No, that’s quite literally the reason that Apple is so big. They successfully made MP3’s easy to get from CD, add to device and play. , I owned an early MP3 player, and ripping mp3s from CD and loading sucked compared to the first iPod/iTunes. Of course, over time it got better on the PC side, but it was trivial to teach somebody like your parents how to get their music on an iPod.
It’s why Slashdot still gets mocked for their iPod review. While there were other MP3 players that had more storage or battery life, the cohesiveness of iPod/iTunes was unmatched, and that’s why few remember the nomad but every one remembers the iPod
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 23 May 06:13
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There are plenty of apps on the App store that let you listen to your own MP3s on your iPhone though. They haven’t made anything hard.
I loved to do this kind of stuff when i was younger. Especially this kind of OS interactions. It actually gave me a lot of experience and helped a lot in my job, where i have to find solutions out of the norm.
Apples own Music app (without Apple Music subscription), VLC, PlexAmp…
It’s not hard if you look.
Edit, I’ve taken a look at what you’ve done and I quite like it. If my comment was snippy it’s because the question of easily playing mp3s is solved. But if the existing solutions don’t fit your niche workflow preference, like it sounds like it doesn’t, I love the idea of writing something that does.
One issue I have with ALL the local and streaming platforms (save for Apple Music Classical, ironically) is every one of them organizes in Artist>Album>Track, whereas classical music have different organizational needs. I wonder if local wave can be altered a bit to accommodate such organizational changes?
Did you ever have an iPod? Do you remember how you had to have a library on the computer which then synced to your iPod? That’s how this works. Create a local library on a computer, and then sync that library Apple Music.
It’s really just drag and drop. I always drop the album folder, with all mp3s and then edit all with correct meta information, album cover etc, if needed.
Edit: you have to do this, in order to add them to the itunes/music library. It actually makes copies of the mp3s in the library folder iirc.
It doesn’t even look for music on the hard drive, that’s why it has to be added to the music library.
It’s not. I use my Windows 10 video game machine to drag and drop MP3s onto my iPhone from my 400GB library. I use iTunes to do it (but I listen using Foobar2000 on my computer, I only use iTunes to put music on my phone and make iPhone incremental image backups.)
I wish I could drag and drop FLAC files, but I can easily convert them. I do t use my really nice cans on my phone anyway.
I do have Apple Music for lossless streaming! But I do still load obscure things on my phone that don’t exist there. Which is shockingly few things, to my surprise.
I was shocked at how much stuff is there. A few outliers (a Team Teamwork album, Squincy Jones mixes, and Keifer Gr33n mixes) aren’t there, among some other super obscure shit. All the other stuff I love that isn’t popular, like The Blood Brothers or Xiu Xiu, all there.
You can import music from itunes, if you like doing it the old way.
There are a crap ton of media player apps with ability to connect to self hosted or cloud storages. Many are single payment and others are open source. One good one is nPlayer.
You can put mp3 on the native files app and just tap on it.
The article is just misleading ragebait turned into an excuse to show their app and things about iOS development.
You’re supposed to just take the headline at face value. It helps maintain the outrage from people who never have used apple devices.
vhstape@lemmy.sdf.org
on 22 May 21:43
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You can easily sync your personal music collection to your iOS device using the macOS “Music” app in tandem with the Finder, or using iTunes on Windows. I’ve not explored the options on Linux, but I suspect they’re out there.
I’ve got a personal collection that’s growing steadily, mostly from CDs and digital purchases. I do not use steaming services, and my iPhone is my primarily listening device.
carotte@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 22 May 22:52
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i don’t think there’s anything like that on linux sadly
personally i just use the VLC mobile app (yes, this exists!) to play my local music collection. it’s surprisingly good, and you can even send music to it from your computer to your phone wirelessly!
rottingleaf@lemmy.world
on 23 May 05:50
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I think there was for KDE (there’s almost everything for KDE).
simplejack@lemmy.world
on 23 May 01:44
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Apple technically lets you play music directly from iCloud via the Files app, but its functionality is not designed for music listening. It lacks essential features such as playlist management, metadata sorting, or playback queues. While it supports music playback, it’s very limited and overall not a good user experience.
I’m confused. Shouldn’t you be using the music app for all this stuff? That’s what I do.
You need to pay the subscription to Apple Music to do it if I recall correctly.
Drusenija@aussie.zone
on 23 May 07:29
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You can also get an iTunes Match subscription. No idea what it goes for these days but it’s a bit cheaper than Apple Music (doesn’t give you access to any music but lets you sync your music in iTunes to all your devices - still requires a Mac or PC to use though).
Oh absolutely, I’m not suggesting it’s a product worth using in this day and age when you probably have good quality music available locally. It was a potentially useful tool back when we all used to download music of questionable quality off the internet, but less relevant these days.
simplejack@lemmy.world
on 23 May 13:55
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You can still use the music app just like iTunes. You don’t need a subscription.
Raiderkev@lemmy.world
on 23 May 04:57
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I remember back when iPods were a thing, I hated how you couldn’t drag and drop files, and manage your own storage. Syncing seemed so stupid, and I couldn’t believe that they were so popular. The thing they had going for them is it’s idiot proof to the point where it pissed off anyone who knew what they were doing. That’s been Apple’s MO since roughly that era, and I can’t stand their products because of it.
The thing they had going for them is it’s idiot proof to the point where it pissed off anyone who knew what they were doing.
I’m solidly in that group lol. I had a 5th gen iPod Video in high school, and you bet your ass it drove me absolutely insane that I couldn’t just drag and drop music onto it. The “manually manage device” setting was an absolute godsend, for sure, but I ended up installing RockBox anyway.
I have an iPod with Rockbox installed. I hate how Rockbox still doesn’t have support for inline remotes of a lot of headphones, including Apple’s own wired headphones.
WolfLink@sh.itjust.works
on 23 May 20:47
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Ah neat, it used to require PlexPass to use the app at all. Now it only requires PlexPass for most of the app, including some pretty basic features like downloads.
Still, it is nice that there’s some level of “free trial” for it.
To be clear I love PlexAmp and use it as my main audio player, but I’ve paid for a plex lifetime pass.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 23 May 20:49
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The point of a streaming music service is to stream, not download.
It’s not a “free trial”. It’s free with paid features.
I also have a lifetime Plex Pass and don’t really use any of the paid features of Plexamp despite using Plexamp a lot.
I use a good chunk of the paid PlexAmp features, although I agree they are mostly just extras.
However, Downloads is a must-have IMO. I often listen to music while traveling, e.g. on a plane or train or on a road trip, and cell service is unreliable in those situations.
Also just getting bombarded by ads to upgrade would be enough for me to consider the product a “free trial”, although tbf I don’t know how bad PlexAmp is about that.
Sadly, you have to. Plex wants a subscription if you want to stream outside of your home network now
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 23 May 21:32
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I could be wrong, but I don’t believe that’s correct. Their page that has the latest updates around the Plex pass and remote pass still has music streaming under the free tier:
The initial announcement is talking about “media” and I assumed that this did include music. That was my motivation to install Jellyfin and that works so great for me that I didn’t try to use Plexamp remotely
CH3DD4R_G0BL1N@sh.itjust.works
on 23 May 10:17
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It always confounds be to come across such bold claims that are so easily debunked by…just anyone doing the thing claimed to be difficult/impossible. I have my own mp3s on my iPhone right now. Like what?
and requires iTunes syncing, annoying, limited encoder support and not available on Linux
unless you use a third party app, not that many open source or privacy-friendly ones
dafta@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 23 May 13:25
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My GF has an iphone, and on KDE I can just connect it via USB and it’s visible in the file manager.
Linux users simultaneously love to be anti establishment but also cry that there’s no support for Linux.
TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
on 23 May 14:11
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Your mistake is thinking there’s some hive mind.
An absolutely tiny amount of people want fewer first party apps.
The vast majority would like all software to be available on all desktop OSes.
isekaihero@ani.social
on 23 May 13:03
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I’m still using an ancient version of Winamp. I think it’s some version of winamp 5.
If it keeps working I’m going to keep using it. Your mp3 player doesn’t need to go online it just needs to play your mp3 files. Why would it ever need to be updated?
USB’s are pretty easy to use…am I missing something? Assuming the file you want to import didn’t originate on the computer you would have to import from an external device via email or usb. It’s really not that complicated and I’m not sure why you are over exaggerating the complexity of the issue.
It’s 2025. You shouldn’t need an external device to manage the files of the already perfectly-capable device that’s in your pocket. I manage to do so just fine with my Android. I can download whatever media I want directly to it and play said media with whatever player app I choose.
threaded - newest
It’s Apple. They make everything other than just using their own stuff harder.
It’s kinda their whole shtick.
No, that’s quite literally the reason that Apple is so big. They successfully made MP3’s easy to get from CD, add to device and play. , I owned an early MP3 player, and ripping mp3s from CD and loading sucked compared to the first iPod/iTunes. Of course, over time it got better on the PC side, but it was trivial to teach somebody like your parents how to get their music on an iPod.
It’s why Slashdot still gets mocked for their iPod review. While there were other MP3 players that had more storage or battery life, the cohesiveness of iPod/iTunes was unmatched, and that’s why few remember the nomad but every one remembers the iPod
There are plenty of apps on the App store that let you listen to your own MP3s on your iPhone though. They haven’t made anything hard.
Honest question, what’s hard about playing an MP3 on any Apple device?
.
My solution: vmware fusion or virtualbox with windows installed on a vm and running winamp with passthrough audio.
…so you’re one of those people who seeks out overly complex and convoluted solutions for the sake of being different.
Maybe it’s just that I am in IT and the problem isn’t that difficult for me or others with tech savvy to begin with.
I was just trying to offer a solution, damn, ease up
I loved to do this kind of stuff when i was younger. Especially this kind of OS interactions. It actually gave me a lot of experience and helped a lot in my job, where i have to find solutions out of the norm.
Apples own Music app (without Apple Music subscription), VLC, PlexAmp…
It’s not hard if you look.
Edit, I’ve taken a look at what you’ve done and I quite like it. If my comment was snippy it’s because the question of easily playing mp3s is solved. But if the existing solutions don’t fit your niche workflow preference, like it sounds like it doesn’t, I love the idea of writing something that does.
One issue I have with ALL the local and streaming platforms (save for Apple Music Classical, ironically) is every one of them organizes in Artist>Album>Track, whereas classical music have different organizational needs. I wonder if local wave can be altered a bit to accommodate such organizational changes?
.
You do not.
.
Did you ever have an iPod? Do you remember how you had to have a library on the computer which then synced to your iPod? That’s how this works. Create a local library on a computer, and then sync that library Apple Music.
It’s really just drag and drop. I always drop the album folder, with all mp3s and then edit all with correct meta information, album cover etc, if needed.
Edit: you have to do this, in order to add them to the itunes/music library. It actually makes copies of the mp3s in the library folder iirc.
It doesn’t even look for music on the hard drive, that’s why it has to be added to the music library.
.
It’s called Music on the Mac, but it’s still basically iTunes. You might have it installed and not realize it.
Note, the syncing process happens in a Finder window.
It’s not. I use my Windows 10 video game machine to drag and drop MP3s onto my iPhone from my 400GB library. I use iTunes to do it (but I listen using Foobar2000 on my computer, I only use iTunes to put music on my phone and make iPhone incremental image backups.)
I wish I could drag and drop FLAC files, but I can easily convert them. I do t use my really nice cans on my phone anyway.
Look into PlexAmp for lossless streaming. It’s pretty dope.
I do have Apple Music for lossless streaming! But I do still load obscure things on my phone that don’t exist there. Which is shockingly few things, to my surprise.
I keep Apple Music too, because it does offer a lot of value for the price. The inclusion of Classical makes it a no-brainer for me.
I was shocked at how much stuff is there. A few outliers (a Team Teamwork album, Squincy Jones mixes, and Keifer Gr33n mixes) aren’t there, among some other super obscure shit. All the other stuff I love that isn’t popular, like The Blood Brothers or Xiu Xiu, all there.
Nothing
The article is just misleading ragebait turned into an excuse to show their app and things about iOS development.
Sad that one cannot create programs for their own devices.
You can though? Developers can make apps and test them on their own devices, including iPhones.
Yes but you have to reflash it every 7 days or it gets blocked. Either that or you have to pay 99 buckos per year for your own application.
Thanks for posting this, this is very helpful
I have no trouble playing my own mp3s on any apple device whatsoever. It’s all stock, no special anything. Its very easy.
You’re supposed to just take the headline at face value. It helps maintain the outrage from people who never have used apple devices.
You can easily sync your personal music collection to your iOS device using the macOS “Music” app in tandem with the Finder, or using iTunes on Windows. I’ve not explored the options on Linux, but I suspect they’re out there.
I’ve got a personal collection that’s growing steadily, mostly from CDs and digital purchases. I do not use steaming services, and my iPhone is my primarily listening device.
i don’t think there’s anything like that on linux sadly
personally i just use the VLC mobile app (yes, this exists!) to play my local music collection. it’s surprisingly good, and you can even send music to it from your computer to your phone wirelessly!
I think there was for KDE (there’s almost everything for KDE).
My GF has an iphone, and on KDE I can just connect it via USB and it’s visible in the file manager.
There’s also this.
I’m confused. Shouldn’t you be using the music app for all this stuff? That’s what I do.
You need to pay the subscription to Apple Music to do it if I recall correctly.
You can also get an iTunes Match subscription. No idea what it goes for these days but it’s a bit cheaper than Apple Music (doesn’t give you access to any music but lets you sync your music in iTunes to all your devices - still requires a Mac or PC to use though).
Or just use it like OG ITunes and don’t pay for cloud hosting.
Oh absolutely, I’m not suggesting it’s a product worth using in this day and age when you probably have good quality music available locally. It was a potentially useful tool back when we all used to download music of questionable quality off the internet, but less relevant these days.
You can still use the music app just like iTunes. You don’t need a subscription.
Not true. Plain and simple.
I remember back when iPods were a thing, I hated how you couldn’t drag and drop files, and manage your own storage. Syncing seemed so stupid, and I couldn’t believe that they were so popular. The thing they had going for them is it’s idiot proof to the point where it pissed off anyone who knew what they were doing. That’s been Apple’s MO since roughly that era, and I can’t stand their products because of it.
I’m solidly in that group lol. I had a 5th gen iPod Video in high school, and you bet your ass it drove me absolutely insane that I couldn’t just drag and drop music onto it. The “manually manage device” setting was an absolute godsend, for sure, but I ended up installing RockBox anyway.
I still have that iPod somewhere…
I have an iPod with Rockbox installed. I hate how Rockbox still doesn’t have support for inline remotes of a lot of headphones, including Apple’s own wired headphones.
But that’s wildly off topic, sorry 😊
Haha, I have the official Apple FM receiver attachment, and the Belkin wireless remote. Never tested them on Rockbox…
Do they have a Tcl/Tk runtime in Apple-land?
I suppose that would solve the lack of many applications, by writing scripts good enough.
Found that no, but there are browser ones, so - sort of a variant.
Cool, but things like Plexamp already exist and have an official iOS app.
You do need to pay for plexamp
No you don’t.
www.plex.tv/plexamp/
Ah neat, it used to require PlexPass to use the app at all. Now it only requires PlexPass for most of the app, including some pretty basic features like downloads.
Still, it is nice that there’s some level of “free trial” for it.
To be clear I love PlexAmp and use it as my main audio player, but I’ve paid for a plex lifetime pass.
The point of a streaming music service is to stream, not download.
It’s not a “free trial”. It’s free with paid features.
I also have a lifetime Plex Pass and don’t really use any of the paid features of Plexamp despite using Plexamp a lot.
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.net.au/pictrs/image/e29347db-abac-4235-bfb3-961a6a8ac251.jpeg">
Nothing there is necessary or really even remotely a “must have”
I use a good chunk of the paid PlexAmp features, although I agree they are mostly just extras.
However, Downloads is a must-have IMO. I often listen to music while traveling, e.g. on a plane or train or on a road trip, and cell service is unreliable in those situations.
Also just getting bombarded by ads to upgrade would be enough for me to consider the product a “free trial”, although tbf I don’t know how bad PlexAmp is about that.
Sadly, you have to. Plex wants a subscription if you want to stream outside of your home network now
I could be wrong, but I don’t believe that’s correct. Their page that has the latest updates around the Plex pass and remote pass still has music streaming under the free tier:
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.net.au/pictrs/image/4bfdd7bf-7731-4fc5-85d1-fd72489d1d98.png">
There’s no specific mention of remote music streaming being paywalled.
Could be wrong though, but I can’t test since I have a pass.
The initial announcement is talking about “media” and I assumed that this did include music. That was my motivation to install Jellyfin and that works so great for me that I didn’t try to use Plexamp remotely
It always confounds be to come across such bold claims that are so easily debunked by…just anyone doing the thing claimed to be difficult/impossible. I have my own mp3s on my iPhone right now. Like what?
It’s annoying that its the same app as apple streaming
and requires iTunes syncing, annoying, limited encoder support and not available on Linux unless you use a third party app, not that many open source or privacy-friendly ones
My GF has an iphone, and on KDE I can just connect it via USB and it’s visible in the file manager.
There’s also this.
Linux users simultaneously love to be anti establishment but also cry that there’s no support for Linux.
Your mistake is thinking there’s some hive mind.
An absolutely tiny amount of people want fewer first party apps.
The vast majority would like all software to be available on all desktop OSes.
I’m still using an ancient version of Winamp. I think it’s some version of winamp 5.
If it keeps working I’m going to keep using it. Your mp3 player doesn’t need to go online it just needs to play your mp3 files. Why would it ever need to be updated?
foobar2k has been a thing for a couple decades.
Or deadbeef on linux.
It’s not hard at all. Import your mp3 into iTunes library and it’s there. What’s so complicated about that?
Maybe nobody at Apple actually does quality assurance on that feature anymore because they think nobody still uses it.
You need to use an external device to do that, making it extremely convoluted and annoying to do.
USB’s are pretty easy to use…am I missing something? Assuming the file you want to import didn’t originate on the computer you would have to import from an external device via email or usb. It’s really not that complicated and I’m not sure why you are over exaggerating the complexity of the issue.
It’s 2025. You shouldn’t need an external device to manage the files of the already perfectly-capable device that’s in your pocket. I manage to do so just fine with my Android. I can download whatever media I want directly to it and play said media with whatever player app I choose.
That work on Linux?
I guess what I’m missing then is that this was a Linux circlejerk thread. My mistake I’ll shut up now.
There are some Linux users with iPhones, perhaps that’s what they meant?
Using apple products is a humiliation ritual.
.