Help me help my DH listen to his music (Ipod/smartphone/or ??)

yoopermom

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He has LOTS of CDs, all of which I burned to my computer, and then put on an Ipod that I bought him a number of years ago. I'm not sure, but it's either a 1st or 3rd generation Ipod Shuffle (a dinosaur, I know). It's a bother to keep doing this!

So do I:
1)force him to finally get a smartphone, so it's all one one device (yes, he still has a flip phone!) This would be most likely a Samsung.
2)get him a new Ipod
3)get him a new non Apple player (since we're not Apple/Mac people)

If choice 2 or 3, please feel free to suggest specific make/models. He's a bit of a technophobe, so the more intuitive the better. He would like to be able to play it through portable speakers, and through his truck radio (which is also ancient).

This will be a belated Valentine's present, so I'd like to make him happy :).

TIA!
Terri
(And, yes, he understands streaming and digital purchases. Baby steps!)
 
Get him an iPhone!

I had to get a new one recently and I got Apple Music free for three months. It's pretty cool. My DD had it (with a student discount it's $5/month) and I was amazed how she could pull up a song in the car in like a second. So now I have it, too. I'm not sure I'll keep it when the free period is over, but let me just say this - it would make an awesome gift for someone who enjoys music!

(Also I know he has a whole collection, and so do I, but I think Apps like Spotify and Apple Music are the way of the future.)
 
He has LOTS of CDs, all of which I burned to my computer, and then put on an Ipod that I bought him a number of years ago. I'm not sure, but it's either a 1st or 3rd generation Ipod Shuffle (a dinosaur, I know). It's a bother to keep doing this!

So do I:
1)force him to finally get a smartphone, so it's all one one device (yes, he still has a flip phone!) This would be most likely a Samsung.
2)get him a new Ipod
3)get him a new non Apple player (since we're not Apple/Mac people)

If choice 2 or 3, please feel free to suggest specific make/models. He's a bit of a technophobe, so the more intuitive the better. He would like to be able to play it through portable speakers, and through his truck radio (which is also ancient).

This will be a belated Valentine's present, so I'd like to make him happy :).

TIA!
Terri
(And, yes, he understands streaming and digital purchases. Baby steps!)
I have an old iPod nano. I had a flip phone until last year. We had to upgrade me to an android phone because my flip phone didn't do some of the things I needed now.

If the iPod shuffle is still working for him, let him use it until it dies. Then decide what would work best for him.

iPod Touch is the only iPod now. It does a whole lot of things that I don't need. I just need something that plays music.
 

If you have a TON of music on your computer, this may be the deciding factor. It's no longer possible to purchase an iPod of any size that will hold all the music I own on my hard drive. I could make shorter playlists, of course, but if I want it all in one place it has to be on my desktop computer or an ancient (still functioning) iPod.

There may be non Apple products with high storage capacity, but even the largest capacity current iPhone would not comfortably hold all the music I own plus the apps I want to run on my phone. So take into account how many GB of music you have before you try to replace anything.
 
I don't think the shuffle has that much memory, so just about anything should be able to equal that. However I would personally go with an android phone, especially one that takes a micro sd card. The expandable memory should allow you to get all the music on your computer on the phone. Also there are some things, like blue tooth connectivity to speakers and / or the car that you cant do with the shuffle that you can do with a phone that your husband might like. You could him a speaker to go along with the phone
 
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Any smart phone with decent memory should work. I personally prefer to keep my music on my phone but Pea-n-Me is right, streaming is what most do. In either case to use it with his vehicle he will need either a Bluetooth adapter or a transmitter to plug the phone into if his system is ancient. From my personal experience it’s far easier to get a head unit that has those things. Less fussy and more reliable.

eta: On streaming I’m an old fogey in this area. I’m a creature of habit, I like to listen to full albums and haven’t bought anything new since about 2006. I’m not a fan of a service making suggestions, playing what it thinks I want to hear or having to make playlists for music I already own.

I despise Apple Radio and Apple Music with the heat of a thousand suns. In the beginning they would auto connect in my truck and there was no easy way to stop that or turn them off. There is now but it left a bad taste in my mouth. I also don’t like that I just can’t remove them altogether.

I do have iTunes Match. This goes through your library and puts all your ripped music in the cloud. So if for some reason I don’t have the music on the phone I can easily get to it and download/stream it. It comes in handy with my iPad occasionally since I don’t keep music on it.

I use Amazon Prime Music occasionally, usually to listen to Comedy.

Older DD has used Spotify for years.

I pay for Google Music for my younger kids as they don’t have a music library built up. Of all the services the Family plan offered more benefits over the others for the same price. It includes YouTube Red, YouTube Music and makes YouTube commercial free for all of us as long as our accounts are linked.
 
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The Apple route will be intuitively simpler. Android route will have a steeper learning curve initially, but much more flexibility thereafter. iTunes can and does remove music and replace versions you own and store digitally in your own library at their whim.
 
Questions:

1. Does Ipod still work?
2. If yes, does your DH still use it?
3. If yes, does HE not like having to have a separate device, or do you not like ripping new CDs for him?
4. Are you copying CDs you already have, or are you getting new CDs as find new music you like?
 
Buy him a Android Phone or iPhone.

Upload mp3s to Google Music or Amazon Music (Android), or iCloud (iPhone). Or just buy a subscription to Spotify or Google Music or whatever.
 
Okay, I'm an old fogey. I love my iPod Classic (160 GB of space).

I do have an iPhone, and enjoy having the music/movies/TV shows with me all of the time. It doesn't work as well (IMO) as the iPod, but it does work and is more convenient.
 
An iPhone may be the most comprehensive solution, but the cheapest way out would be to buy a refurbished iPod Touch. I don't know much about non-Apple music players. Zune = fail :(
 
iTunes can and does remove music and replace versions you own and store digitally in your own library at their whim.
That would be a function of iTunes Match, iTunes does not do that if you do not select the Match option.

Yoopermom I'd get an iPhone because they work so well with iTunes which is evidently where all those cds are stored now.
Any chance you have Amazon Prime? If so there are thousands of titles available to stream at no charge. With a smartphone you can add the app to the phone and stream a lot of music (including any cds you've bought from Amazon.) That way he can have some music stored on his phone but have access to a bunch more.
 
Questions:

1. Does Ipod still work?
2. If yes, does your DH still use it?
3. If yes, does HE not like having to have a separate device, or do you not like ripping new CDs for him?
4. Are you copying CDs you already have, or are you getting new CDs as find new music you like?

Yes, he still uses his Ipod daily (although I haven't put any of his newer cds on there in the past year or so, bad me).
I don't mind ripping them for him, because I understand that he's old school enough to still like having the physical copy.
Yes, at this point, he still buys some CDs.

I know it's a Coke/Pepsi thing, but I'm just not a Apple person. I'm probably the only person in the world who doesn't find it intuitive. (When my senior citizen parents need tech help, they call my brother if they have Apple questions, and me for everything else. Seriously.)

He does know how to use our Amazon Prime music features since we have a Fire Stick on the tv that I got him for Christmas.

I'm tempted to buy him a Samsung phone that takes a micro sd card,because I'm familiar with it, and he could put the Amazon app on it for that music, as well.

I truly appreciate all the input, thank you!

(And can I say that our DS has gone the opposite way and buys everything in vinyl now. He, too, believes in the purity of the "album" concept, vs spotify and all that)
 
Yes, he still uses his Ipod daily (although I haven't put any of his newer cds on there in the past year or so, bad me).
I don't mind ripping them for him, because I understand that he's old school enough to still like having the physical copy.
Yes, at this point, he still buys some CDs.

I know it's a Coke/Pepsi thing, but I'm just not a Apple person. I'm probably the only person in the world who doesn't find it intuitive. (When my senior citizen parents need tech help, they call my brother if they have Apple questions, and me for everything else. Seriously.)

He does know how to use our Amazon Prime music features since we have a Fire Stick on the tv that I got him for Christmas.

I'm tempted to buy him a Samsung phone that takes a micro sd card,because I'm familiar with it, and he could put the Amazon app on it for that music, as well.

I truly appreciate all the input, thank you!

(And can I say that our DS has gone the opposite way and buys everything in vinyl now. He, too, believes in the purity of the "album" concept, vs spotify and all that)
If you will be his “tech person” then absolutely go with what YOU know and are comfortable with.

My older DD collects vinyl too. We’ve had to show her how to use a dime to balance the needle and how to change speeds. :rotfl:
 
It sounds like you have someone who uses music among various platforms (CD, electronic (Apple and Amazon). Even though you say you are not, you ARE an Apple person: you have been using Itunes to burn CDs and load them on a Shuffle. If it is an older shuffle, it does not have a large capacity. I like Apple because I have an Iphone and am too lazy to port all my stuff to a different phone. I think you would see more of the intuitive nature for Apple if you upgraded the old shuffle to an Ipod touch, if you cannot convince your husband to go to an Iphone. Iphone's are nice, but I wouldn't recommend one just to make music choices easier.

The ease of the Ipod (IMO) is the fact that whatever you purchase from the Apple Store is shared among 5 devices. However, if you are just primarily loading CDs, that process is similar with just about any phone you use.

Bottom line: there isn't an easy answer really. Going to Iphone is expensive and then you kind of get used to having all your options in one place (I think it is difficult to move to a different brand after a couple of years, but people do it all the time). An ipod touch may be a good compromise, or a new phone of a different brand .
 
Thanks for the Amazon Prime suggestion for streaming, I hadn't thought of that. I will try it out when my Apple Music subscription expires.

I was in the car one day with DD who had run into a store. She's just sort of getting into Elton John. (Once we looked up lyrics and she could understand them; when some of us were growing up lyrics came with the album, lol, which is the only way we figured out what he was saying in some of his songs!) Anyway, I said to her when she came out, "Hey, you just missed one of my favorite Elton John songs, Madman Across the Water". Before I'd even pulled out of our parking spot, it was playing in the car. I sort of just looked at her in disbelief. "Where'd you get that?" "Apple Music". It was then I decided to quit futzing around.

Years ago I spent an entire night, I mean, like up past sunrise, ripping music. I had it all on my computer and original iPhone, but somehow it got lost and I was never able to get it all again. But I just do not want to go through that process again, I've already done it with vinyl, 8 tracks, cassettes and CDs, so it's worth it to me to just stream.

There are a lot of different ways to do it, though, we all have to find what works best for us.
 
Ipod Touch is a great suggestion. The thing is, the Touch is basically an iPhone that doesn't make calls (or have cell connection for other functions.) If a person enjoys having more than one device to keep track of, that's great. But with the iPhone you only need the one device, and they are very intuitive (especially if you're a long-time iTunes user.)
 

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