[REQ] Audio Book Player app for WP8 - Windows Phone 8 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hey all. I listen to Audio Books a LOT. I have a lot of Idle Time when I am on a bus or a plane.
I know that back in WP7 days, they had to do all of this strange crap to get the media files on the phone to get them to work since there was no direct write access to the phone's Media folders. I am using LyndyAudio right now, but in order to get the books on there I have to upload them to DropBox then download them through the app. Also, no multi-tasking, if I leave the app in any way, it stops playback.
With WP8, we now have access to these media folders and can put the files directly on the device for use.
The app does not have to be flashy or anything but just very simple functions:
Set default audiobook folder (include subfolders)
Play
Pause - This action bookmarks your place for resume later
Fast FWD/Reverse
Skip FWD/Reverse
Pause on phone ring/answer
Resume on call end
(Any other features that can be thought up)
I'll even pay for this app and whoever can come through with this will have a huge advantage as I know many people within my company are looking for a similar app.
Please feel free to PM me or reply here if there are any questions.
Thanks!!

I agree, we need audiobook functionality back. I know we have Audible, but most of my audiobooks are mp3s burnt from CDs. +1 for an audiobook app that will let me add my own files.

Audible
Did you try Audible?
http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/audible-audiobooks/bdc813dd-c20b-41f8-8646-de72fa0b365d

MethodGT said:
I agree, we need audiobook functionality back. I know we have Audible, but most of my audiobooks are mp3s burnt from CDs. +1 for an audiobook app that will let me add my own files.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, please. At least with WP7 you could convert MP3's to a podcast and transfer it and then control it with the built in media player. Can't even do that now. This is one area where 8 really hosed us.

I would love one as well. One that lets you use your own files as audiobooks without having to use their library. All I need is a bookmark feature really.

Related

Audiobooks?

I listen to a lot of audiobooks during my work commute and used to use my iPod for this. Since I have a decent sized memory card in my X1, I'd rather use it instead so I only need one device with me. The problem is that all of my audiobooks are in .m4b format, so I need something that runs on WinMo that can:
1. Play this .m4b format (I think it's just AAC)
2. Bookmark where I am in each book so if I close and re-open the player, the book continues from where I left off
3. Allows fine tuned rewind/fast forward as I often rewind 5-30 seconds to hear some part of a book a second time
I've found tcpmp/core player can play .m4b's, but it's not great at bookmarking. That is, if I'm listening to a book, close the player and re-open it, the bookmark works fine and it continues to play where I left off. However, if I open any other file in between, the bookmark is lost. This is made worse by the inability to do any fine tuned rewind/fast forward. The only option is to use the progress slider, which tends to jump in VERY large increments.
Any suggestions? Is there another audiobook format I should try which would work better?
Convert to MP3 then use something like:
http://motorola-windows-mobile.hand...id=1093&for=Motorola+Windows+Mobile audiobook
Unfortunately m4b is a gash Apple format and so needs to be converted...
You could also try Kinoma (www.kinoma.com). Not sure if it plays .mb4, I use it for books from audible.
I personally just use the standard windows media player, I also listen to alot of audiobooks usually a few hours a day and when I get to and from work I use the notes program to make a note of where I am. This isn't necessery all the time because I can just minimize windows media player and then start it back up when I want to carry on listening (the program doesn't fully close when pressing x)
I have never used an audiobook on an ipod so im not sure what type of support it has though it would be nice to have the feature but it isn't something I really need, it's easy to do without.
bump for more opinions.
I use CorePalayer for my audio books.
http://www.coreplayer.com/
Resco Audio Recorder allows you to bookmark MP3 files at specific points (Store lots of bookmarks for various MP3's), it's also got a finger friendly fast forward/rewind.
According to the website it plays the following files
MP3 — The most popular audio format ever. Widely supported by all platforms. Ideal trade off between quality and hardware requirements.
Ogg Vorbis — Alternative to MP3 with higher quality, but requires faster PDA.
Speex — Outstanding speech compression ratio, but also needs fast device.
WAV — Lossless quality, low hardware requirements, but huge memory consumption.
RAF — Minimal hardware requirements, minimal energy consumption, compresstion ratio 4:1.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It also can do standard voice recording and phone call recording
Edit: Just looked on their site. They have a Codec pack addon that allows recording/playing of AAC files
Second Edit: They also have a seven day demo (I'm assuming you can add the demo of the codec pack as well) So that you can test it to see if you like the software
THJahar said:
Resco Audio Recorder allows you to bookmark MP3 files at specific points (Store lots of bookmarks for various MP3's), it's also got a finger friendly fast forward/rewind.
According to the website it plays the following files
It also can do standard voice recording and phone call recording
Edit: Just looked on their site. They have a Codec pack addon that allows recording/playing of AAC files
Second Edit: They also have a seven day demo (I'm assuming you can add the demo of the codec pack as well) So that you can test it to see if you like the software
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ooooh, now this is what I was looking for. The bookmarking feature works very well for my audiobooks and the touch friendly controls are exactly what I was looking for. It doesn't seem to like the m4b files, even with the AAC codec, but I can easily convert my m4b's to mp3's and everything works wonderfully.
Thanks!
Or have a look at MortPlayer.
With favorites (easy navigation through your music/audiobook folders), special audio book support (auto bookmarks for audio book files/folders, auto rewind when continuing, ...), bookmarks, finger friendly since the first beta (somewhere in 2004, iirc), skin support (including WVGA since 3.31b73), ...
However, the AAC/MP4 plugin from GSPlayer (included in beta installers) doesn't work properly on all devices, and I'm not sure whether m4b is included...
Hey, I found out, that Audiooboks in the m4B Format can't be handled by the Mort Player.
BUT
If you rename the file from m4b to m4a the player can handle them.
Cheers
Jens
I was very excited to try this as I have a number of .m4b audiobooks I would like to listen to on the Android. But I just tried renaming an .m4b file to an .m4a file on my Android G1 and it still did not play I have been using the Ambling BookPlayer which works well with mp3, oog, or m4a files, but renaming the m4b to m4a didn't work.
The Ambling BookPlayer has worked very well for playing audiobooks even those that have a lot of individual audio files, and it has a bookmarking history with undo and redo so you can jump right back to each place you started or stopped listening. The Ambling BookPlayer Lite is free on the Android Market and it supports automatically downloading the free LibriVox audiobooks directly to the Android.
I would be interested in knowing if anyone else been able to successfully play an m4b file after renaming it to an m4a? and if so which Android phone does it work on?
I found that there is a request for Google to add support for the m4b format to the Android at http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=3923 You can boost the priority of this request by going to the page and clicking on the star to cast your vote in favor of adding this feature.
Audiobooks from iTunes in M4B are encrypted. Simply renaming the files from .m4b to .m4a will not help. You need to decrypt the files first. Google for Requiem.
The m4b format does support encryption. Some m4b audio files are encrypted but others are not.
If you get one of the conversion programs (there are many available) that will convert mp3 files into m4b files, the resulting m4b files are not encrypted. Other m4b files, such as those sold by some stores, are encrypted.
If you purchase an audiobook on CD, rip it to mp3s, combine them and convert them to an m4b (just for the purpose of getting bookmarking to keep track of your place in the audiobook), the resulting m4b file is not encrypted.
new player app
Here is a new Android app Akimbo Audiobook Player that has m4b support with chapters and artwork. Finally I have got back to where I was years ago on the ipod

We need a better mp3 player for android

I use my phone as a mp3 player alot but the software that came with android is very limited and does not give you enought options to use our phone as a fully funcional mp3 player. Like for example creating playlist, search songs by name or artist with the keyboard. etc.
I hope some developer is working on a better player...
You can do all of that you mentioned already. To add to a playlist long-press on a song and choose add to playlist and you can make a new one or add to an existing one. To search just slide out the keyboard and type it will return all results for artist, song, album, everything. Hope this helps
Geniusdog254 said:
You can do all of that you mentioned already. To add to a playlist long-press on a song and choose add to playlist and you can make a new one or add to an existing one. To search just slide out the keyboard and type it will return all results for artist, song, album, everything. Hope this helps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks you right about everything. I just found something else I have every album in separate folders let say I would like to select just one folder to play that album only, is there any way to do that, because as far as I see the player looks for all the music files in the sd card and display them in the library together.
thanks
I don't think you can organize by folder but maybe try clicking album on the home page of the MP3 app? That will read all the ID3 tags of the MP3's and sort them by album to play. Unfortunately what sucks for me is a lot of my music files are .m4a from my iPhone which the G1 can play but I don't have album art or tags or anything and it blows because you can't add tags to them and I don't have the time to convert them to mp3. Oh well, hope this helps you!
i think we will see a lot more once paid apps come- coreplayer are working on an android version for one.
I just figure another issue, I create a folder with ringtones .mp3s and the player put them on the play list to This is crazy it should at least ask you if u want to add the new audio files to the play list. now I have 10sec ringtones playing on my playlist
I'll pay for a player with all the features that an audio player should have.
What folder are you putting your ringtones in?
I have my ringtones in a folder named 'ringtones', my notifications in a folder called 'notifications' and the media player doesn't pick any of them up.
One thing for sure, Shuffle blows for some odd reason. It's always the same damn order! The only way to get something different is to Shuffle -> Party Shuffle. This needs to be fixed.
Also, it would be nice if they added the fast search (like in contacts, dragging letters on the right) to the song list, as well as speed it up quite a bit.
I'm not impressed with the MP3 player. I'm hoping someone is working on one that is a little bit more iPhonish, as I like the looks/usability of that. S2P for WindowsMobile nailed it.
Is there something wrong with tunewiki? maybe that is more to your liking?
I like the double click headset to change tracks, single click to pause/resume. Although i'm not sure if this functionality would exist with A2DP? It could do with a few more features i'll admit, but it looks fine to me.
Need an Eqaulizer
nuff said.
Samsung Galaxy 4.0 Android MP3 Player.
Samsung calls this an MP3 player, but it is really a great Android phone -- without the phone. The form factor is great for carrying around. I find I'm using it much more than my iPad to access email, listen to podcasts, watch videos, and more. The Gingerbread Android OS is snappy and easy to use. With Skype and Wifi, you get voice/video connectivity.
Samsung Galaxy Player 50
Agreed. The stock app never allows me to view my playlist like the iPod does.
Sent from my Liberty using XDA
Check out MKZIplayer.
Great for video and music
If you use a custom rom you can download "PlayerPro". Best MP3 Player.
(Or try "Apollo", its included in Cyanogenmod from FreeXperia)

BookDroid audiobook listener for Android

Absent Oy has published BookDroid audio book listener
for Android Platform
Want to take your audio book library on the go with your mobile,
but your phone doesn´t have a good player for them, well now you have.
Product homepage: http://www.absent.fi/mobile/bookdroid
BookDroid audio book listener features are:
* Player portion designed audio books in mind
* Supports all audio files that Android platform supports
* Contains personal audio book library, where you can
add/remove/modify audio books
* No matter if your audio book is in a single file or multiple
files, you can combine them into one audio book
* Supports bookmarks in audio books
* Auto save keeps the right position whether application is
shut down unexpectedly
* Undo button remembers last position if mistakenly you
seek or skip while listening
* Supports skip seeking (with configurable skip step) and
track seeking
* You can download thousands of royalty free books straight
within the application
* Downloads can be either audio files, or zip files, which BookDroid
automatically extracts them if they are archives
* Audio books can be transferred through USB or similar method
to device´s memory card (just like music)
SPECIAL DISCOUNT BEFORE THE APPLICATION
HITS THE ANDROID MARKET
Due to limitations on Android Market in Finland, BookDroid
cannot be sold through Android Market yet. Because this inconvenience
we are offering a special discount for the application before it is released
through the Android Market, so be sure to grab it now.
We are sorry because we have to circumvent the selling through a third party,
but alas when Android Market accepts payments in Finland, we will
release it fully through Android Market. Those who will buy the application
now will receive all the updates for free just like those who will buy it from market.
Instructions how to buy and obtain the application,
see http://www.absent.fi/mobile/buy
BookDroid is developed by Santtu Syrjälä and published by Absent Oy.
Wrong forum; this should be in Apps & Games.
There is an app on the market called Books WordPlayer that is free and has many royalty free books available. How is this different than WordPlayer?
edit: this is an honest question, not meant to bag on your app at all. I'd be interested if it is worth the money.
Hi!
Jay652 : Sorry about this, can moderator move this to correct position?
tekkitan : Thanks for showing interest If I read correctly WordPlayer reads ebooks from texts. BookDroid is quite the opposite, it's audio book player, meaning that it is a media player focused on features for audio books. Many mp3 audio books are really long(8-20 hours) or they are chopped into many files(~100 mp3s). BookDroid aims to ease listening to audio books and specializes to features such as time skipping, autosave, undo skipping, bookmarks, collecting mp3s into one big entity etc. to make audio book listening as much comfortable as it can. Using regular media player with audio books is ockward at best.
Hope I clarified what BookDroid really is
bookdroid said:
Hi!
Jay652 : Sorry about this, can moderator move this to correct position?
tekkitan : Thanks for showing interest If I read correctly WordPlayer reads ebooks from texts. BookDroid is quite the opposite, it's audio book player, meaning that it is a media player focused on features for audio books. Many mp3 audio books are really long(8-20 hours) or they are chopped into many files(~100 mp3s). BookDroid aims to ease listening to audio books and specializes to features such as time skipping, autosave, undo skipping, bookmarks, collecting mp3s into one big entity etc. to make audio book listening as much comfortable as it can. Using regular media player with audio books is ockward at best.
Hope I clarified what BookDroid really is
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, you did.
I'd try it, but the Android market lets your refund apps you don't like. Can't do that from an untrusted source.
I am using an audiobook player I got from the Android Market called Ambling BookPlayer. It lets you combine multiple audio files into a single audiobook which it treats just the same as a single audio file for playing and bookmarking. It also has a bookmarking history feature that tracks the positions where you start and stop playing and has undo and redo buttons that let you go back to where you were, so you can't lose your place. The free version of this player is called Ambling BookPlayer Lite and it can automatically download the free audiobooks at librivox.org. They have a web site that shows the features in the different versions that are available at http://amblingbookplayer.com/
There's this app too.
ttps://market.android.com/details?id=com.inzi.dreamland2&feature=search_resu lt
That seems pretty cool for a 99 cent app.
I uses motion or speech to determine if you are awake.
Has links to a bunch of free audiobook like Librevox.
I don't think it's a general media player though.
Still haven't found an audio book program I am completely happy with. I will check some of these out
Jungledrums said:
Still haven't found an audio book program I am completely happy with. I will check some of these out
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
check out MortPlayer. I've been looking for a good audio book player. Here are some quotes I collected from various forums.
MortPlayer Audiobook Player. Best audiobook player I've used on any device, and it's free.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
MortPlayer is one of the better dedicated non-DRM audiobook players.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
MortPlayer plays & lists files in correct order. Has every option I can imagine!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
MortPlayer allows you to add bookmarks to the track you’re listening to, so that when you return to your audiobook (from a selection saved on your microSD card) you can carry on from where you left off!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
mydiamarks
check out mydiamarks you can find them on the android market.
Bookmarks all local media (including audiobooks) and even YouTube videos. They even have other clients that android can synchronize with.

M3U Streaming & Android & Nexus One

First off, would like to say thanks to all the great people here who have helped me over the years in unlocking, modding, theme-ing and generally hacking my various phones... I have never felt the need to start a thread as I could always find the answer somewhere in here - but this one has me stumped.
Since purchasing my NexusOne (running CM5.0.6), I have been searching for an app to replace Pocket Music Player that I used to use on my WinMo phone. Basically what it was able to do is read m3u files that had URLs instead of local file names. I think I have tried every Android media playing app and they are unable to read the file (except for one) - they actually delete the file from the SDCard after trying to play it! DroidLive was the only app I could find that would load and play the file, but provides no way to view the playlist, skip tracks or read any of the metadata (because I think it assumes its a live stream).
Why is this is important? I am currently running an apache webserver on my D-Link DNS-323 along with a bit of code called musicbrowser (open source project) that allows browsing, streaming (flash based), playlist creation & downloading of music on my home network. Basically, you navigate to the tracks you want, hit stream and it sends you an m3u file with the URLs of the tracks you queued. That way I always have access to whatever tracks I have recently purchased (not to mention the fact that I have ~ 200 GB of music, and some days still can't find something I'm in the mood for).
And just so people know, I have tried every alternative out there - orb (buggy as all hell, server crashes frequently), subsonic (the android app doesn't actually stream - it just downloads the entire playlist to your SDCard), & tonido (unstable as per orb). I was very happy with the way musicbrowser was working on WinMo and just want to get back there with Android.
And so... does anyone know of an app that will properly play M3U files with URLs in them?
(Sorry about the long-ish post, but I wanted to make sure people understood what I was asking for.)
Not sure if it will suit your needs but give steamfurious a shot
m3u Player
Can window media player play .m3u file as a online radio
Is any other software can play .m3u file for window mobile 6.5
Try http://www.gmote.org/faq for "Gmote".
In the FAQ it says:
Are music playlists supported?
Yes. Currently, the M3U format is supported. If your playlists are in a different format, it's possible to convert them to the M3U format. Try Googling something like "WPL to M3U". Also, please let us know what your favorite playlist type is so that we may add it to future versions.
Also, when you select a single song to play, all other songs in that directory will be queued and played after the selected song.
With froyo we get native support for music streaming but I have yet to see any details about the formats supported.
Streamfurious is a no go. Tried it, but thanks for the suggestion.
I'm not exactly sure what the WinMo question was getting at, but no - WMP would not play them but just about every other player did - Core, Pocket Music, Mort...
GMote is an app that controls a local source from a network location & and what I am looking for is to play networked music via a local source.
Perhaps I will just have to wait for 2.2 and hope that solves my problem.
-------------------------------------
Sent via the XDA Tapatalk App
You could try Subsonic to stream your music. I tried it a few weeks ago, and it worked. Not as user friendly as most to set up, but it looks like you could handle it easily.
I have tried subsonic and while it claims to stream, all the android app does is download everything to the device (ie. it was trying to download my entire music collection OTA - not good for my data plan.)
I just flashed froyo to my device and while I am overall thrilled with it, I am unimpressed that the streaming m3u issue is still there...
Still looking for a solution if anyone finds one! Thanks for all the input thus far.
HooKy said:
I have tried subsonic and while it claims to stream, all the android app does is download everything to the device (ie. it was trying to download my entire music collection OTA - not good for my data plan.)
I just flashed froyo to my device and while I am overall thrilled with it, I am unimpressed that the streaming m3u issue is still there...
Still looking for a solution if anyone finds one! Thanks for all the input thus far.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've written and published a program called "Just Playlists" which reads M3U files and uses them to directly locate music files on the SD card via file paths. I'm close to releasing a new version that will also stream music pointed to by URL's within the M3U (or PLS) playlists. I added this feature to allow for playing SHOUTcast/ICEcast streams, but it will also play remote audio files. This may help you out. The only caveat is that I don't get ID3 tag information from the streamed files and I re-connect to the server for each URL, so the gap between tracks may be a bit large.
Another issue you mention is that your M3U files are being deleted by Android. I can explain this one. When Android scans your SD card for media files, it reads the M3U files it finds and, if it can't find any tracks on your SD card corresponding to the file paths in an M3U file, it assumes the file is effectively empty and deletes it. To stop this from happening, place an empty file named ".nomedia" in the directory containing your M3U files. The media scanner will no longer touch this directory or any below it. The new version of "Just Playlists" has an option to create/delete these files, as well.
I hope to have the new version of my program released within a few days.
That sounds awesome! I look forward to release of your app!
I must say this has been most frustrating as this functionality is something I used my phone for the most (even more than the phone part!) and look forward to getting back to it.
Cheers,
H
EDIT: Just noticed your post was more than a few days old and you have released the new version! I am grabbing it now and will report back.
Just Playlists!
THANK YOU! I am literally almost in tears right now. I was so frustrated that I could not stream from archive.org (I bought a bluetooth receiver in my car specifically to be able to stream music in my car from my phone to the speakers). This has made my day. I will be donating after i give it a trial run. THANK YOU!
Try "A Online Radio." I like it better than streamfurious. Really, my only complaint is that it doesn't play WMA streams. I would KILL for a streaming audio program that did.
ftb23 said:
THANK YOU! I am literally almost in tears right now. I was so frustrated that I could not stream from archive.org (I bought a bluetooth receiver in my car specifically to be able to stream music in my car from my phone to the speakers). This has made my day. I will be donating after i give it a trial run. THANK YOU!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm really glad to hear JP is working out for you! Let me know if you run into any bugs or quirks. Streaming under Android seems to be a bit flaky, so I'm working to make JP's streaming more reliable, or, at the very least, to recover from streaming dropouts in as many cases as possible.
HooKy said:
I have tried subsonic and while it claims to stream, all the android app does is download everything to the device (ie. it was trying to download my entire music collection OTA - not good for my data plan.)
I just flashed froyo to my device and while I am overall thrilled with it, I am unimpressed that the streaming m3u issue is still there...
Still looking for a solution if anyone finds one! Thanks for all the input thus far.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Subsonic doesn't download your entire collection, it creates a database of your entire collection so you know what you have and what you don't.
reviving this thread xD
xiia plays m3u files can stream dnb radio now yay
alankstiyo said:
reviving this thread xD
xiia plays m3u files can stream dnb radio now yay
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
not sure if this is relevant but sound cloud has awesome dub and dnb
Sent from my Google Phone
has anyone found a working soultion for this yet? I have a set of m3u and pls files which are saved URL's of online radio stations, some from shoutcast, some from other sources that on Windows Mobile I used GS Player to listen to
Just Playlists seems to come the closest out of any apps I've tried to working but either gives me an unexpected error message when trying to open the file or it looks like it has opened it but I get no playback.
I've tried StremFurious, VLC S&C and I think one or two others but no luck yet, curious if others have a solution
thanks!
alankstiyo said:
reviving this thread xD
xiia plays m3u files can stream dnb radio now yay
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just installed XiiaLive Lite from the Market (free) It works very well and has a really nice interface. Thanks for pointing it out.
Streaming works but...
Hey streaming works well with Just Playlist but I was hoping to find music player which shows me the content of the playlist.m3u and you can pick from there the song you wanna play... I got my music on NAS but I can access NAS from 3G also and would love to stream my music on the road to my phone... Any ideas for this? I can access the files via http or ftp/sftp... Also if anybody knows good php based media library script with account managment, please tell me (with mobile-layout would be awesome)
Lazmo88 said:
Hey streaming works well with Just Playlist but I was hoping to find music player which shows me the content of the playlist.m3u and you can pick from there the song you wanna play... I got my music on NAS but I can access NAS from 3G also and would love to stream my music on the road to my phone... Any ideas for this? I can access the files via http or ftp/sftp... Also if anybody knows good php based media library script with account managment, please tell me (with mobile-layout would be awesome)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
try Mediastork.com (open source)
it is all custom and can be modded. it also automatically generates playlists of your mp3 folders

Media Manager for Android - They all Suck

So my father and step mother recently got new Android phone, they both got Evo 4G's. My father has been working non stop to get his wife's music and audio books setup so that it's really easy to make playlist, sync them, play them back, etc. He has used WMP, had issues with that, so I suggested DoubleTwist. He messed with it and didn't like the interface, felt that it wasn't that intuitive. I decided that I would actually mess with dT myself so that I could see if it was worth suggesting to others. I found it pretty easy to make playlist and sync them and stuff, but there is one major problem with it, it ignores track numbers. I can't get it to show me track numbers at all, and can't get it to organize track in an album by track number, and if I drag a whole album into it's own playlist, it organized in alphabetical order, I can't get it to play by track number.
Next, I decided to mess with Motorola Media Link. I never even got to the point of seeing if it will work with my N1 cause I couldn't get it to sort by album, or artist or whatever when I clicked on the column header like would happen in Windows explorer. I can accept Motorola Media Link opening in artist mode first, but I should then be able to click a song, then go and hit the album column header and it will keep the fist song selected and resort the song by album showing the other songs in the same album above and below the original selected song, but that did not happen.
I'm not even going to mess with WMP anymore as I feel that is utter s**t when it comes UI. Doubletwist makes making playlist easy, but ignores track numbers, Motorola Media link doesn't sort things properly. Are there no other truly intuitive, easy to use, fully featured media player/manager for Android devices. I feel that this is going to make it difficult for Android devices to truly win over the hearts of iPhone users, who phone's just work. As much as I hate Apple's communist control over their platform and hardware, you have to give them credit for making a phone that even the technologically inept can use and work without problems
What's wrong with just drag and drop your files? I think that's the easiest way. Don't even need any software, just plug in the cable, it pops up as mass storage, drag over your files to a folder, done
I made the iPhone to N1 jump recently myself and had some similar growing pains in the media management side of things. Although I only really care about music (not podcasts or audiobooks) and have some real anal retentive requirements for playlist management, I've found bTunes as my media player and iSyncr for media management to be a great combination.
bTunes copies the navigation of the iOS iPod app perfectly, but adds in on-the-fly playlist creation and editing under the hood.
iSyncr lets me copy over playlists directly from my iTunes account, and updates playcounts and everything when I run the program.
I'm not sure if those things will apply to your parents' needs as elegantly as they have to my own. But hopefully it might help!
RogerPodacter said:
What's wrong with just drag and drop your files? I think that's the easiest way. Don't even need any software, just plug in the cable, it pops up as mass storage, drag over your files to a folder, done
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's what my father and I do for ourselves, but that's not a good solution for my step mother who's not good with that kind of stuff and really doesn't have any desire to learn that. The ultimate goal of all this is to make it as easy as possible for her so that she can do it all without having to ask my father how or have him do.
sosquidtaste said:
I made the iPhone to N1 jump recently myself and had some similar growing pains in the media management side of things. Although I only really care about music (not podcasts or audiobooks) and have some real anal retentive requirements for playlist management, I've found bTunes as my media player and iSyncr for media management to be a great combination.
bTunes copies the navigation of the iOS iPod app perfectly, but adds in on-the-fly playlist creation and editing under the hood.
iSyncr lets me copy over playlists directly from my iTunes account, and updates playcounts and everything when I run the program.
I'm not sure if those things will apply to your parents' needs as elegantly as they have to my own. But hopefully it might help!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, I'll send the info to my father and see if that works for him. He's still trying to find a solution for the audio books though. He's does some reading on the Audible Android app that's in beta and it appears to be having issues, so he's leery of installing it. But hopefully the music aspect will work for him.
Playlists and WMP
I am the father.
The biggest issue being able to easily have the playlists show upon the phone.
It can be accomplished with WMP by manually saving the play list as an M3u, then drag and drop that to root of the music folder on the phone, then you have to delete the auto generated WPl list from the pc in order to not have the play list show up twice in the play list list. This has to be repeated each time a change is made to the list.
Wish for WMP:
Allow you to set default play list file type.
For WMP to sync the list to the phone.
Thanks for any future help or advice.
jim.pulliam said:
I am the father.
The biggest issue being able to easily have the playlists show upon the phone.
It can be accomplished with WMP by manually saving the play list as an M3u, then drag and drop that to root of the music folder on the phone, then you have to delete the auto generated WPl list from the pc in order to not have the play list show up twice in the play list list. This has to be repeated each time a change is made to the list.
Wish for WMP:
Allow you to set default play list file type.
For WMP to sync the list to the phone.
Thanks for any future help or advice.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i use fusion media player, excellent for making/viewing/playing playlists.
i dont know what format playlists are saved as, but the playlist i made in fusion works in other media players as well, like google play music, es media player, and stock gingerbread music player app.
i never even touched the playlist files, not move them, not edit or anything, idk where the file even is and my playlists work on all above mentioned players. enjoy!

Categories

Resources