How to – sync music on your Google Nexus One
The Google Nexus One may do a top-notch job of backing up all your data for free in the cloud, but it can’t compare to the iPhone for easy syncing of songs and playlists on your computer. But help is at hand: our tutorial will show you how to make importing music on Android as easy as iTunes, so read on for the simple steps…
Choose your memory card
If you’re planning on loading up your Google Nexus One with tunes, you may want a bigger memory card than the one that comes supplied. 8GB micro SDHC cards, big enough to stash around 2,500 songs, can be had for under a tenner online, while 16GB cards are falling all the time, and enormous 32GB cards are expected later this year. The supplied 4GB card should keep you content for a few weeks at least, though.
Hook up your PC
With the supplied micro USB cable, you should be able to plug the Nexus One straight into any PC or Mac. Not only will this charge the phone like the mains, but it will mount the phone’s micro SD card like a regular USB memory stick, visible in your machine’s file browser. You can drag and drop MP3s here if you like, but the next step makes thing much more simple.
Download doubleTwist
The chances are, you use iTunes on your PC or Mac for managing all your digital music and downloading more. Unfortunately, it won’t play nice with Android phones like the Google Nexus One, but there’s a free alternative for both platforms, doubleTwist, which works in just the same way, albeit with Amazon MP3 for song downloads. Once you’ve installed it, you’ll need to register via the steps it provides.
Connect your Google Nexus One
Does doubleTwist look familiar? It’s meant to. Hit the music tab on the left-hand column, and it should show you all the songs available in your default Music folder. In the Sources pane meanwhile, you can see all your iTunes songs, podcasts and playlists. Now click the Devices tab. You’ll be prompted to plug in your phone: do so, then wait for it to load and you’ll see your Google Nexus One appears just like in iTunes, with a status bar showing how memory space is free.
Sync your tunes
If you’ve used iTunes, this needs little explaining – it’s near identical. Under Devices, click Sync music and you can choose to chuck all your music, or just selected playlists, on to your Google Nexus One. You can also drag and drop music from the library into the device icon. When you’re done, just hit the Eject button next to it and unplug your phone.
Sync photos and video
You can also sync photos and videos in exactly the same way (though be aware only MP4 and H.263/4 encoded videos will play on a Google Nexus One), and it’s easy to upload one’s you’ve taken yourself too. In photos, just hit the Facebook or Flickr icon in the bottom right corner of doubleTwist, or in Movies, the YouTube button.
And that’s it. You can now sync songs you’ve just added to your hard drive straight to your Google Nexus One with minimum fuss. Enjoy!
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February 1st, 2010 at 2:04 pm
Really? Come on.
What could be easier than drag-and-drop? Mount (connect) the Nexus, open the folder on your computer that has your music, and drag what you want to the Nexus.
And what could be more complicated than having to use iTunes, especially with more than one iPhones/iPods?
February 1st, 2010 at 2:47 pm
Well that depends on where you’re bringing your music from, doesn’t it? You and I are both perfectly happy shoving MP3s with meta tag data onboard and letting the phone do the rest of the sorting. But what if you don’t know your MP3 from CJD? I know I wouldn’t like to explain how you mount a micro SD card to some of my friends and family. But they might have downloaded a few albums on iTunes still – say what you will about Apple but so long as you stick within the company’s set boundaries, things running very smoothly and are very simple. This tutorial is about replicating that familiarity and ease of use for converts – you can’t deny that a lot of people use iTunes, and understand its form of Syncing as the way to transfer files.
February 1st, 2010 at 3:35 pm
If you’d like to have you music on both your Nexus One and in the Cloud, Psonar (www.psonar.com) offers this facility for free. It’s a bit like iTunes in the cloud but for every device, not just those in the Apple ecosystem. You can use it to transfer music between your devices and you also have the benefit of a copy of all your music stored forever in the cloud, so you can stream it wherever and whenever you like. Also great in case of hardware failures, theft of your device or if you simply want to play your tracks on a friend’s computer at a party, for example.
Discovery and social features coming soon too.
February 2nd, 2010 at 2:32 am
Agreed. It’s definitely not “hard” to drag and drop. But if doubleTwist works anything like iTunes, I’m gonna be using it ALOT.
Not that I can’t drag and drop and create playlists, but I’m accustomed to creating playlists in iTunes for my listening convenience at the computer; every playlist I’ve made for the computer is definitely useful on-the-go.
I’m a lazy person, and this would make it much more convenient.