Crossing over... to Android! What to use instead of iTunes?

[nuphoria]

So I am on the verge of getting a Galaxy S4 and selling my iPhone 4S. I've been digging around on my Nexus 7 for apps to replace the ones I actually need and mostly finding no problem doing that.

One small glitch remains - I hate itunes and always have and can't wait to get rid of the beast, however I will still want to throw tunes on our old "house" ipod as well as needing software on my laptop for getting music on my new phone. I have a LOT of music and like to be very organised about it so am looking for something which will potentially sync with both devices.... asking too much?!

Been looking at Media Monkey which appears to do both, but I'm not sure. Any ideas about that or other possibilities?

http://www.mediamonkey.com/information/free/

[detron]

with android you can simply drag and drop music,  you do not have to use any app.  the phone internal memory and/or microSD can be mounted like a flash drive, and you just put what you want on it, movies, music, books, pictures, etc

you can also just browse to your itunes directory and pick and choose folders.

as to syncing both I am not sure, never had iPhone

[Whoey]

what he said, although in terms of sync perhaps an actual program is needed, perhaps like the media player I'm using now: http://www.clementine-player.org/

Search and play your local music library.
Listen to internet radio from Spotify, Grooveshark, Last.fm, SomaFM, Magnatune, Jamendo, SKY.fm, Digitally Imported, JAZZRADIO.com, Soundcloud, and Icecast.
Search and play songs you've uploaded to Google Drive.
Create smart playlists and dynamic playlists.
Tabbed playlists, import and export M3U, XSPF, PLS and ASX.
CUE sheet support.
Play audio CDs.
Visualisations from projectM.
Lyrics and artist biographies and photos.
Transcode music into MP3, Ogg Vorbis, Ogg Speex, FLAC or AAC.
Edit tags on MP3 and OGG files, organise your music.
Fetch missing tags from MusicBrainz.
Discover and download Podcasts.
Download missing album cover art from Last.fm and Amazon.
Cross-platform - works on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
Native desktop notifications on Linux (libnotify) and Mac OS X (Growl).
Remote control using a Wii Remote, MPRIS or the command-line.
Copy music to your iPod, iPhone, MTP or mass-storage USB player.
Queue manager.

[detron]

I agree Clementine is very nice, I have used it's predescessor Audacity and loved it on Linux.

I was not aware of sync capabilities, because with Android there is no requirement, and before that I did not have an iPod.

my iPhone users at work who I drug over to the Android side, have stopped using sync tools once they realized they could drag folders over.

HOWEVER, I think they put music on their computer with iTunes or similar app, then go to where the music is and grab what they want to put on thier phone

[Whoey]

I've bounced around on a number of MP3 players on Linux... I think this is the first one that not only seems very complete but also is cross platform. Also it doesn't choke on our massive MP3 library which has happened to us a number of times in the past.

All that being said, I have yet to actually put any music on my Nexus 4 or Nexus 7. I just dump music to a usb stick and plug that into my car stereo. On my old android phone I used the copy and paste method as well as I had to be selective with only 16gb storage on the phone, and approaching 100GB of MP3s...

[RoboYeti]

doubleTwist has a desktop app and an Android app, and is specifically designed to be an "iTunes for Android" type syncing solution. I believe the apps are free, but they have several add-on in-app purchases that can add up if you want all the functionality.

[nuphoria]

Thanks guys

Yes, I know Android makes it easy to drag stuff over, it's the being able to use the old ipod I was pondering over... obviously happy to lose itunes ASAP!
I'll check out the things you mentioned

As for contacts and calendars, I managed to use Copytrans to get that done fairly easily, and am now using the native gmail app and CalenMob for iphone until I make the switch... been an interesting afternoon!