have the HTC incredible and a 1750 battery. I listen to music and pod casts about 7-8 hours out of the day while screaming to a blue tooth headset. Towards the end of the day my battery is ready to die on me but it lasts me pretty much my entire shift. I don't think you will have any problems. It just depends on your battery.

I would also recommend using the doggcatcher app for downloading podcasts. Well worth the price if you enjoy podcasts.

 

[_Zguy__]

DeActivating data network mode really helps and unlike flight mode you can still get texts and calls
A and fe other settings can make it only 5%loss an hour