iphone music help please

[id10t]

Have an iPhone 4. Only one windows machine available. Have MP3 collections on several Linux boxes.

I've added MP3 files to the iPhone by using iTunes on my one windows machine, and copytrans manager running under virtualbox with a share pointing to my mp3s on my linux box at home.

I need to be able to add music to the phone from multiple computers, *without* removing everything on the phone already. So I don't think iTunes sync will work for me.

What are my options? Or do I need to suck it up, get all my music on to my one windows machine, and then synch from there? Or should I just live with it for 18 more months and when it is time to move to a new phone, ditch Apple and go with an Android phone that lets me just copy my music using a file manager?

FWIW I got the iPhone 'cause it was the best phone at being just a phone. None of the 'droid phones in my price range were in the store to play with, so I didn't want to buy a pig in a poke... am I just screwed now?

Thanks

[tharbert]

I used to be tied to my MP3 collection, as meager as it was, until I started using Pandora. I just purchased the 1 year license to get rid of the pesky ads but, more importantly, to access the higher fidelity streaming. I can listen to it on my iphone, at my desk at work, or on my home stereo. I don't have to deal with transferring files, iTunes, or worry about copyrights.

There are other streaming services but the one that suits me the most seems to be Pandora One.

[id10t]

Dont want to do the streaming thing - limited bandwidth at home, 200mb/mo data plan on the phone, and the firewall at work slows streaming down. My MP3 collection is either Free music (thanks archive.org) or ripped from my own CDs...

[Cajundaddy]

As you know, the simplest way to solve this is with one master itunes file on a Mac or PC. Then you can transfer music wherever you need it. With the cost of storage so low now, it should be pretty simple to do.

I have never used it but icloud seems like another good solution to have access to all your music from anywhere. I think it is Mac-compatible only though.

[Z-man]

Originally Posted by tharbert

I used to be tied to my MP3 collection, as meager as it was, until I started using Pandora. I just purchased the 1 year license to get rid of the pesky ads but, more importantly, to access the higher fidelity streaming. I can listen to it on my iphone, at my desk at work, or on my home stereo. I don't have to deal with transferring files, iTunes, or worry about copyrights.

There are other streaming services but the one that suits me the most seems to be Pandora One.

I listen to Pandora now almost exclusively as well.
Regarding the highe fidelity streaming with the subscription: what is the difference in sampling/bit rates? Is the difference noticable?

Back to the OP's question: the simplest way to get all your MP3's onto your iphone is to consolidate all of your MP3 files onto on computer, then import those files into iTunes and then transfer them to your iphone. Apple will not allow any of their portable devices (iphone, ipad, ipod) to be connected to more than one PC/MAC in order to prevent copyright infringement issues.

-Z-man.

[spuggy]

You can use rhythmbox or several other things to manage mp3's, - rhythmbox also plays them directly, through the computer sound card and the digital connection. Think gtkpod, banshee and amarok offer various functionality, haven't looked in a couple of years (pretty happy with Rhythmbox, and got tired of multiple things trying to grab/manage the ipod when I plugged it in - so de-installed the ones I wasn't using).

iTunes is just a nightmare. My MP3 collection lives outside iTunes on a USB disk (with a backup on a RAID 10), so all I ever do is rip any new CD I buy, import the folder into iTunes, fix the art (and refuse to let it mess with them otherwise). And then either sync the ipod or add the mp3s directly.

Since I also have the same collection in Google Play Music, my Nexus (or any web browser) also has access to/plays all the songs the ipod physically holds - which seems like a good fall-back position

I still like/use the ipods as a dedicated music player (Alpine digital head unit in the car does a good job of driving it too), but iTunes is a horribly bloated, flakey and truly foul experience. Just wait until you have to re-plug, reset/reboot (computer and player) 5-6 times to get it to recognise it. Or even re-format and re-load the player. Bah.

In fact, when iTunes was all I used, it would seem to keep "discovering" albums I've had for years and add them to the ipod at the next sync. Which made me wonder if it actually had the music in the first place (hard to be really sure once you get over a few 1000 songs) - or was simply re-adding something it already had... Neither seemed ideal...

[spuggy]

Oh, and Pandora is a fantastic way to discover music "similar" to artists/albums you already really like. To the point where you stop what you're doing, say "what the heck is that", look at the display and go buy the CD containing the track you're listening to.

Yeh, gotta keep a handle on that. There's a 20,000 song limit in Google Play Music...

[id10t]

No joy with rhythmbox, gtkpod, or gmtp