is there an android equivalent to iTunes?

[nageov3t]

don't get me wrong... I hate iTunes. I'll trashtalk it for weeks.

but at the end of the day, it kinda generally gets the job done. I've been trucking around both my android phone and my iPod touch for years because I haven't been able to cut the iTunes cord.

merging onto one device was one of my New Year's resolutions, though, and I'm finally exploring my options. I'm hoping the AT community can help me out

I know I can do this all with separate programs, but are there any programs that can both manage podcasts (sync and download them) and also manage my music collection? if not, are there at least better music players than the stock android program? it left me a little underwhelmed any time I've used it.

right now, I use iTunes to do both and I know I could do it using DogCatcher on my phone for podcasts and MediaMonkey on my desktop to sync my music collection, but I'm open to any other suggestions.



and on a wholly unrelated topic (but I didn't want to spam the forum with multiple topics), anyone have a good guide to backing up/rooting an android phone (HTC Evo 4g specifically)... it annoys me that I'm stuck on gngerbread and it really annoys me that I'm stuck with a bunch of stock apps that I can't uninstall like a NASCAR racing game.

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

doubletwist?

 

[TheInternet1980]

google music for library uploading/sync.

Not sure as far as podcasts go though. More than likely you'd need to download the podcast via the desktop, and let it sync to google music.

re: root

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1218386

 

[pm]

I'm no fan of iTunes either... but it's like a bad habit that I'm not sure how to eliminate. So I use it.

Yeah, similar to Chaoticpinoy I'd also recommend Doubletwist. http://doubletwist.com/

It will take iTunes and sync it to an Android device and it has an Android player which is reasonably decent. It syncs photos, videos, and music.

I picked DoubleTwist and AirSync up in the Google $0.10 app-a-day thing over Christmas and I've been pretty impressed with it.

So, yeah, you aren't cutting the cord on iTunes, but you can merge the functionality of your iPod into your phone.


For podcasts, I'm still looking for a good solution. I use iTunes for the ones that don't update very often ("The Moth", "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me"), and then I'm messing with Google Listen right now for the ones that update daily, but if that doesn't pan out (it's sort of buggy), then I'll do doggcatcher.

 

[alent1234]

some phones have desktop software that allow you to sync your android phone with itunes. HTC is does it. apple has supported non-apple devices on itunes for years

 

[nageov3t]

google music for library uploading/sync.

Not sure as far as podcasts go though. More than likely you'd need to download the podcast via the desktop, and let it sync to google music.

re: root

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1218386

thanks for the link :thumbsup:

can google music do a hard copy sync, or is it strictly for streaming?

most of my music-listening occurs during my commute to work, which is underground in the subway tunnels and far away from a wifi/cellular signal.

 

[TheInternet1980]

It can indeed download media to the device for offline listening. Long press album > make available offline.

It'll upload from whatever you specify on your desktop. Be it an iTunes library, Media Player, or just a specific folder.

Edit: Offline instructions are incorrect, you basically tap into whatever you want to be available offline, be it everything from an entire artist, a whole record, or individual song. Hit Menu > Make available offline. There used to be a long press > make available offline option in the music beta, but that doesn't appear to be in the newest version from the market.

 

[pm]

google music for library uploading/sync.

Nice suggestion. I'll check that out tonight. Thanks

 

[TheInternet1980]

Nice suggestion. I'll check that out tonight. Thanks

If your library is huge, it'll take a good week or two to upload everything. But once it's done, keeping it sync'd is automatic, and takes much less time.

I have about 23,000 songs hosted on music.google.com currently. Been incredibly pleased with the results, even when it was in beta.

 

[abaez]

I like Mediamonkey. You can even skin it to make it look exactly like iTunes. Functionality is essentially the same.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

I'll take explorer/generic music player over bloatware anyday.

 

[nageov3t]

I like Mediamonkey. You can even skin it to make it look exactly like iTunes. Functionality is essentially the same.

I've got to play around with MM more... I use it to manage the music collection on my desktop, but I never looked to see if it had any podcast sync functionality (from a rss feed presumably).

one annoying thing about using google music plus either google listen or dogcatcher is the need for two programs. which isn't the end of the world, it's just an extra couple steps if my podcast ends and I want to switch over to listening to an MP3 playlist (whereas on my ipod, it's just like 2 clicks within the same program)

 

[AFurryReptile]

I've been using Subsonic for nearly 2 years now. I can't recommend it enough - it's drop-dead simple to just make my entire music library available online, cache it locally on my phone, sync podcasts, etc etc.

http://www.subsonic.org/pages/index.jsp

I suppose Google Music does the same thing, and it certainly looks nicer, but I had issues with it streaming and the quality.

 

[shortylickens]

Amazon.

Dirt cheap, DRM free music, free app a day, free cloud streaming, redownload purchased music with no hassle. I like it.

As it stands I cant put all my music on a single SD card. When 64gb micro-sd comes out, I will.

 

[superccs]

Winamp syncs your phone, plays the music and helps you make playlists. Works flawlessly.

 

[AFurryReptile]

Amazon.

Dirt cheap, DRM free music, free app a day, free cloud streaming, redownload purchased music with no hassle. I like it.

As it stands I cant put all my music on a single SD card. When 64gb micro-sd comes out, I will.

The problem with Amazon's apps is that they don't get up updated. I've downloaded things from there that are months out of date.

 

[nageov3t]

Winamp syncs your phone, plays the music and helps you make playlists. Works flawlessly.

I've been reading about winamp online, it looks like it could meet most of my needs.

gotta give it a spin on my desktop tonight and see if it picks up all the relevant information from my current media library (having to re-set all my album art and tags would be a 110% deal breaker and is one of the things I hate the most about iTunes)

 

[zokudu]

I'm looking for a decent alternative here too. Only really looking for a couple video podcasts. I do all my audio ones through my zune.

 

[Dulanic]

Winamp does everything I want except Wifi Sync....not sure why I haven't been able to get that to work.

 

[QueBert]

iSyncr + iSyncr Wifi make iTunes work 100% with Android. It's not a program you use on your PC, it's an app on your phone + one on the PC that runs in the background. Works flawlessly with iTunes, and if you use PlayerPro or a few other music players on Android it will even sync back playcounts. Also supports smart playlists. They're not free, but are the best 2 apps I have on my Android device imho.

 

[Ksyder]

as far as audio podcasts go, the best podcast app I've found is Podkicker (free). Google listen is too buggy, and I didn't care for the popular paid podcast apps for Android either such as doggcatcher (I think it was called) This is assuming you can get RSS feeds for the podcasts that you want.

 

[jacktesterson]

iTunes is terrible.

Just had to say that.

 

[nageov3t]

iTunes is terrible.

Just had to say that.

I agree... except when it comes to podcasts.

it's just nice to have everything all in one place (music/podcast syncing and playback) instead of having to use multiple apps for it.

 

[WelshBloke]

Media monkey works fine for podcasts for me.

I find running pocket casts on my phone a better solution though.