Can anyone point to a quick guide on how-to-copy-stuff-to-iPad

[Maynotts]

Merry Christmas to one and all! Hubby has bought me a nice little bluetooth portable speaker from JBL as a Chrissie present. Never used bluetooth before, but it turned out to be easy peasy. The iPad found the JBL and the JBL found the iPad and I played the 'blue grass' music file that came with the iPad very LOUD. Wonderful. Hubby then said, you do know, you have about 10 albums of your own MP3s still on our desktop computer. You don't actuall need to keep playing that blasted bluegrass thing over and over. . . Your iPod can actually play more than one piece of music ever written. Sarky sod.

I have iTunes on our desktop so went to it and. . . and. . . seem to have been much much to quick in trying to make it do what I want. I'm used to Kansas, not Oz, and we aren't in Kansas anymore where an Apple iPad is concerned. So although out there in Kansas, Dorothy would have many a simple. . step by step. . . illustrated. . . guide to copying a music album from a Windows PC to the music folder you've just created on your Android. . . well. This is Oz. And I'm clearly not going to live long enough to be able to read every single one of the Web search links I've found on a subject that should be dead simple to explain but instead seems to have thousands of YouTube videos and thousands of Internet results from 2010 onwards and I still haven't found a single up-to-date one which says. . . clearly . . . simply . . . how to proceed.

I have found the standard Apple help files and pdf'd them, notably the "Sync your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch with iTunes on your computer using USB". (Which, of course, never came up when searching for "how to copy music files from PC to iPod", an example of how, if one search term is only a little off, then all search results will be off.) And I have found a user guide to Documents 5, which is praised as a File Manager but has an utterly hopeless user manual seemingly never updated since Documents2.)

So. I know Apple employs a walled garden for its OS and you can't wander around it planting new flowers or creating new beds. You can't do in 5 minutes on an Apple what you can do in 5 minutes on a Samsung with side-by-side Explorer windows for Windows and Android. (Sigh. . .) If someone could, therefore, just point me in the direction of a simple, single, step-by-step user guide which must surely exist out there amongst the 10 million search results of which 99% are either irrelevant, out of date, or advertising flummery for 'free download' "trans" software, that'd be great -- dear God, the time it's taken me to write this note, I could've written such a step-by-step myself. And embroidered it and framed it, Apple Sweet Apple.

 

[KevinJS]

I'm assuming the albums are showing up in iTunes?

If so, plug your iPad into your PC and drag the album art from "Library" to your iPad in the left pane of iTunes. When the iPad information turns blue, drop the album. All of the tracks will be copied to your iPad.

That's pretty well it. Give a shout if you need screenshots. I use a Mac, but the process is exactly the same on Windows computers.

 

[Maynotts]

Hi Kevin: Christmas cake, holly, brandy, red wine and custard is on its way to you even as we speak. Messy, I know. THANK YOU for responding so quickly . . . you and OH alike, seeing as he fiddled about with my iPad (tst tst) while I was typing my ignoramuss's lament and realised that somehow in some way I had 'lost' the Apple MUSIC app. God knows how. So. . . he reinstated it and, astonishingly, it was instantly populated with all the music files I'd kicked over into what I'd thought was some kind of Music directory via iTunes but now, shamefacedly, realise that of course, but of course, all files go only to where there's the relevant app to handle them. Well. At least to begin with. Thus, without the Apple Music app actually in operation on my iPad, no wonder that all the files seemed to land on the device but not one of them was playable. . .

I winged two different album of different MP3s across from Android to OS10 and so OK, they're no longer albums but a mixed-up list of all titles in one stack but at least it's progress. of sorts. I'm going to sit down or fall down after dinner and figure out how to move the tracks around into separate albums or play-list thingies. I'm also going to follow your prescription (above) to get more of my collection onto my iPod, because never having used Bluetooth before, I'm amazed at the quality of output from the JBL Go mini-speaker. No bigger than a bar of soap but wow, that audio. OH bought it in an Amazon UK Wet Wednesday or Black Friday sale, one or t'other.

(Oh: should've said. The albums are of my own creation. Not commercial, purchased albums. I just lumped together various tracks I've made over the years from a vast number of CDs in our collection. I guess that may complicate things a bit.)

For now though, sincere thanks again and, seriously, very best wishes to you and yours for a lovely time in this celebratory season and in the New Year still to come. (By the end of which year, I may, possibly, have learned how not to be such a complete dork.)

 

[LannyC]

In the Music app on the iPad: tap on the Library link in the upper-left corner of the screen. When it drops down, tap the Edit link at the upper-right and choose Album.

Yes, it's stupid, but at least it's easy to fix.

 

[twerppoet]

Oh: should've said. The albums are of my own creation. Not commercial, purchased albums. I just lumped together various tracks I've made over the years from a vast number of CDs in our collection. I guess that may complicate things a bit.)

It is possible to convince iTunes (on the computer) that songs belong to the same album. You right click on the song, then edit the appropriate fields. You'll have to experiment a bit. I don't remember the exact fields to edit. It's been too long since I played with file managment on iTunes.

It would probably be easier to create playlists for your self-made albums; assuming you want the songs to play together that way.

You'd need to re-sync your music to the iPad after making these changes in iTunes. Syncing iTunes is different than the drag and drop method already described. Instead you choose the iPad in iTunes and then the Music tab. There you'll find controls that let you choose to sync all or some of your iTunes music to the iPad; including playlists.

Alternately you could use iCloud Music Library. This syncs your iTunes library accross all your iOS devices. (By default songs download or stream on demand, but it is also possible to download them for offline use). You'd probably have to pay for more Cloud Storage, but the lowest tier, 99 cents a month for 50GB, sould be more than enough.

Turn on iCloud Music Library

Add an Apple Music subscription for access to the entire iTunes Music Library (streaming). It looks like they are still offering a three month free trial for new users:

Apple Music - Membership

It's similar to a Spotify subscription, but with slightly different features. At any rate, for at least three months you can test the heck out of that new JBL speaker.

Note: Spotify has a similar streaming music plan that many prefer (but not me). It's worth checking out their free tier as well.

 

[brixtonboy]

No it's getting complicated again, l knew it would [emoji26]

 

[twerppoet]

No it's getting complicated again, l knew it would [emoji26]

In some ways, yes. In some ways, not. The features of iCloud Music Library and Apple Music are somewhat complicated, but the basics of using them is not. For iCloud Music Library, you flip a switch in settings. If you want to download something locally, you tap on the iCloud icon next to it in the Music app. For Apple Music, you start a subsciption.

If you need more iCloud Stoage, that's fairly easy to set up as well.

In both cases, you're using exactly the same Music app, just with more music and no manual syncing. Any complications in the Music itself app stay about the same.

Compaired to the need to import, organize, then manually copy or sync music from your computer, it's simple. Especially when you consider that the setup is one-time; instead having to go back and fiddle with the computer evertime you make a change.

This from someone who understands iTunes better than most. I've been using it since the second iPod, and I've never found it as confusing as most people seem to. Despite that, I almost never open iTunes on the computer these days. All the features I really care about have been automated through services.