Why does copying songs to my iPhone have to be so complicated?

Krupke · Mar 31, 2013

I mean good grief! I simply want to copy a few songs from my iTunes to my iPhone, and I've spent 2 days of my life now on this, and I've not gotten anywhere with it! And I even have an iMac!! I've Googled the heck out of this problem, and in the end, Google responded with "Tough luck, buddy. You're on Apple devices, can't help ya!".

I eventually concluded that I can't do it with iTunes. Why, because the songs on my (jailbroken) iPhone were originally put there from a different computer, and Apple doesn't like it when you do something crazy like try to put songs on your iPhone from different computers (error: "iPhone can only be synced with one library"). It especially doesn't like that my songs don't all come from the iTunes store (some came from my CD's, for example. But *none* of the songs I am trying to copy to the iPhone came from the iTunes store). Silly me, I thought I could keep the songs I had on my iPhone, then copy some songs from another computer. But nu-uh! Apple said "I'll erase your entire iPhone if you try that!". It eventually did succeed in erasing the songs that were on my iPhone, in the process of putting the new songs in.

I tried the trick of copying the songs I want to transfer to a playlist, then using "Autofill" in iTunes to transfer the playlisted songs to my iPhone. It almost looked like that was going to work, when some of the songs transferred.... but then I learned it was too easy to be true. Some of the songs only had their *titles* transferred, and they now remain permanently greyed out on my iMac's iTunes. I can not even delete them from the iPhone in iTunes.

Then I tried to find if there were any (free) 3rd party iPhone media transfer utilities for the Mac, that could do the job iTunes is supposed to. There are plenty for Windows, or for transferring from the iPhone to the Mac (which I do not need). But everything I tried for the Mac (freeware or not) that promised it could transfer songs to the iPhone did NOT work on Mountain Lion!

Some tools were really crude and expect you to drop the music files into the iPhones raw filesystem (big no-no). The closest I came was using iTools to drag and drop the music files. It kinda sort worked, in that the files do show up on the iPhone (up until the letter "S"??)... but iTunes on the Mac shows those files no longer have their id3 tags! (And iTunes also still thinks the files that didn't finish copying from iTunes are still on the phone).

I was pretty sure copying songs to the iPhone was possible. Is it actually not?!

I'm still looking for a proper 3rd party iPhone music or media transfer program that will actually work properly with music files, and who's changes to the iPHone's playlist will be properly reflected once the device is loaded in the mac's iTunes. And that works on the Mac, on Mountain Lion!

eyoungren · Mar 31, 2013

Just to answer your question"Because Apple wants to control how you interface with your iPhone and that interface is iTunes."

That said, you mentioned that you were jailbroken. That makes it easy.

If you have not already installed Open SSH or Netatalk, you can find those in Cydia. That's important because that will allow you to connect to your iPhone as if it's an external drive. From there you can just copy over your files.

I use Netatalk (Open SSH I installed first and changed my default passwords) which allows me to do this. Then just copy the files over.

Now the easy part. Look in Cydia for Bridge. It's a paid app, but it allows you to install music to iTunes, ringtones to the phone and video to the Video app.

You can also try Bolt App (in Cydia) which does ringtones and music, but is free.

Using either Bridge or Bolt App you locate the music files that you just copied over and tell the app to import them. The app does the rest. Note that Bridge will do multiple files at a time.

That's it. You'll find your music in iTunes on your iPhone.

Note, that another way to do this is to install iFile. iFile is free to use, but if you pay for it you get little perks like integration with Dropbox. You can then drop files in to Dropbox and use iFile to move them over to your iPhone.

maxosx · Mar 31, 2013

Apple loves to be in control. It's all they understand

kaielement · Mar 31, 2013

First off calm down its not that big of a deal to get worked up about. Make sure you have the iPhone on manually mange in the settings. Next select the songs you want to transfer. Make sure you have the side bar view open. Then drag the songs you have selected to the iPhone icon. This should work the key is to have the iPhone on manually manage other wise it will think you are syncing to a new library and if it thinks that it may not work right. That's why I always have all my iPhones and iPods on manually manage so they don't try to auto sync and I don't have my whole music collection on my computer it's stored on an external hard drive. If my iPods and iPhone auto synced every time I would lose most of my music every time. Any other questions pm me.

Krupke · Apr 1, 2013

eyoungren said:
"Because Apple wants to control how you interface with your iPhone and that interface is iTunes."

Thanks for the tip. I tried Bridge, but it didnt work for me. I dumped an album of mp3s in the general storage folder (via iExplorer), selected the files in Bridge, but they dont get selected, and I can go nowhere from there. When I tell Bridge to only show files it can import, those mp3s do not appear at all in the folder! I can select the files in iFile, but then Im not sure if it can import them to the phone's iPod app.

I prefer to use a program on my Mac to do this anyway, because its much easier to use. And, I read that while some of these phone apps may be able to import music to your iPhone, they may have problems importing things like album art, id3 tags, or they may screw up your library when iTunes (on your computer) reads it; possibly forcing you to lose your music library.

There are many alternative programs to iTunes out there. Surely ONE of them works on the latest OSX, and can copy songs to your iPhone??

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kaielement said:
First off calm down its not that big of a deal to get worked up about.

Maybe not to you, if you have infinite time to futz around with Apple products. But having to spend 2 days of my life in an effort to do something as simple as transferring a couple of albums to my iPhone from my iMac? Yeah, thats definitely cause to be frustrated with Apple in my book. That, and a thousand other brick walls Ive run into, trying to do simple tasks on an Apple device. The very fact that I have not violently thrown my iPhone 4s at the front plate glass window of Apple headquarters in Cupertino, shows remarkable restraint.

Believe me when I say, the solution is not as simple as you surmise. Despite being relatively new to the Apple world, I have above average knowledge of Apple devices. There are a LOT of things (and programs; ie. DiskAid) that I tried to get this to work, that I did not mention in my rant. What you described as a solution was merely one of them. The tracks just bounced back when I tried to drag them to the sidebar. Even if I could remember all that I did try just to get a few stinking albums on my iPhone, I dare not enumerate it all. Because once the painful memories come flooding back, Im definitely gonna wanna kill the thing for sure. And then itll be even harder to play my music, right?

I did finally manage last night to do more or less what I wanted to do. Get a small part of my iTunes library on to my iPhone, using iTunes. But, in order to do that, I had to erase everything (music-wise) that was already on the phone. I had to tell iTunes to sync 0 songs (several times over), until the dam ghost playlist that it created (a playlist half-filled with greyed out songs that dont exist on the phone), finally got wiped out. (However, then I had to spend MORE time trying to wipe out one last item that also could not be deleted: voice memos! And the only way that got accomplished was to delete the voice memo off the phone!).

Once everything transferred over from scratch, I noticed one artist was repeated 3 times on my iPhones music app, because her name was spelled 3 different ways. So I thought no big deal, Ill correct the id3 tags in iTunes, and re-transfer the artistss songs back to the phone. No less than 2 freaking hours later, I was STILL not able to fix that! *Again* iTunes (on the computer) showed the artist included in the playlist, while the music app on the phone did not show the artists name at all (and yes, I rebooted the phone several times). Turns out that artists songs did get transferred to the phone. but I can only see it if I click the empty space at the end of the artist view list on the iPhones music app. Its acting as though the artists name is not in the id3 tags, even though it is on the computer iTunes.

Bottom line, I no longer trust iTunes. Either its going to erase my whole music library one day (if not the entire contents of the phone) if Im not careful, or its going to continue giving me hours and days of endless grief, trying to transfer songs to and from the iPhone, fully intact. I can only sit here and imagine all of the problems I am now going to have, when I try to plug my iPhone back into my other computer in order to add songs from that computer, and iTunes starts crying again that I am attempting to sync it to a different library.

Im done with iTunes and Ive concluded that I need to exclusively use a 3rd party software to transfer music to my phone. Ive done this before in the past on Windows but strangely enough, it seems to be ten thousand times harder to accomplish on a Mac with the latest OSX.

Krupke · Apr 1, 2013

maxosx said:
Apple loves to be in control. It's all they understand

Then they're going to understand Chapter 11 if they continue on this path. If the complaints I've read on their own discussion forums are any indication, complaints that mirror what I've had to go through getting iTunes to play nice with the iPhone, a lot of people are starting to speak the "s word" (Samsung), and ending their comments with "Apple, are you listening?!".

This is why I have to laugh when Apple fans try to say how easy and intuitive it is to use an iPhone. My GF has been talking about getting an iPhone once her android contract is up. But forget about it, she could never in a thousand years figure out how to do something as seemingly simple as transfer a few songs to her iPhone. What kills me is that most people are totally ignorant about all of this, and they believe the hype..... and then start getting mad at Apple once they learn how diffcult it really is to use on an every day basis.

Remember, Apple is the company that promotes and encourages you to buy all-Apple products, with the sell that Apple products "seamlessly" integrate with each other within the Apple eco-system. Two days and countless hours of my life lost just trying to copy a few songs to my iPhone says otherwise! And I still haven't find an iTunes alternative that will resolve the problem.

TheAppleFairy · Apr 1, 2013

Krupke said:
Then they're going to understand Chapter 11

Is that your real prediction? They have been doing this for some time now, and they don't seem to be hurting for money.

BaldiMac · Apr 1, 2013

It's not that iTunes is complicated. It's that you want to do something that it was designed not to do. The restriction has been the same since the original iPod was introduced if I remember correctly.

You have three non-hack choices.

1) Move the new music to the library that you sync with. Then sync.
2) Move the old music to the new library. Then sync.
3) Buy the new music from iTunes.

Krupke · Apr 1, 2013

BaldiMac said:
It's not that iTunes is complicated. It's that you want to do something that it was designed not to do.

iTunes is not designed to allow you to copy songs on your Mac computer to your iPhone? Lord, I wish someone told me that before I bought an iPhone!

1) Move the new music to the library that you sync with. Then sync.
2) Move the old music to the new library. Then sync.

And every time I change computers Im supposed to move the entire library to that computer (which are in different geographical locations), just to pop a few new songs on to my iPhone? And then when I want something from one of the other computers Im supposed to transfer the entire library back to a different computer? Yeah, dont think so. The very idea that Apple would expect its customers to do that is preposterous. This isnt 1975. People have multiple computers now, in multiple locations, and families with even more computers. And theyre not playing ping pong on the Atari.

3) Buy the new music from iTunes.

That ones not even worth typing out, let alone considering. I don't know about you, but Im not about to reward Apple for crippling iTunes by giving them hundreds of dollars just sos I can transfer songs I already have from the computer they made to the phone they made. People have a reasonable expectation of transferring songs they own from their mac computer to their iPhone, regardless of its source. And youre presuming my problems are stemming from the fact that the part of the library Im transferring didnt originate from iTunes. Im not presuming that, simply because I dont know thats true. Neither can you. Also, Ive read many horror stories from people who buy all of their music from iTunes, and try to transfer it between their devices - especially if they travel. Finally, the solution of just buying my music from iTunes presumes all I have is on iTunes. Trust me, its not.

This was fun but seriously, doesnt anyone know of a working alternative to iTunes (for the mac) that does transfers to iPhone 4s? (Ive come close a few times, but still havent found anything suitable).

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TheAppleFairy said:
Is that your real prediction? They have been doing this for some time now, and they don't seem to be hurting for money.

About as real as it gets for one's personal opinion. Theyre not hurting for money, no. Neither is Blackberry. But their stock value is declining or wavering, and the writings on the wall. And the internet. More and more people are complaining about how limiting and controlling Apple is, with their products and software. Couple that with the ever growing popularity of Samsung and Android and adding a new row of icons will not stop the bleeding.

BluAffiliate said:
Don't jailbreak. Not only is it unethical, borderline illegal, but it's very anti-Apple. Not surprised you're having a technical issue. Next time don't "hack" your device and expect to have no issues.

LOL, you're hilarious. I wouldn't even think twice about getting an iPhone if I couldn't jailbreak it. That's why I advise and encourage everyone to jailbreak their iphone. Your silly idea that it's "unethical" to do what you want with the device you bought is even funnier (but not funny haha, more funny strange). Calling something "borderline illegal" is also hilarious. Something is either against the law or it isn't. And your idea that you can expect to have no issues if you don't jailbreak your device? That's the silliest thing I've heard anyone say about the iPhone. Ever. I can't even remember all the problems I had with my iPhone before I finally jailbroke the thing, there were so many. And the problems I've been having with iTunes has nothing to do with jailbreaking, so you really shouldn't be doling out advice on the subject. If anything, jailbreaking offers more possibilities of solving such problems (ie. Bridge app).

streetprince · Apr 1, 2013

I think you should think about getting an android phone. The iphone or really any modern apple devices have ever been simple to use imo. Always have to go around your elbow to get to your ass with Apple. That's just the way they work.

maxosx · Apr 1, 2013

The truly outstanding (if you're Apple) accomplishment that's been achieved is how Apple (read: Steve Jobs) convinced millions upon millions around the world to buy into the ultra closed, proprietary, locked down Apple ecosystem.

Special power cables with the original humongous 30-pin connector, firewire cables, etc. Completely ignoring USB in it's various forms in iOS devices, not a memory expansion card port in sight. And not much more than a weak peep from the audience.

Pricing a short little cable at an outrageous price, only to have to pay twice, given the fact the power adapter was an additional piece. A unique example of what kind of kingdom one man can build.

IrishVixen · Apr 1, 2013

Not a free solution--and perhaps not a viable one in your case--but I finally resolved similar issues by caving and going with iTunes Match. I won't get into my own lengthy diatribe against both Apple & iTunes, because you've clearly been through it yourself. But my time was far more valuable than the $2 a month it costs me to shove my music up to iCloud and be able to get it onto the phone relatively painlessly. Originals were on two different computers under two different iTunes accounts (plus about 2/3 of the collection was ripped from CDs), but once Home Sharing was enabled so the permissions all lined up, I managed to get all but one song into iCloud and back down to be stored on my phone fairly quickly. It wasn't the seamless process it's made out to be, but it was a hell of a lot less frustrating than everything else I attempted. And though I hate the fact that I have to pay to do this, the convenience of it ultimately outweighs the cost.

I hesitated on it for a long time before pulling the trigger because of the expense. But I have to say, I felt pretty damn silly for not doing it sooner when I looked back at how much time I'd wasted trying "free" solutions instead. Just a thought, and perhaps you have reasons not to go in that direction, but it's worth looking into if you haven't done so already.

If you're not married to the stock Music app, I understand that Google & Amazon's storage solutions are also very viable.

TC25 · Apr 1, 2013

maxosx said:
And not much more than a weak peep from the audience.

Except you, of course. You complained right to SJ, right?

Maybe other people's lives don't revolve around the trials and tribulations of getting music to their iPhone.

BaldiMac · Apr 1, 2013

Krupke said:
iTunes is not designed to allow you to copy songs on your Mac computer to your iPhone? Lord, I wish someone told me that before I bought an iPhone!

Of course that's not true. But I'm pretty sure that you knew that.

1) Move the new music to the library that you sync with. Then sync.
2) Move the old music to the new library. Then sync.

And every time I change computers Im supposed to move the entire library to that computer (which are in different geographical locations), just to pop a few new songs on to my iPhone? And then when I want something from one of the other computers Im supposed to transfer the entire library back to a different computer? Yeah, dont think so. The very idea that Apple would expect its customers to do that is preposterous. This isnt 1975. People have multiple computers now, in multiple locations, and families with even more computers. And theyre not playing ping pong on the Atari.

Unfortunately, you are a fringe use case. Most people have no problem maintaining a single iTunes library to sync with. Maybe you should carry it on a flash drive when you switch computers.

3) Buy the new music from iTunes.

That ones not even worth typing out, let alone considering. I don't know about you, but Im not about to reward Apple for crippling iTunes by giving them hundreds of dollars just sos I can transfer songs I already have from the computer they made to the phone they made. People have a reasonable expectation of transferring songs they own from their mac computer to their iPhone, regardless of its source. And youre presuming my problems are stemming from the fact that the part of the library Im transferring didnt originate from iTunes. Im not presuming that, simply because I dont know thats true. Neither can you. Also, Ive read many horror stories from people who buy all of their music from iTunes, and try to transfer it between their devices - especially if they travel. Finally, the solution of just buying my music from iTunes presumes all I have is on iTunes. Trust me, its not.

All I'm presuming is that if you purchase them from iTunes, you can download them directly to your iPhone.

eyoungren · Apr 1, 2013

Just a thought to the OP here.

It seems that the issue is that you need to move your entire library between different computers frequently? Is that the correct understanding?

If so, have you considered Google Music (or Play as it's now called). Google Music has an app (Music Manager) and a pref pane for Mac that can automatically upload any songs added to your iTunes library direct to Google Music. You can also upload songs via browser to Google Music.

I mention that because this would tie down your library to one computer. However, the benefits may outweigh that issue. There are a few iPhone apps for Google Music. The one I use is gMusic and it lets me stream my entire iTunes library to my iPhone. I have well over 8-10GB of music and with Google Music I can essentially have all of that on my iPhone, but take no hit in space. On your computers that wouldn't have the iTunes library you can stream using a web browser.

Just a suggestion. It works for me because I have one Mac with my library and any time I add to it it reflects to my iPhone (through gMusic) a short while later. Again, I don't take any hit in space requirements and I have access to my entire music library.

Krupke · Apr 1, 2013

streetprince said:
I think you should think about getting an android phone.

How do you know I don’t have one? (hint: I’ve had a rooted HTC for 3 years now.) That,s why I’ve never even had to think about where my songs come from, whether they have the proper “AppleID” attached to them, how many “devices” I am using them on …let alone be told that I have to move all of my apps, songs, podcasts, videos, life etc. from one computer to another (to another)…. if I so much as want to copy ONE song from a computer other than the one I first used with the phone.

Nor have I ever had to become an expert on the legal ramifications and limitations imposed by the company that makes my phone, either. All I ever had to do was install a driver and walla, the computer sees my phone as another disk drive, and I can simply copy or move songs to the phone via drag and drop. In just about any directory. The phone’s music player will know where the music files are and play them.

And that’s just it. Maybe the reason I find all these incredible limitations of the Apple devices so outrageous, is because I’m not inured to them, as long-time Apple adherents seem to be. The difference with me is, I will never find these limitations acceptable. That is why I would prefer to find solutions to iTunes, rather than solutions that work within how Apple wants people to use their products.

eyoungren said:
It seems that the issue is that you need to move your entire library between different computers frequently? Is that the correct understanding?

Yeah. I often stay at GF’s place, and she has three different computers, all of which contain music of mine & hers. Plus I have a few computers of my own at home. However, gMusic is not an option for me. I just researched it; it’s a streaming music app. I’ve never understood those things, because you have to have a data connection to your phone to just listen to music. Apart from the cost of the app, this (usually) means it’ll cost you money just to listen to music (you may have already paid for). And you also have to worry about getting a signal (not always possible) to hear your music glitch-free. Plus, its not necessarily more music than you can fit on the iPhone (I have a 32gb 4s, so I can easily just put 8-10gb on it). Even transferring large amounts of data via "the cloud" at home will eat into my monthly data cap, and could end up ramping up the ISP bill. So for me, I’d much rather store and access my music from a physical device.

streetprince said:
I think you should think about getting an android phone.

How do you know I don’t have one? (hint: I’ve had a rooted HTC for 3 years now.) That,s why I’ve never even had to think about where my songs come from, whether they have the proper “AppleID” attached to them, how many “devices” I am using them on …let alone be told that I have to move all of my apps, songs, podcasts, videos, life etc. from one computer to another (to another)…. if I so much as want to copy ONE song from a computer other than the one I first used with the phone.

Nor have I ever had to become an expert on the legal ramifications and limitations imposed by the company that makes my phone, either. All I ever had to do was install a driver and walla, the computer sees my phone as another disk drive, and I can simply copy or move songs to the phone via drag and drop. In just about any directory. The phone’s music player will know where the music files are and play them.

And that’s just it. Maybe the reason I find all these incredible limitations of the Apple devices so outrageous, is because I’m not inured to them, as long-time Apple adherents seem to be. The difference with me is, I will never find these limitations acceptable. That is why I would prefer to find solutions to iTunes, rather than solutions that work within how Apple wants people to use their products.

maxosx said:
Pricing a short little cable at an outrageous price, only to have to pay twice, given the fact the power adapter was an additional piece. A unique example of what kind of kingdom one man can build.

I know of what you speak, and I absolutely agree. But the era of Steve Jobs is over. Tim Cook does not have a tenth of his charisma, nor dare I say, his influence. Meanwhile, the competition is making Apple look like they’re producing 8 bit video games from 1980, and Apple is responding by doing more copying than innovating (lame copying at that). Plus they’re even refusing to cut back on their legendary profit margins, which makes their competitors more attractive to burgeoning third world countries. All reasons why I said I don’t see a bright and rosy future for Apple, and I for one won’t lament their demise. (I don't even hold Steve Jobs in the high esteem most seem to have for him... unless you consider arrogance a virtue. For then, he was far ahead of the pack in terms of arrogance...

).

IrishVixen said:
Not a free solution--and perhaps not a viable one in your case--but I finally resolved similar issues by caving and going with iTunes Match.

You just made me think that maybe that’s the reason Apple makes it so difficult to transfer songs from your own personal collection, to your iPhone. They want you to pay them to do it via iTunes Match, after you pay for their (extended) iCloud service. No kidding they surpassed Exxon at one point. I should point out that in my research to try to resolve my problem with iTunes, I came across many who had similar problems as I did, that stemmed from using iTunes Match.

I just want no one to be under the false impression that not giving enough of their money to Apple is the reason they’re having problems with their Apple devices.

BaldiMac said:
Unfortunately, you are a fringe use case. Most people have no problem maintaining a single iTunes library to sync with.

But that’s only if they dutifully follow every rule that Apple specifies (although Apple usually does not publicize them), otherwise… “No soup for you!”. I’ve read enough complaints just on the Apple discussion forum to realize that having more than one device that you want to transfer songs to your iPhone from is not that “fringe” a case (though I offer no stats on that). I could have used a flash drive to copy at least some of the songs I wanted (though the iPhone can very much act like a USB flash drive if Apple allowed that). But then I would have to wait until I got home (which will be weeks from now), until I can listen to those songs on my iPhone.

All I'm presuming is that if you purchase them from iTunes, you can download them directly to your iPhone.

But you can’t even presume that much, with Apple. I’ve read numerous cases of people crying to Apple support staff because they could not download songs or apps they purchased. Why, because they had the misfortune of not leading lives that go according to Apple script. Meaning they may travel between two different countries, and that can affect the products you legally bought from iTunes, with all of its legal licensing agreements etc.

TC25 said:
Maybe other people's lives don't revolve around the trials and tribulations of getting music to their iPhone.

True, but remember, this is a Mac forum, not an Android forum.

adnbek said:
I believe if you tick the "Manually manage music and videos" box on the device page and choose "Apply" you'll know be able to simply drag and drop music into your phone without being tied to one computer.

As mentioned earlier in the thread, that didn't work for me. The selection would just bounce back instead of doing anything, regardless of whether manually manage was checked or not. In fact, if I'm recalling correctly, that may have been where all my problems started... (with the greyed out playlist I could not delete...).

TheShadowXX · Apr 1, 2013

Krupke said:
How do you know I don’t have one? (hint: I’ve had a rooted HTC for 3 years now.) That,s why I’ve never even had to think about where my songs come from, whether they have the proper “AppleID” attached to them, how many “devices” I am using them on …let alone be told that I have to move all of my apps, songs, podcasts, videos, life etc. from one computer to another (to another)…. if I so much as want to copy ONE song from a computer other than the one I first used with the phone.

Nor have I ever had to become an expert on the legal ramifications and limitations imposed by the company that makes my phone, either. All I ever had to do was install a driver and walla, the computer sees my phone as another disk drive, and I can simply copy or move songs to the phone via drag and drop. In just about any directory. The phone’s music player will know where the music files are and play them.

And that’s just it. Maybe the reason I find all these incredible limitations of the Apple devices so outrageous, is because I’m not inured to them, as long-time Apple adherents seem to be. The difference with me is, I will never find these limitations acceptable. That is why I would prefer to find solutions to iTunes, rather than solutions that work within how Apple wants people to use their products.

PwnTunes + Bridge = no need for iTunes.

drag and drop music to iPhone (as if it were a flash drive) then import it via Bridge to Music app.

I've been using this method since the jailbreak came out, and it works flawlessly.

your welcome.

Krupke said:
I know of what you speak, and I absolutely agree. But the era of Steve Jobs is over. Tim Cook does not have a tenth of his charisma, nor dare I say, his influence. Meanwhile, the competition is making Apple look like they’re producing 8 bit video games from 1980, and Apple is responding by doing more copying than innovating (lame copying at that). Plus they’re even refusing to cut back on their legendary profit margins, which makes their competitors more attractive to burgeoning third world countries. All reasons why I said I don’t see a bright and rosy future for Apple, and I for one won’t lament their demise. (I don't even hold Steve Jobs in the high esteem most seem to have for him... unless you consider arrogance a virtue. For then, he was far ahead of the pack in terms of arrogance... )

also totally off topic but Apple was never "innovative" they just keep saying they are.

adnbek · Apr 1, 2013

I believe if you tick the "Manually manage music and videos" box on the device page and choose "Apply" you'll know be able to simply drag and drop music into your phone without being tied to one computer.

I've done this before to load music from multiple computers, each with different libraries.

Make you sure you turn on the sidebar in iTunes 11 so you can browse your music and drag to your device.

Krupke · Apr 1, 2013

And now the solution to the single library limitation...

Thanks for your input y'all. In case this helps others facing similar problems, Ive settled on a (hopefully temporary) fix to this rather fundamental problem with Apple-iTunes and its crippled iPhone connectivity. It is the app that "eyoungren" and "TheShadow" suggested, Bridge (yeah, finally got it to work).

I find it's rather tedious to use, as you have to first copy the songs to a folder in the phone's raw filesystem, import them into the app and then the music app, but you cant select a bunch of songs at once. Dump a few albums on to the phone, and you have to go through each song and click Done, instead of just telling it to transfer all songs at once (I guess thats technically impossible.

). But although it feels like a band-aid solution, its still better than the free Music2iPod app (which I found totally useless). That app strips the id tags, and makes you redo them manually! All of your favourite bands magically change their name to AddedByMusic2iPod. As if that werent bad enough, it inexplicably dumps 2 copies of each song in the music app.

I would much prefer to use an iTunes alternative for the mac. But everything that even comes close is either for Windows (ie. CopyTrans, MediaMonkey, etc), or for the Mac but does not work with Mountain Lion. Or works on Mountain Lion but only transfers songs to the Mac. Or may work on ML and transfer to the iPhone, but is made by some lousy cheesy ringtone adware spammer company that goes under many names and does stealth advertising on sites with fake reviews and can be trusted as much as a back alley in Compton at 2am.

Now I know why Samsung is selling so well..

eyoungren · Apr 1, 2013

Krupke said:
Yeah. I often stay at GF’s place, and she has three different computers, all of which contain music of mine & hers. Plus I have a few computers of my own at home. However, gMusic is not an option for me. I just researched it; it’s a streaming music app. I’ve never understood those things, because you have to have a data connection to your phone to just listen to music. Apart from the cost of the app, this (usually) means it’ll cost you money just to listen to music (you may have already paid for). And you also have to worry about getting a signal (not always possible) to hear your music glitch-free. Plus, its not necessarily more music than you can fit on the iPhone (I have a 32gb 4s, so I can easily just put 8-10gb on it). Even transferring large amounts of data via "the cloud" at home will eat into my monthly data cap, and could end up ramping up the ISP bill. So for me, I’d much rather store and access my music from a physical device.

OK. Well, I have an unlimited data plan (Sprint) so I'm coming from that standpoint. But you can also stream over WiFi. And I usually have either 1xRT or 3G capable of streaming without hitches or buffering or I'm on WiFi. Soon, I'll be on LTE and with unlimited data have even LESS to worry about.

I get your point about storage. I have a 64GB iPhone 5 so it doesn't ultimately matter, but I prefer to keep space open for apps and data - just because I'm anal about it. If I could find a way to stream the over 18GB of video I have on my iPhone from the cloud I'd do that. But so far ADrive is the only cloud service I know of that gives you enough free storage space. Unfortunately, they are download only. The rest will happily offer you the service – for a fee.

I had no problem paying for gMusic (about $1.99 I think) because I saw it simply as buying a program that made my iPhone function with Google Music. I paid once and that's it. But that's just me.

But if you are bouncing around from place to place, have a data cap and can't rely on good coverage - well I can see why this would not work for you.

P.S. Glad you found a way to get something working for you though.

TheShadowXX · Apr 1, 2013

Krupke said:
Thanks for your input y'all. In case this helps others facing similar problems, I’ve settled on a (hopefully temporary) fix to this rather fundamental problem with Apple-iTunes and its crippled iPhone connectivity. It is the app that "eyoungren" and "TheShadow" suggested, “Bridge” (yeah, finally got it to work).

I find it's rather tedious to use, as you have to first copy the songs to a folder in the phone's raw filesystem, import them into the app and then the music app, but you can’t select a bunch of songs at once. Dump a few albums on to the phone, and you have to go through each song and click “Done”, instead of just telling it to transfer all songs at once (I guess that’s technically impossible….). But although it feels like a band-aid solution, its still better than the free “Music2iPod” app (which I found totally useless). That app strips the id tags, and makes you redo them manually! All of your favourite bands magically change their name to “AddedByMusic2iPod”. As if that weren’t bad enough, it inexplicably dumps 2 copies of each song in the music app.

I would much prefer to use an iTunes alternative for the mac. But everything that even comes close is either for Windows (ie. CopyTrans, MediaMonkey, etc), or for the Mac but does not work with Mountain Lion. Or works on Mountain Lion but only transfers songs to the Mac. Or may work on ML and transfer to the iPhone, but is made by some lousy cheesy ringtone adware spammer company that goes under many names and does stealth advertising on sites with fake reviews and can be trusted as much as a back alley in Compton at 2am.

Now I know why Samsung is selling so well…..

if you using PwnTunes to drag and drop songs onto your iPhone once u launch the music app it will automatically import all of them...

I use Bridge to import songs i download off the web on my phone. However if you want to import multiple files at once (yes it is possible

) I suggest using MewSeek, which can also be used to download music. If you place the files in var/mobile/media/downloads (I'm assuming your transfering files via iExplorer or other similar programs to get into the filesystem of the iPhone) then they will show up in the Mewseek app and you can import them into the music app all at once.

let me know how this works out for you.

Frenchjay · Apr 1, 2013

BaldiMac said:
It's not that iTunes is complicated. It's that you want to do something that it was designed not to do. The restriction has been the same since the original iPod was introduced if I remember correctly.

You have three non-hack choices.

1) Move the new music to the library that you sync with. Then sync.
2) Move the old music to the new library. Then sync.
3) Buy the new music from iTunes.

Of just authorise the computer to use with the device in the settings.

maxosx · Apr 1, 2013

TC25 said:
Except you, of course. You complained right to SJ, right?

Maybe other people's lives don't revolve around the trials and tribulations of getting music to their iPhone.

Too bad you're reading comprehension failed you. I was responding to someone who was having problems, and simply sharing a perspective. That's what one does on a forum.

BumpyFlatline · Apr 1, 2013

The free Gremlin package(s) in Cydia does the same as Bridge except it allows for syncing back to iTunes. Last I checked, Bridge does not sync back to your iTunes library whereas Gremlin does. This is pretty helpful in my opinion.

(Sorry if that was mentioned. This is a long thread that is not my area of expertise so I only read a couple replies. Just mentioning this in case everyone failed to mention it

)

thelatinist · Apr 1, 2013

Because the iPhone doesn't work by copying music to it: it works by syncing with a library of music on a computer (or more recently with an iTunes Match library). If you wish to get your new music on your iPhone, then you simply have to put those songs into the iTunes library you originally synced with your phone. If you have somehow lost that library, there are ways to get your music off your iPhone and onto a computer so you can add it into a new library with your new music so that you can sync it all. It's not hard at all.

There are the other solutions that have been mentioned to you, but frankly the best way to go about it is just to establish a reliable music library that you can sync with and always use the same computer to sync and upload music.

Frankly, most of the time when people complain about it it's because it doesn't make it easy to "share" music libraries with others. But that is, of course, by design, since it prevents the iPod/iPhone from becoming an easy music piracy device.

Why does copying songs to my iPhone have to be so complicated?

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