Playing music on iPhone via USB cable?

acjrocks · Mar 24, 2008

All my music is on my home computer and that is where I sync my iPhone. When I am at work I don't have a wifi connection, but I do have my iPhone usb connector to hook up to my work computer.

I would like to hook up my iPhone to my work computer via the USB cable and play the music on the phone via my computer speakers. Is this possible via the cable?

Moi un Mouton · Mar 24, 2008

Is the same result achieved if you use the headphone socket to connect to the line in socket on your sound card?

acjrocks · Mar 24, 2008

If my work box had a line in then that would work but no luck there. It has to be via USB and preferably looking for a software solution.

Moi un Mouton said:
Is the same result achieved if you use the headphone socket to connect to the line in socket on your sound card?

acjrocks · Mar 25, 2008

Am I really the only one that was ever interested in having this work? Hopefully there is something out there.

redhotchilis64 · Mar 25, 2008

You will have to transfer all of your music from your iPhone to your computer, which means purchasing software. I haven't found any software that treats a USB cable as a line in cable, it would be pretty helpful though! If you're on a Mac, and your iPhone is jailbroken, you can install DropCopy through installer and directly transfer your music to your computer. If you're on a PC, software is the only way to go.

http://www.dvd-ipod.biz/iphone_to_computer_transfer.html is a good software for transferring multimedia from your iPhone to your PC.

acjrocks · Mar 26, 2008

Well that sucks. Would've been great to just plug in my iPhone to my computer and play the music on it through my speakers. It's a good idea though.

jeffmc · Mar 26, 2008

acjrocks said:
Well that sucks. Would've been great to just plug in my iPhone to my computer and play the music on it through my speakers. It's a good idea though.

install itunes on the computer
put your phone in "manual manage mode" for music

you'll be able to browse the music and play it through your computer speakers via itunes.

acjrocks · Mar 26, 2008

Have you actually gotten this to work? I did some quick research and it doesn't seem to work the way you would want it to.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/419804/

Anyone tried this before? Remember, I sync with my home computer and would like to play the music off my iPhone from my work computer.

jeffmc said:
install itunes on the computer
put your phone in "manual manage mode" for music

you'll be able to browse the music and play it through your computer speakers via itunes.

jeffmc · Mar 26, 2008

acjrocks said:
Have you actually gotten this to work? I did some quick research and it doesn't seem to work the way you would want it to.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/419804/

Anyone tried this before? Remember, I sync with my home computer and would like to play the music off my iPhone from my work computer.

i do it all the time, sync with a powermac at home and play through a dell at work

darngooddesign · Mar 26, 2008

You can get a USB line-in device for not a lot of money. I'd like this to work as well, but unfortunately it doesn't.

jeffmc · Mar 26, 2008

darngooddesign said:
You can get a USB line-in device for not a lot of money. I'd like this to work as well, but unfortunately it doesn't.

yes it does
you need a computer with itunes and the dock->usb cable that every phone comes with

it doesn't cost you a thing

acjrocks · Mar 26, 2008

Hey Jeff. Would you mind putting up a very quick but quality how-to on how to do this? I'm at work right now and would love to test this. I've read all over the place that it doesn't work, but you've said otherwise so I would love to get this to work.

jeffmc said:
yes it does
you need a computer with itunes and the dock->usb cable that every phone comes with

it doesn't cost you a thing

WMuntean · Mar 26, 2008

Plug your iPhone into your work box. Open iTunes. Click on your music subcategory listed under you 'iPhone' on your left hand side. Then click on the music that you wish to play.

acjrocks · Mar 26, 2008

I tried it again and I am getting the same problem that the guys from this thread are getting.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/419804/

I also tried the below comment and although it does show the music that is on my iPhone, all the music is disabled and you cannot play any of the items, nor can you right click for options.

WMuntean said:
Plug your iPhone into your work box. Open iTunes. Click on your music subcategory listed under you 'iPhone' on your left hand side. Then click on the music that you wish to play.

redhotchilis64 · Mar 27, 2008

I completely forgot about being able to play music thorough the music subcategory in iTunes. If it isn't working, there's probably something wrong with the computer. Audio driver maybe? Do other sounds work through the computer's speakers?

acjrocks · Mar 27, 2008

I'm pretty technically inclined when it comes to computers and relevant problems so I know for sure it's the iTunes software. Everything else works perfectly and sounds perfectly.

I get the same exact problems that those guys from the thread I posted are stating. It just seems to be a limitation from the iTunes software but I keep on pushing it cause 1 or 2 guys on here have said they do it all the time.

Still hoping Mr. Jeff puts up a quick tutorial on how to get this working.

Both computers are Windows boxes.

redhotchilis64 said:
I completely forgot about being able to play music thorough the music subcategory in iTunes. If it isn't working, there's probably something wrong with the computer. Audio driver maybe? Do other sounds work through the computer's speakers?

djerati · Mar 28, 2008

Depends on your version of iTunes!

Newer versions of itunes don't allow you to manage music manually in a fashion that allows you to play music from your phone back to your computer through itunes. Songs are "grayed out" no matter what you do. Either burn a disc of mp3s and play them that way, plug in to your iPhone stereo jack directly, or use some sort of line in system directly from the stereo headphone output on your phone to a computer's line-in. Shame on Apple blocking what used to work on the ipod and not on the phone.

acjrocks · Mar 28, 2008

djerati said:
Newer versions of itunes don't allow you to manage music manually in a fashion that allows you to play music from your phone back to your computer through itunes. Songs are "grayed out" no matter what you do. Either burn a disc of mp3s and play them that way, plug in to your iPhone stereo jack directly, or use some sort of line in system directly from the stereo headphone output on your phone to a computer's line-in. Shame on Apple blocking what used to work on the ipod and not on the phone.

This could probably be the answer to my question. I have the latest iTunes installed and yup, it grays out my iPhone music. The iPhone is my first Apple toy so I don't know how long they have been graying the music for the iPhone via iTunes. I just know it doesn't work right now.

threefivefive · Mar 29, 2008

acjrocks said:
This could probably be the answer to my question. I have the latest iTunes installed and yup, it grays out my iPhone music. The iPhone is my first Apple toy so I don't know how long they have been graying the music for the iPhone via iTunes. I just know it doesn't work right now.

Ok I just tested this on my laptop at home - I'm running the latest mac version and it worked on here. However I do sync with this machine so I'll go try it on the pc and let u know...

acjrocks · Mar 29, 2008

threefivefive said:
Ok I just tested this on my laptop at home - I'm running the latest mac version and it worked on here. However I do sync with this machine so I'll go try it on the pc and let u know...

Did you get it working on that 2nd pc?

Moi un Mouton · Mar 30, 2008

There are 10 iTunes replacement programs listed here, most of which would achieve what you want:
http://www.simplehelp.net/2007/07/08/10-alternatives-to-itunes-for-managing-your-ipod/

Zanneth · May 28, 2010

I use this application called Senuti for playing music off my iPhone via USB cable. I think it's designed to transfer music to iTunes but you can still play songs from your iPhone without transferring anything. It works very well!

http://www.fadingred.com/senuti/

Bdubb · May 31, 2010

To the OP, I don't want to sound too smarmy...or a little pretentious but...

Instead of going through all this trouble, looking for so many answers and coming out empty handed, cannot you just simply, save all your MP3's on a USB flash drive from your home PC and bring them to work and dump them on your work PC??

I assume everyone and their mother has at least a Gig or 2 or 4 Gigs USB flash drives these days, if you have a large Music collection, can't you just make a few trips everyday and dump most of your music from home to your work PC? ( or do it all at once with an external drive)

should be fairly efficient and easy process, just a suggestion, since as an owner of a huge music collection and and iPhone, I did the exact same thing, by dumping all my favorite tunes on my 16 gig Flash drive.

Just sayin...

( I understand if you update your iTunes/iPhone music on daily/weekly basis and you want to be sure you have the latest favorite music with you when you get in to work every morning. You don't want to be bothered with transferring the latest music to your work PC all the time...if that is the case, I can see it being somewhat inconvenient...)

tctony · May 31, 2010

Zanneth said:
I use this application called Senuti for playing music off my iPhone via USB cable. I think it's designed to transfer music to iTunes but you can still play songs from your iPhone without transferring anything. It works very well!

http://www.fadingred.com/senuti/

Nice dead-thread revival.

Bdubb said:
To the OP, I don't want to sound too smarmy...or a little pretentious but...

Instead of going through all this trouble, looking for so many answers and coming out empty handed, cannot you just simply, save all your MP3's on a USB flash drive from your home PC and bring them to work and dump them on your work PC??

I assume everyone and their mother has at least a Gig or 2 or 4 Gigs USB flash drives these days, if you have a large Music collection, can't you just make a few trips everyday and dump most of your music from home to your work PC? ( or do it all at once with an external drive)

should be fairly efficient and easy process, just a suggestion, since as an owner of a huge music collection and and iPhone, I did the exact same thing, by dumping all my favorite tunes on my 16 gig Flash drive.

Just sayin...

( I understand if you update your iTunes/iPhone music on daily/weekly basis and you want to be sure you have the latest favorite music with you when you get in to work every morning. You don't want to be bothered with transferring the latest music to your work PC all the time...if that is the case, I can see it being somewhat inconvenient...)

Check the time stamp. I don't think the OP will be checking replies for this.

excubitor · Aug 30, 2013

A simple solution is to plug your Desktop speaker jack into your phone - no need to clutter your work PC with software or audio files

Playing music on iPhone via USB cable?

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