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ro5

macrumors newbie
Mar 20, 2023
29
26
any recommendations for a (preferably free, no jailbreak) ios app for streaming music files (eg. mp3) from cloud services (dropbox, box) that also has the feature for downloading the files locally on the phone?

thank you.
 
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Scepticalscribe

macrumors Haswell
Jul 29, 2008
64,214
46,646
In a coffee shop.
I'm still using an iPod, (an iPod classic) and an elderly iRiver mp3 player.

When Apple announced that they planned to discontinue the iPod Classic, I immediately bought two, one of which was brought to life (as my extraordinarily expensive iRiver device decided to quit) last year and has worked flawlessly.

In common with many who have already contributed to this (excellent) thread, I love music, and have thousands of CDs, (hundreds of LPs), a large music library (over 100GB), with many rare or obscure (and no longer available) albums, tracks and pieces of music from a wide variety of musical eras and styles.

Actually, I have never streamed music, as, again, in common with many who have already contributed to this thread, I prefer to own the music I listen to and deeply dislike the rentier model, and the idea that I should rent what they decide I should listen to.
 

TheColtr

macrumors 6502a
Feb 1, 2014
541
736
California
I have a mix of Apple Music and a local library/purchased songs. I use iCloud music library to match all the local songs to the cloud. I download all the songs locally on the device, but they can be streamed.
 

HDFan

Contributor
Jun 30, 2007
6,720
2,943
instead of renting the music someone else decides is worth listening to.

If you are interested in finding things to add to your library then a streaming service with great discovery can help you find new (to you) music. In my case the daily Tidal Discovery playlist usually has at least one track that I end up adding to my Favorites playlist.
 

Warped9

macrumors 68000
Oct 27, 2018
1,678
2,307
Brockville, Ontario.
All my music is older because in the past 10-15 years I’ve heard little to nothing new thats worth a damn. The bulk of my library is 1960s-1990s with a little from the early 2000s.

I don’t stream largely because by the time streaming became a thing I already had the bulk of my library. Why pay again for something I already own and can easily access? Once in awhile I pick up an older tune I hadn’t gotten yet from the iTunes store to add to my library.
 
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rocketbuc

macrumors 6502
Oct 18, 2017
310
283
My new (to me) 6 Plus arrived yesterday, so spent some time restoring and installing stuff. As mentioned previously it has a bad headphone jack. But I usually use BT anyway so not a problem.

What I did not expect (but probably should have) was a bad battery. It'll drop from 100 percent to 12 percent and crash the phone on anything intensive. Going to have to get the battery replaced.

In the meantime, it does just fine hooked up to a power cable sitting on my desk. Streaming my music right now.
I think you should be able to replace the battery yourself. I did this with our 6 and 6 Plus in the past. This model is not waterproof and, therefore, a battery change is relatively simple with a small toolkit.
Let me know if you need specific help or advise for your replacement.
 

eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Aug 31, 2011
28,850
26,980
I think you should be able to replace the battery yourself. I did this with our 6 and 6 Plus in the past. This model is not waterproof and, therefore, a battery change is relatively simple with a small toolkit.
Let me know if you need specific help or advise for your replacement.
Thanks, I thought about that the other day. So I looked up the instructions on iFix it and I think I will leave it to the experts. There are several Apple stores around here, the closest being 30 mins away. But Best Buy has an Apple Certified Repair place which is very close to me. I'll drop in there sooner or later I think.
 

rocketbuc

macrumors 6502
Oct 18, 2017
310
283
Thanks, I thought about that the other day. So I looked up the instructions on iFix it and I think I will leave it to the experts. There are several Apple stores around here, the closest being 30 mins away. But Best Buy has an Apple Certified Repair place which is very close to me. I'll drop in there sooner or later I think.
Definitely a good option if you don’t feel like doing it yourself.
Just wanted to make sure you knew that it is much easier to do the replacement on the older phones, I have not touched anything iPhone 7 or later. All these models have a waterproof seal that you also need to replace or somehow put back in place.
 

eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Aug 31, 2011
28,850
26,980
Definitely a good option if you don’t feel like doing it yourself.
Just wanted to make sure you knew that it is much easier to do the replacement on the older phones, I have not touched anything iPhone 7 or later. All these models have a waterproof seal that you also need to replace or somehow put back in place.
The phone is sufficiently important to me that I'd rather not risk doing it myself. If an expert screws it up - well, I'll find another one. If I screw it up I'm not going to be happy with myself.

I don't have a problem working inside old Macs (stuff of 2010 vintage or before), but the smaller things get the more prone I am to breaking stuff. I put in a new screen for my wife's old 12" PowerBook G4 once. I ended up breaking a key and stripping the wire on the sleep light, both parts I replaced but shouldn't have had to.

I've also been known to pull sockets up off logicboards because I pull too hard. So, I do appreciate the offer, but yeah…I'm going to let someone else do this.

I figure, I've had my iPhone 5 replaced at least three times since 2012, this new iPhone 6 Plus is worth a shot at a new battery. In the meantime it's sitting on charger all day. I figure since the battery is already ruined I'm not losing anything yet.
 
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Rychiar

macrumors 68030
May 16, 2006
2,604
5,724
Waterbury, CT
Is anyone out there still using their iPhone as an MP3 player?

Years ago, in the late 00s I had a Samsung phone (think it was maybe one of the ones in a Bond movie?) as well as a hard-drive based MP3 player, a product called iRiver.

Then the iPhone came along with iTunes. I was reluctant at first, I wasn’t impressed with the iPhone sound or using iTunes instead of simple Windows Explorer to create a folder structure.

Eventually a few iPhone iterations down the line I swapped two devices for one.

Copied over my MP3s from my iRiver to iTunes around 2009.

I still have iTunes with all those acquired MP3s and indeed it’s my primary source for listening as opposed to streaming services like Spotify.

So, does anyone else use locally stored MP3s as their primary library and listening source or am I an MP3 version of a 70s vinyl hoarder?
I used itunes Match years ago to sync my whole old iTunes library into the cloud. No reason to locally store anymore. I always buy the lowest storage phone.
 

talkingheads

macrumors newbie
Aug 24, 2023
6
14
Is anyone out there still using their iPhone as an MP3 player?

Years ago, in the late 00s I had a Samsung phone (think it was maybe one of the ones in a Bond movie?) as well as a hard-drive based MP3 player, a product called iRiver.

Then the iPhone came along with iTunes. I was reluctant at first, I wasn’t impressed with the iPhone sound or using iTunes instead of simple Windows Explorer to create a folder structure.

Eventually a few iPhone iterations down the line I swapped two devices for one.

Copied over my MP3s from my iRiver to iTunes around 2009.

I still have iTunes with all those acquired MP3s and indeed it’s my primary source for listening as opposed to streaming services like Spotify.

So, does anyone else use locally stored MP3s as their primary library and listening source or am I an MP3 version of a 70s vinyl hoarder?
Hello everyone. I have been a lurker on this website for years and finally decided to register in order to express my thoughts on iPhone as MP3 player and fast cable transfer speeds. I’m all for it.

There is alot of people using their iPhone’s for their personal music library storage.

I have 1,212 music CD’s that I ripped to ALAC. I then transfer them from my MacBook Pro to my iPhone 14 Pro via Lighting cable. Sure its a one time transfer but it takes hours. I want Lossless audio on my iPhone so I can stream my music to my KEF LS60 Wireless speakers and when I’m using my Shure 846 earphones with AudioQuest Cobalt Dragonfly DAC. I also still buy all my music on CD. It would be so nice to transfer the stuff real fast.

Just my thoughts on the subject. I also posted this in another thread about the debate of USB-C cable coming to iPhone 15.

Thanks for reading.
 

JulianL

macrumors 68000
Feb 2, 2010
1,665
663
London, UK
Is anyone out there still using their iPhone as an MP3 player?

Years ago, in the late 00s I had a Samsung phone (think it was maybe one of the ones in a Bond movie?) as well as a hard-drive based MP3 player, a product called iRiver.

Then the iPhone came along with iTunes. I was reluctant at first, I wasn’t impressed with the iPhone sound or using iTunes instead of simple Windows Explorer to create a folder structure.

Eventually a few iPhone iterations down the line I swapped two devices for one.

Copied over my MP3s from my iRiver to iTunes around 2009.

I still have iTunes with all those acquired MP3s and indeed it’s my primary source for listening as opposed to streaming services like Spotify.

So, does anyone else use locally stored MP3s as their primary library and listening source or am I an MP3 version of a 70s vinyl hoarder?
Absolutely. Well - AAC rather than MP3 - but I'm pretty sure that still makes my answer a valid "yes" to your question. My very first MP3 player actually pre-dates yours by quite a way. I had (still have in my cupboard actually) a PJB-100 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Jukebox) that originally had a 5GB hard drive in it that I bought pretty much as soon as it was released in late 1999. I later upgraded the hard drive myself to 20GB. In the early days you had to be careful to walk quite softly when out and about with it because even a slightly heavy step could cause the hard drive to skip although later firmware versions pretty much eliminated that issue - presumably by increasing the music buffer size in RAM (it was a long time ago, I can't really remember the details now)

Back to the present day, I do stream quite a lot when listing at home on my main audio system but even there I mostly listen to local downloads with streaming limited to checking out new releases or stuff I hadn't heard before (often recommended automatically by my streaming service). If a recommendation turns out to be something I really like then I buy a high res audio download. After purchase I put the high res version on my main music server in FLAC format (that's what I used when I first ripped all my CDs so I stick with it for consistency) and I immediately also create a 320kbs AAC version that I put into my iTunes library so that it syncs to my iPhone. I use the standard Apple Music player to listen to the local files on my phone.

I manage my music like this for multiple reasons...

1 - I like to support artists that I like. If an artist creates an album that I really like (even if I don't like every single track) then they deserve more than the pitiful streaming royalties they would get from me so I like to buy the whole album. Most of the stuff I listen to isn't from the megastars who might get their tracks streamed hundreds of millions of times so for less well known artists I think that buying whole-album downloads can make a meaningful difference, or at least I hope so.

2 - When I'm out walking or travelling I like to conserve battery life on my phone and local playback is more efficient that streaming using mobile data - or even streaming over WiFi for that matter. Also, I'd hate it if I ended up in a dead spot reception-wise and suddenly lost access to music - on a long plane flight that's pretty much guaranteed unless someone wants to spend silly money on probably not very good internet connectivity while in flight.

3 - I have a relatively small monthly data cap (3GB) on my mobile plan which is way more than adequate for what I currently use it for but probably wouldn't last me a whole month if I streamed all of my music. Since I am really happy with my current strategy I just don't see any point in spending more each month to upgrade my data cap just for streaming.

The only slight clunky bit of my strategy is for albums that I haven't quite made my mind up about so I haven't bought them yet but are still on my active listening-to list. For those I also have the app for my streaming service (Qobuz) installed on my phone and I explicitly do a Qobuz download of any albums still on my probation list that I think I might want to listen to when I'm out. As I said that is a bit clunky since I have to decide which albums to download before I go out, and it means switching between the Apple Music and Qobuz app sometimes, but that's a manageable irritation for me since usually most of what I listen to while out and about is from my main library.

This setup has worked well for me for decades, although in the earliest days (iPhone 4 was my first iPhone) I did have to use much lower bitrates for my AAC files in order to fit a decent amount of stuff onto my phone. Now even at 320kbs I can fit my entire ripped-CD/purchased-downloads collection onto my phone.
 

DukeSilver79

macrumors regular
Sep 13, 2018
126
36
I mostly stream, but I have some obscure stuff that's not on streaming that I port over to my phone.
 

jagolden

macrumors 68000
Feb 11, 2002
1,533
1,407
Yes. Don’t want streaming. Want the music I want, when I want it.
Like my playlists not others.
My taste can be eclectic. One of my playlist is almost 4 days long. It has songs from Bing Crosby to Boston to Black Sabbath, Dean Martin, Enya, Great Big Sea, UFO, two Steps from Hell-it’s endless. Put it on shuffle and away you go.. Rock, grunge metal, punk, tons of orchestral and music soundtracks.
 

MisterSavage

macrumors 601
Nov 10, 2018
4,667
5,513
My taste can be eclectic. One of my playlist is almost 4 days long. It has songs from Bing Crosby to Boston to Black Sabbath, Dean Martin, Enya, Great Big Sea, UFO, two Steps from Hell-it’s endless. Put it on shuffle and away you go.. Rock, grunge metal, punk, tons of orchestral and music soundtracks.
Can so relate. My shuffle results from my library are so over the place!
 
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