If You Want Your Android Music to Stick with You, Here's the Thing
by Keith gatling | 4 years ago
When you're an Android user and you're thinking about the best way to keep your tunes around ...
Nope...it’s not Spotify, not Pandora, not even Apple Music. Those are all music streaming apps, based on the idea of “renting” music when you wanted it, rather than owning it forever. They’re based, in many cases, on the convenience of being able to say, “Hold on, let me get that song...right now.” They’re also based on a mindset of people who don’t want to tie up precious storage on their mobile devices with music they don’t need all the time.
But there are a lot of us out there who’ve read 1984, and realize that what the recording industry lets you stream today may not be available tomorrow. There are people whose music collections include CDs from artists who have no presence with any of the streaming services. There are people don’t need to have that song right now. There are people who don’t see tying up precious storage space on their mobile devices with music they don’t need all the time as being a problem, because they store most of their music on their computers, and just put select playlists on their mobile devices. (I mean...I don’t really need my Christmas playlist on my phone in July, do I?)
And in that last group are people who have spent time creating carefully-crafted playlists and smart playlists in iTunes (and yes...there’s a Windows version), to move over to their devices.
These people aren’t looking for a streaming service that may or may not have that song they played today available tomorrow. They’re not looking for a streaming service that doesn’t include music by that great local folksinger whose CDs they bought 25 years ago. They’re looking for a music playing app that lets them move their carefully-crafted playlists from their computer to their device...with the songs in the order they put them in.
If you have an Apple device, you’ve got no problem. Apple has you totally covered with iTunes (now the Music app) on the desktop, and Apple Music on the mobile devices (although I’ll talk about a replacement for the Apple Music app in another post). But things didn’t look too good on the Android side. A lot of the apps didn’t maintain the integrity of your playlists, and just put things in alphabetical order. Other apps kept your playlists in order, but were hard to use...even for me. And then I found it...the perfect combination of apps that will let you sync your carefully-crafted playlists between your computer and your android device.
The apps are the iSyncr mobile and desktop apps for syncing and the Rocket player for playing the music.
The full-featured iSyncr mobile app is $9.99 from the Google Play Store, and in combination with either the Windows or Mac app on your computer, can wirelessly copy selected playlists, one at a time to your Android device. Once they’ve been moved to your Android device, you play the music with the free Rocket player.
How does it work?
I tried it with my MacBook Pro and an Android phone I borrowed from the library, and it worked like a charm. The only problem I had was that I could only sync one playlist at a time, but I did eventually get five of them done, and quite quickly too!
The Rocket music player was also very easy to use.
I’m really surprised that it took so long for me to find these. But I guess all the cool kids were out there busy streaming.
So if you’re looking for a simple music playing app that respects the integrity of the playlists you’ve created on your computer, check these out at jrtstudio.com.
