Replacing Apple's Music app?

By AppleForAll, 27 October, 2019

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hello,
I'm not into streaming and have a huge music library at home. I use iTunes on Windows but its accessibility and usability is not so great. Quite often, I'm running into syncing errors and so on.
do you know if there is any app out there that runs on Windows, supports music libraries and also offers an iOS app that supports sync?
I could imagine that in the future Apple focuses more on recommendations instead of the music that you already have. And I don't care about that "You might like that" stuff. They did that already with the Podcast app. So I want to be prepared.

Thank you for your help!

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Comments

By KE7ZUM on Thursday, November 14, 2019 - 16:48

I'm into streaming, but I also have 1 tb of music to play at home too. Try plex. I can't rememberr if the iOs app is accesible or not, last time I tried in 2014 it was a bit of a mess, but good luck. It is farily easy to set up.

By Roxann Pollard on Thursday, November 14, 2019 - 16:48

The Victor Stream will play mp3 files just fine. All you have to do is populate an SD card and insert it into the Victor. I like this player because I have a very large library of mp3 files from Blind Mice and other sources, to include movies and TV shows. The victor works very nicely with this type of media as well.
HTH

By DJ on Thursday, November 14, 2019 - 16:48

Are the music files on your computer lossless CD rips?

Foobar2000 for Windows IS my default player plus you can synch your music with Foobar2000 Mobile. Personally, for mobile use, i copy THE flac FILES onto AN iPhone USING waltr2 WHICH COULDN'T BE ANY SIMPLER and no need to replace Apple's Music app.

Foobar2000 for Windows

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/foobar2000/9pdj8x9spf2k?activetab=pivot:overviewtab

Foobar2000 Mobile

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/foobar2000/id1072807669

WALTR2

https://softorino.com/waltr/

Hope this helps.

By Jeff on Thursday, November 14, 2019 - 16:48

Based on the previous comment, I installed the Foobar2000 Mobile app, but I can't figure out how to point it to my music library on my NAS. I actually haven't even been able to complete the initial setup because it wants me to specify a download method. I don't want to download the music, I just want to play it. And unfortunately, the documentation seems quite sparce.

The EverMusic app supposedly does what I want, but it seems unreliable. Sometimes it shows all my files and other times only a subset of my files are listed. And when playing through a playlist, it sometimes skips songs. I haven't tried EverMusic since I upgraded to iOS 13.2, so perhaps it will perform more reliably now. I think the app was updated a few days ago.

Hi Jeff

Found this info online:

"what you should do is set foobar to monitor both paths before moving the music. then use file operations inside foobar to move the music from one location
to the other. finally, you can remove the old path."

Admittedly, I've never changed the path as I always copy MUSIC files from an XD over to the C drive.

Hope this helps but don't hesitate to ask again. In the meantime, I will see if I can get an easier to understand solution for you unless someone else can chime in.

By Jeff on Thursday, November 14, 2019 - 16:48

Thanks, DJ. I have made some progress. I got past the setup by choosing to use my iTunes library. I was also able to browse to my NAS to find my music. I was even able to create and populate a playlist from the music on my NAS.

The main problem I now have is that the music player screen is totally inaccessible. Voiceover finds absolutely no controls on this screen except the status bar at the top. Even the 2-finger scrub does not work. The only thing that works on this screen is the magic tap to play and pause playback. The only way to get back to other screens is to force close Foobar2000 and reopen it.

I did find in the advanced settings an option to not display the player screen and this works to keep me from getting locked out of the app, but there's no player controls for play/pause, previous/next track, etc. Again, all I can do is use the magic tap for play/pause. Have you found any other way to control playback?

By Holger Fiallo on Thursday, November 14, 2019 - 16:48

I am able to access my playlist, music, and audiobooks. Did you update to the new iTunes? There was an update last week. Also you can go to apple.commusic and play your music in the web. It is also accessible but you might need a drink. It is not easy.

Hi Jeff

Sorry for the delayed response as I couldn't remember the topic and clearing out the clutter in my inbox didn't help. Also, forgive me as I'm a little confused with your post.

Are your music files CD rips or iTunes downloads?

I no longer have iTunes since installing WALTR2 on my desktop. All of my CD's are ripped lossless to the C drive and copied direct to the Music app on my iPhone using WALTR2. This negates any synching of devices. Plus, my music on the C drive is backed up to two external hard drives.

So, Foobar 2000 when playing music direct from the C drive on the desktop and for headphone listening,I access the ripped files in Apple's native Music app on my iPhone.

WALTR2 is an absolute game changer and can't be recommended highly enough. Don't take my word for it though, read the review below.

https://www.macobserver.com/reviews/featured-review/can-waltr-2-really-itunes-replacement/

Hi Jeff

Just read your post again and recall experiencing an issue synching Foobar 2000 Mobile with the PC so I uninstalled the app and downloaded WALTR2 because it's alot easier copying files onto an iOS device than messing around synching.