Topic: Anyoni- tunes substitutes - organizer and player only, no subscription services.

[Mr.OMuck]

  Can anybody recommend a substitute for i-tunes, which has been turned into an unwieldy, kludgey piece if crap. I'm not talking about a music subscription service like Spotify, just an organizer- player for music I already have on my Mac and i-phone. It must be able to import my library from
i-tunes.
Also, does anyone have any experience with PONO?

[TenBrook]

Not sure if you're opposed to cloud based music storage/organization but I recently added all my digital files to Google Play and have been enjoying it so far. Once nice thing is, presuming the cloud never fails, I won't have to go through the pain of moving/organizing all my files again (as I have a few times when old iPods died) and I can access them from any device assuming it's got an internet connection.

While Google Play does have a subscription aspect similar to Spotify, they allow you to upload up to 50,000 of your own songs (which is plenty) which you can then access and stream for free and without ads.

The one annoying thing about Google Play is that while searching your own files it will recommend things from their streaming service or youtube, etc. though any songs you have uploaded personally are given priority in searches.

It's set up to allow you to connect to your iTunes music folder or any folder on your computer and will sync up all the music located there. It can be a little buggy (I uploaded 80+ gigs of music over the course of a week and a couple times I had to reconnect to the folder as it had stopped syncing, but still it went pretty smoothly).

I'm sure there's some other solutions out there but this one's working for me for now and is worth experimenting with if you're not opposed to streaming your own music as opposed to listening offline.

[Mr.OMuck]

Actually sounds good but As I mostly use my i-phone to listen to music in the Subway, it has to be a non wifi/cloud application.

[StoogeKebab]

There is the issue of iTunes being the 'only' way to manage media on an iPhone, however there's a simple alternative if you're able to get used to using normal folders to manage music in the form of the software iExplorer. That will let you manage your iPhone's files without any of Apple's bloatware. It's available here, and does have a price, but I suppose if it's worth it to you, it's a good option. I use it personally and can vouch for its effectiveness - as long as it's kept updated https://macroplant.com/iexplorer'

Having said that, I use it to get quick access to my voice memos, not manage music as I've spent a vastly excessive amount of time managing my music in iTunes to learn to adapt to anything else. In spite of the one second delay per letter when I try to search for a song using the main search bar.

As for the PONO, I've only heard one with my own ears once, and it was a tech demo with rap or pop or something, the good headphones helped, but there was nothing saving that music. There exist other media players that use microSD cards for the storage. My personal pick would be a FiiO, one of the cheaper or slightly older models, combined with a 128GB or 64GB card if you have a ton of music, better priced.