Michael P. O'Connor

With the rumors going around that Apple might one day discontinue the “iPod classic” and the fact that as a single use device its price is rising compared to multi-use devices, and finally the fact that I still have the same iPod that I got in 2003 (and we all know hardware does not last for ever). I have thought about what I might need to look at for the future.

I have become much in love with my Android phone (one of the many reasons I got it at the start was that I could program on it, already know java, and did not have to make a investment in a new computer since I did not have a mac) I have been working on my first Android Program. It is coming along nicely.

Combine the top two paragraphs with the fact that my Android device has already replaced my GPS device in my car, I thought I would look around at what could be done for Music and below is what I found:

Amazon’s Cloud drive: nice idea, but I have been less then happy with the Android App it just does not feel responcive, yes I know it is working over the internet, but when I can download a 5 minute YouTube video over Edge faster then I can start playing a 3 minute mp3 over 3g there is something wrong there. Also with that, it does not accept into the music part of the drive any podcast mp3s (and that what I mainly listen to) nor does it seem to dynamically update my play lists, this last one is a major issue for me, as I have 1 play list that I change almost daily, it is called “To Listen Too” and it contains a list (in order) of the podcasts I wish to listen to, and as I listen to my podcasts eposodes I remove them from the head of the list and as new ones come in I put them at the tail of the list, so having it able to update the list as I update the list is important.

Google Music (Beta): well Nice idea like the Amazon Cloud drive, but well they don’t support my version of the OS on my phone (2.1) and I am not going drop money into a new phone when my Cliq is doing great for everything else. Also I have not finished uploading all my music to it, so still not sure how it works, but the fact that it does not have a version of the software that runs on my cliq it seems this can not be the answer.

iSyncer: This is not a cloud system, this might take a bit more of a $$ investment but so far this has proven to be the best so far, what it does is it puts a EXE on the mSD card of the phone, when you mount the sMD card (via the phone) on your computer and run the EXE it will read your iTunes music library and let you copy the play lists you wish to your mSD card. It also creates the play lists for the built in Android Music player. I have tested this so far on my phone (only a 2Gbyte mSD card) and it has worked very well, only have done 2 days of testing but it is promising. I will probably over this week leave my iPod at home during my commute to work and see how it works as my mp3 player in my car while driving. I have moved a few play lists over (amounting to 1.5 Gbytes of music). If this proves to be my anser I will probably invest in a 32 Gbyte mSD card and just replace the iPod now instead of holding till the day the iPod dies, I really like how the “Connected Player” (Motorola’s implementation on a music player on the phone) is working.