Help Samsung Galaxy S2 - Music Transfer from iTunes

[ockster]

Hi, this is my first post to this forum so please bear with me!!

I've just taken delivery of my new Samsung Galaxy S2 on the o2 network in the UK and have tried downloading my music from iTunes onto Samsung Kies. It brings across all the songs ok but doesn't bring across the Artist name or Album title. Does anyone have any tips or advice on how to bring the names and titles across aswell please.

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[wallace3d]

Found this on another website but haven't got around to trying it out yet, maybe someone else here has tried it already and can let us know if works.


Using ipod Agent
1. First install either ipod Agent on PC, this will run a small server program to listen for the Android device.
2. Connect mobile to pc via usb and create a folder called Music on sd card or phone storage, using usb storage method in wireless connections, not using Kies default.
3. Right-click on iTunes Agent icon in system tray and choose preferemces.
4. Leave the settings at defaults and click new.
5. Enter the device name, Galaxy S2
6. Leave Synchronize pattern: set to iTunes
7. Click the Choose button and select the Music folder you created on the Galaxy S
8. Click the Create button and select the Music folder you created on the Galaxy S
9. Click Save and then Close
10. Launch iTunes and you will see a playlist folder called My Devices, under which you will see the Galaxy S
11. Simply drag the music you wish to synchronize from your iTunes library to your Galaxy S into this playlist
12. Finally, right-click on the iTunes Agent icon in the system tray and select Synchronize devices to sync Music to your phone.

To enable usb storage mode access only when connecting to the PC - go to Settings, Wireless and Network - USB Utilities, you have to press button again once connected to allow access.

 

[Irate]

having used ipod agent it did not sync all the song it should have an alternative is iSyncr from the android market or elsewhere. it peformed better for me than any other option i used and also brings all the artist info etc

 

[wallace3d]

I've also heard of an application called TuneSync, but never used this.

 

[daz_2000]

Isyncr works like a dream.

 

[lotus49]

I use DoubleTwist. The player (which isn't very good) is free but you have to pay about

 

[Irate]

I use DoubleTwist. The player (which isn't very good) is free but you have to pay about

 

[daz_2000]

I use isyncr wifi and stock app. Does the job perfectly. Syncs my playlists wirelessly and can control from phone rather than sitting on laptop.

I've yet to find any real benefits to player pro, doubletwist etc

 

[beyond]

The only problem I have found so far is that, although all my music on iTunes on my Mac has album art, in both the default music player and two others I have tried, some music on my SGSII has album art and some not. I'll have to fix that, I can't stand an untidy music collection.

i can answer that one.

itunes finds album art for albums and then caches the actual picture on your mac (somewhere in the itunes folder).

when you look at some of your actual music files you may find in the thumbnail preview, some will have art and some won't.

some have it because an actual jpeg/picture is attached to it.

this is what i do.

get itunes to find the album art/find yourself from google images. select the whole album/all in itunes > get info > paste or drag the picture into the artwork box.

this then will make ALL your songs in that album have actual pictures attached to them and will show so in any file organiser/explorer > thus will show in your music player on your phone.

 

[lotus49]

i can answer that one.

itunes finds album art for albums and then caches the actual picture on your mac (somewhere in the itunes folder).

when you look at some of your actual music files you may find in the thumbnail preview, some will have art and some won't.

some have it because an actual jpeg/picture is attached to it.

this is what i do.

get itunes to find the album art/find yourself from google images. select the whole album/all in itunes > get info > paste or drag the picture into the artwork box.

this then will make ALL your songs in that album have actual pictures attached to them and will show so in any file organiser/explorer > thus will show in your music player on your phone.

I appreciate your taking the time to suggest this, but I think the problem lies elsewhere. I checked my Music/iTunes Music folder and all the music showed alburm art in the thumbnails. What I did notice is that where files are already in MP3 format the album art has copied across fine but where it had to be converted from aiff or m4a, the album art was lost.

Although it appears that your suggestion wasn't the correct reason, you have still helped me diagnose the problem as, until I checked on your suggestion, I hadn't realised which files had transferred the album art and which hadn't so thank you.

[Edit]

I have looked into this and the problem is with AirSync. It copies the album art if the files are already in MP3 format and have art attached. If the original files are in aiff/m4a format the art is stripped out. AirSync apparently does not offer the functionality to copy the art across.

I have to say that I'm pretty annoyed about this. There is no way I have time to go through my collection and fix this, it would take weeks. I'll have to try one of the other suggestions above. Not happy :-(.

 

[lotus49]

To those of you using iSyncr, may I ask a question?

How do you choose which music to sync? I don't use playlists (I'm not even completely sure I know what they are) and I have far too much music to copy to my phone (unless anyone knows where I can buy a 128GB micro SD card).

How do I pick and choose which music I want to copy over? With AirSync it was pretty easy but as I said above, it doesn't copy the album art so I'm looking for an alternative.

 

[daz_2000]

Agree, not great If you don't use playlists and I take it you don't want to sync your entire library?

I do have playlists setup, which are basically a selection of tracks from a variety of albums I have selected.

When I want a whole album, I simply add that whole album to a new playlist and across.

I recently added 5 or so new albums so just dragged all 5 into 1 playlist and synced.

 

[lotus49]

In that case, it looks like I'm still looking for a workable solution to this.

I listen somewhat at random to my large but mainly fairly narrow music collection and I cannot imagine why I might want to use playlists. Setting them up for each album seems rather pointless and time consuming.

I'd like to be able to sync my whole music collection but it's about 100GB so that's out.

I've been really pleased with my new SGS2 after my iPhone but the issue of integration with the desktop is a major drawback. It all just worked with my iPhone but I've had my SGS2 for a fortnight and I've not even been able to back it up yet, let alone copy my music across successfully.

 

[Irate]

@lotus49
open itunes and go to
file-->new playlist and call it what ever you want to

then got to individual tracks you want to be added to the playlist and right click then go to add to the playlist

then when you go to sync you music pick the playlist you just made to add to your p

 

[lotus49]

@lotus49
open itunes and go to
file-->new playlist and call it what ever you want to

then got to individual tracks you want to be added to the playlist and right click then go to add to the playlist

then when you go to sync you music pick the playlist you just made to add to your p

Thanks for the suggestion but because of the way I listen to music, I would just have to create a playlist for every single album. When I listen to music I almost always listen to the entire album but I change which ones I listen to often. My music collection is reasonably large (much too big to fit on an SD card anyway) so all this seems like a lot of work compared to my iPhone.

 

[beyond]

I have looked into this and the problem is with AirSync. It copies the album art if the files are already in MP3 format and have art attached. If the original files are in aiff/m4a format the art is stripped out. AirSync apparently does not offer the functionality to copy the art across.

no problem. as i was typing i was thinking 'aha flawless reply/victory' lol.

why don't you just use normal usb>phone syncing then?

also i'm not sure about the aiff file format but i'm pretty sure in itunes you can use the 'create mp3 version' option in itunes for the m4a formats.

i guess the logistical problem will be finding which ones are not mp3s, so probably do a .aiff/.m4a search, make new playlist, drop those files and convert? then replace.

long winded but if you're efficient it shouldn't take more than a couple of hours at most.

 

[lotus49]

no problem. as i was typing i was thinking 'aha flawless reply/victory' lol.

why don't you just use normal usb>phone syncing then?

also i'm not sure about the aiff file format but i'm pretty sure in itunes you can use the 'create mp3 version' option in itunes for the m4a formats.

i guess the logistical problem will be finding which ones are not mp3s, so probably do a .aiff/.m4a search, make new playlist, drop those files and convert? then replace.

long winded but if you're efficient it shouldn't take more than a couple of hours at most.

USB syncing won't really help because the problem is not getting the music on at all but finding some tidy way of putting selected albums on without faffing about too much. I had also thought about converting formats but again, that is a lot of work and I cannot help thinking that this is the sort of thing my computer should be doing for me.

What I want is an iTunes equivalent where I can just drag and drop albums onto my phone. It's a real shame about the album art because otherwise, DoubleTwist is really simple to use and works well (although I'm not wild about the player but once the music is on the phone you can use whichever player you like).

I currently use the free version of SyncMate to sync to my calendar and contacts. The paid module, which is about

 

[mozza86]

I had similar problems. In the end I just downloaded a free m4a to mp3 converter to my computer and put all the music files through that needed converting. Once you've copied them to your phone (either via USB or wirelessly) if they still don't have the album art download the app Album Art Grabber (free on Market) which does a pretty good job of getting missing album art for you.

 

[lotus49]

I have contacted SyncMate and while they responded impressively quickly, their answer was far from the answer I was hoping for.

SyncMate Expert can sync folders but does not, according to Eltima (makers of SyncMate) really do iTunes syncing at all. In some ways this is even worse than DoubleTwist because all it's doing is copying all the contents of your iTunes Music folder to your phone. I can do that just by USB mounting.

This approach has several big drawbacks. Firstly, my collection is much too big to fit on my phone. Also, most of it is in m4a/aiff format and I bet the Android music players won't support these formats (although I may be wrong about that as I'm too lazy to check).

@mozza86

Thanks for the suggestion but my tastes in music are rather specialist and when I have used software in the past to find album art, I was lucky to get a 1 in 3 hit rate. For at least half of my CDs, I had to scan the cover in myself and I couldn't even find the album art by searching the net manually.

Pleased as I am with my new phone, this is really taking the shine off it. Desktop integration should be a basic feature of any self-respecting smartphone. It's bad enough that the capability isn't provided by Samsung but despite some very helpful people trying to assist me with this (and I do appreciate all your efforts), I am still no closer to having a workable way of getting my music onto my phone much less having all the functionality that iTunes provides for free. I'm very disappointed .

 

[greggebhardt]

Kies2 imports your entire iTune library.

 

[Alex Taylor]

@ lotus49 -

Hi, my name is Alex and I'm from Eltima.

We are currently working on adding iTunes playlists sync support for Android and this feature will be added in one of our forthcoming releases.

Android sync support was added not so long time ago so we just need some time to add more features, thanks for understanding

Please, stay with our blog or subscribe to SyncMate RSS to stay updated of all SyncMate releases.

 

[KING LUFF]

Kies2 imports your entire iTune library.

How?

 

[Kopite7]

I am trying to transfer music from itunes stored on my old windows laptop to my new phone but Kies air is only trying to find whatever is in windows media player.

 

[lotus49]

Transferring music from iTunes is not well supported on Android. Nor is support for some formats (eg Apple Lossless which is not royalty encumbered) or ID3 V2.4 tags. The whole thing is a bugger's muddle.

That said, it is possible. After a lot of grief and numerous failed attempts to find an elegant solution (there isn't one, in fact there isn't a solution that isn't positively ugly) I landed on iSyncr. It only syncs playlists but I have created a playlist for the music I want on my phone and, having done some surgery on my iTunes database so that all the Apple Lossless music was converted to MP3 (not happy about having to do this) I can now sync some of my music.

My iTunes database is the best part of 100GB so it won't fit on my phone. If yours is small enough to fit, there are more options.

 

[Elisheva]

having used ipod agent it did not sync all the song it should have an alternative is iSyncr from the android market or elsewhere. it peformed better for me than any other option i used and also brings all the artist info etc

Hi

I have followed your advice and have transferred music from iTunes; however; it only transfer a couple of songs from each album and when I tried to delete a song it wouldn't delete off my phone.

How do I sort this out, any suggestions?

Thanks