How do Android phones sync with Mac computers?

[gar655]

I need to switch from ATT to Verizon due to coverage. I currently am tied to the Apple eco system (which I like) and use an iphone 4.

The iphone 5's lack of simultaneous voice and data is a potential deal breaker for me and add that to the connector change and I'm looking at switching to Android or Windows. I know MS has a sync app for Macs.

What do Mac users use for syncing with Android phones?

Thanks

 

[Phokus]

I need to switch from ATT to Verizon due to coverage. I currently am tied to the Apple eco system (which I like) and use an iphone 4.

The iphone 5's lack of simultaneous voice and data is a potential deal breaker for me and add that to the connector change and I'm looking at switching to Android or Windows. I know MS has a sync app for Macs.

What do Mac users use for syncing with Android phones?

Thanks

What are you trying to sync? If you use gmail, for example, email and contacts sync wirelessly to your email account. For music, it syncs via google play.

 

[Oyeve]

On my mac I use Samsung kies. I also use kies on my pcs.

 

[Dominato3r]

I think there was an issue with the Gnex and the way OSX handles USB Mass storage. Someone may want to shed some light here

 

[Eug]

Dunno about the phones, but for the Nexus 7 you install the Android File Transfer app to get access to the USB mass storage functionality.

There is no iTunes-like sync-ing though, on either Windows or Mac OS X, which IMO is stupid.

 

[Zaap]

yeah, I use Android File Transfer.

All I care about with iTunes is that I can transfer my playlists- they're directly transferable from iTunes straight to the phone and work perfectly, so for me, nothing else needed.

 

[WelshBloke]

... There is no iTunes-like sync-ing though, on either Windows or Mac OS X, which IMO is stupid.

On windows you can use most media players to sync music/videos/pictures. I use media monkey but WMP and a bunch of others work fine.

 

[Oyeve]

There is no iTunes-like sync-ing though, on either Windows or Mac OS X, which IMO is stupid.

That's one of the best things about android. But if you must have an iTunes like experience use double twist.

 

[antef]

There is no need for syncing anything or really any computer involvement at all with Android, one of the best things about it. I've never plugged my Nexus into my computer. Email/contacts come from Gmail, all your music can be uploaded to Google Music and streamed to your phone, all your pictures can be uploaded to Google+ via Picasa and viewed in Android's Gallery app, any other random files you can throw into Dropbox/Google Drive/SkyDrive. Is there anything else you need that doesn't fit into this?

 

[Nothinman]

I think there was an issue with the Gnex and the way OSX handles USB Mass storage. Someone may want to shed some light here

The Galaxy Nexus doesn't have a microSD slot and it's "external" storage can't be dismounted so USB Mass Storage doesn't work, you have to use the MTP protocol to transfer files to/from it. So the only USB Mass Storage support issue could be that it's not there.

 

[TheStu]

There is no need for syncing anything or really any computer involvement at all with Android, one of the best things about it. I've never plugged my Nexus into my computer. Email/contacts come from Gmail, all your music can be uploaded to Google Music and streamed to your phone, all your pictures can be uploaded to Google+ via Picasa and viewed in Android's Gallery app, any other random files you can throw into Dropbox/Google Drive/SkyDrive. Is there anything else you need that doesn't fit into this?

Where do the pictures, movies and music come from? Whole cloth? No, they come from your computer initially.

If I have pictures on my computer, why shouldn't I transfer them to my device AND upload them to the cloud, that's faster than waiting for them to upload, and then waiting for them to download. Same for music and movies. I have a ~30GB music library, I don't want to have to wait for the whole thing to upload to Google's servers so I can then download it all down to my device (I prefer to have local content wherever possible, as sometimes one doesn't have a fast and reliable data connection).

My point is that the cloud is good and I utilize it myself, but don't discount the speed and ease that comes from plugging in the device directly.

 

[WelshBloke]

Where do the pictures, movies and music come from? Whole cloth? No, they come from your computer initially.

If I have pictures on my computer, why shouldn't I transfer them to my device AND upload them to the cloud, that's faster than waiting for them to upload, and then waiting for them to download. Same for music and movies. I have a ~30GB music library, I don't want to have to wait for the whole thing to upload to Google's servers so I can then download it all down to my device (I prefer to have local content wherever possible, as sometimes one doesn't have a fast and reliable data connection).

My point is that the cloud is good and I utilize it myself, but don't discount the speed and ease that comes from plugging in the device directly.

To be fair he did say that you don't need to not that you can't.

If you want to sync the old way you can. I use a combination of cloud, streaming from my home server and regular syncing (via usb/wifi).

 

[Nothinman]

Where do the pictures, movies and music come from? Whole cloth? No, they come from your computer initially.

If I have pictures on my computer, why shouldn't I transfer them to my device AND upload them to the cloud, that's faster than waiting for them to upload, and then waiting for them to download. Same for music and movies. I have a ~30GB music library, I don't want to have to wait for the whole thing to upload to Google's servers so I can then download it all down to my device (I prefer to have local content wherever possible, as sometimes one doesn't have a fast and reliable data connection).

My point is that the cloud is good and I utilize it myself, but don't discount the speed and ease that comes from plugging in the device directly.

And you can use any MTP app to do that, Google even provides one which Eug mentioned.

 

[TheStu]

To be fair he did say that you don't need to not that you can't.

If you want to sync the old way you can. I use a combination of cloud, streaming from my home server and regular syncing (via usb/wifi).

Misinterpreted that then

And you can use any MTP app to do that, Google even provides one which Eug mentioned.

I wasn't making any comments about how the person should be getting the files off the computer, just that sometimes it is faster and easier to do it that way, and that they had to get to the cloud somehow. The other person's comment was 'just upload your music to Google Music', well, where is the music coming from? Your computer. So, just plug the stinking cable in and transfer the songs.

That was my point. Not sure where you got that I was saying that they had to use something other that MTP, or that I was even talking about HOW to do it. I don't care about that.

 

[antef]

Where do the pictures, movies and music come from? Whole cloth? No, they come from your computer initially.

If I have pictures on my computer, why shouldn't I transfer them to my device AND upload them to the cloud, that's faster than waiting for them to upload, and then waiting for them to download. Same for music and movies. I have a ~30GB music library, I don't want to have to wait for the whole thing to upload to Google's servers so I can then download it all down to my device (I prefer to have local content wherever possible, as sometimes one doesn't have a fast and reliable data connection).

My point is that the cloud is good and I utilize it myself, but don't discount the speed and ease that comes from plugging in the device directly.

Yeah, if you want several gigs of movies/music directly on your phone, there are various apps to do that via MTP I suppose. I was just pointing out everything that can be done without syncing anything. Take the pictures for example. I have about 10 gigs and Picasa uploads them at 2048 resolution which is more than enough for phone viewing and gives you unlimited storage space at that size. It didn't take long to upload all of that but even if it took a whole day/night that's not really a big deal. At that point you don't have to wait for any of them to "download" on your phone, they will just show up in Android's Gallery app and it will pull/cache them as needed.

If you have a lot of video files I agree that might be faster to sync with a cable than using cloud storage. For music, same thing, if you really want all 30 gigs directly on your device. If not, it's similar to the pictures situation...just let it all upload, stream it without downloading on your phone, and you can download individual playlists/albums for offline listening. I find this easier than syncing because I don't have to remember to sync my phone after adding a new song to my collection on my PC. I won't always remember to do that and will often just leave the house and wish I had that new song available to listen to. This way it will be uploaded automatically without me doing anything and available for streaming on my phone anytime. Also that way not using any storage on my phone at all.

Do you really need everything available offline? It seems on iPhone "downloading" things to your device from iCloud is the default, whereas on Android streaming is the default, which to me makes more sense. You only need like a 512 kbps internet connection for music streaming to work okay.

 

[Eug]

There is no need for syncing anything or really any computer involvement at all with Android, one of the best things about it. I've never plugged my Nexus into my computer. Email/contacts come from Gmail, all your music can be uploaded to Google Music and streamed to your phone, all your pictures can be uploaded to Google+ via Picasa and viewed in Android's Gallery app, any other random files you can throw into Dropbox/Google Drive/SkyDrive. Is there anything else you need that doesn't fit into this?

Proper full system backups without having to root the device.

I'm told it can be done, but for some strange reason Google doesn't really want people to do it.

Requiring the cloud for backups just complexifies everything, and it's not as if they're complete backups anyway.

 

[antef]

Proper full system backups without having to root the device.

I'm told it can be done, but for some strange reason Google doesn't really want people to do it.

Requiring the cloud for backups just complexifies everything.

Yeah true, has never been a big concern for me though. The last time I set up a new Android device it automatically pulled down most phone settings, WiFi networks and passwords, etc. It also started downloading every app I had previously from the Play store (of course this took awhile). The only thing I had to reconfigure was arrangement of home screens. I think the only app I was using that had local data that needed backed up was Tasker which I just backed up to Dropbox beforehand.

 

[Eug]

I'm biased, because I'm on my third Nexus 7. The first two were defective - screen lift.

I guess the silver lining though is that by the third iteration, I knew exactly what apps I wanted, and just installed those, and left out all the crap I had installed the first time.

 

[Chiropteran]

I use amazon cloud player on my phone as well on my GF's iphone4. Since the interface is entirely browser driven, you could use it on mac, windows, linux, or from a tablet.

Where do the pictures, movies and music come from? Whole cloth? No, they come from your computer initially.

Not if you use amazon. You either buy your music online (never touches your computer), or you can use their "uploader" which really just confirms that you own the music and then adds it to your cloud drive (this requires a computer of some sort, but you still don't have to move the music files to the cloud).

 

[Nothinman]

Misinterpreted that then



I wasn't making any comments about how the person should be getting the files off the computer, just that sometimes it is faster and easier to do it that way, and that they had to get to the cloud somehow. The other person's comment was 'just upload your music to Google Music', well, where is the music coming from? Your computer. So, just plug the stinking cable in and transfer the songs.

That was my point. Not sure where you got that I was saying that they had to use something other that MTP, or that I was even talking about HOW to do it. I don't care about that.

Then I guess I'm still missing the point. Plugging the cable in and transferring music, photos, etc isn't "syncing" in the proper sense. And since Google had to provide an MTP app for OS X I'm guessing it doesn't have any native MTP support so you can't just "plug the stinking cable in and transfer the songs." like you can with Windows.

 

[TheStu]

Then I guess I'm still missing the point. Plugging the cable in and transferring music, photos, etc isn't "syncing" in the proper sense. And since Google had to provide an MTP app for OS X I'm guessing it doesn't have any native MTP support so you can't just "plug the stinking cable in and transfer the songs." like you can with Windows.

The guy was saying that you don't need a computer, you can just use the cloud. My WHOLE point, was that sometimes using the computer is better, and is also most likely where the files are coming from anyway. That's all I was saying.

 

[gar655]

Thanks for the replies (at least some that weren't just bickering ,

Anyway, I'm not a big fan of cloud syncing. I don't use it on my iPhone. But it seems with Android (should I go that way) I would pretty much need to do that for my apps at least.

I use gmail now so that wouldn't be an issue. But what about my playlists? I can side load videos if needed.

It seems like it would not be much of a problem other than losing a ton of apps I've accumulated over the last 2 years.

I'm liking windowsphone 8 better and better though. Depending on when the phones for that come out I may end up with that.

 

[Nothinman]

The guy was saying that you don't need a computer, you can just use the cloud. My WHOLE point, was that sometimes using the computer is better, and is also most likely where the files are coming from anyway. That's all I was saying.

Then I still don't get the point of your because the OP's question was How do Android phones sync with Macs and the technically correct answer is via Google's cloud. Music, apps, contacts, mail, etc is all hosted via Google and you decide what you want to sync with your phone and not. The fact that you can copy your music over via MTP is a nice feature but orthogonal to the main question. The fact that Android devices don't require something like iTunes on a local PC is a feature, not the lack of one.

 

[TheStu]

Then I still don't get the point of your because the OP's question was How do Android phones sync with Macs and the technically correct answer is via Google's cloud. Music, apps, contacts, mail, etc is all hosted via Google and you decide what you want to sync with your phone and not. The fact that you can copy your music over via MTP is a nice feature but orthogonal to the main question. The fact that Android devices don't require something like iTunes on a local PC is a feature, not the lack of one.

I was responding to ONE guy that wasn't even the OP. I was simply making the point that the cloud doesn't have to be the only option, and that the files are most likely on the computer too. I don't know why this is difficult for you to understand, or why you keep misinterpreting what I am saying.

And I never said anything about iTunes. Until just now, that word was never mentioned by me, and that is the only time that I am going to say it. I said nothing about HOW to get the files from the computer to the phone. I don't give a flip how they do it, I was just making the point that it can be quicker to get the files from the computer.

OP, use the damn cloud already, obviously that is the only thing that matters.