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How to sync music to your Android (Mac)

As you may know, I recently converted from the iPhone 4 to the Samsung Galaxy S3. The switch has been magnificent -- the only thing I miss from my iPhone is the ease of use regarding syncing music and apps with iTunes. If you have a Windows computer and an Android, the two sync very well. You can use a product called Android Kies, which is Android's version of iTunes. However, Android Kies didn't work on my Mac, and when I researched the problem online, it seemed there were thousands of users experiencing the same problem. If you look online for information about how to sync Android with Mac, there are hundreds of freeware programs. The thing is only about one or two of them actually work. If you have a Mac, you can either set your phone up as a disc image (.dmg) or use my go-to program -- Easy Phone Tunes. If you set your phone up as a dmg, it will allow you to manually drag and drop music onto your phone. Manually placing new songs on your phone every time you download a track could get annoying. If you download Easy Phone Tunes, it allows you to sync your music to your Android virtually using iTunes. First you have to download the program to your Mac, then go to the Android Play Store and download the app to your Android. Then plug your phone in and open the app from your Android. Now it will allow you to sync pre-made playlists from iTunes directly to your phone. It works like a charm! Every time you download a new song and sync it your playlist, plug your phone in and it will recognize you've downloaded a new song and sync only that track to your device. For all of you Android users out there who are having trouble getting music onto their phones, I hope this helped. And to all you iPhone users, make the switch already.

iPad Mini is real

Articles on articles on articles have been posted in the tech space this past few weeks talking about Apple releasing an iPad Mini. A very trusted source, the Verge, claims we can expect to see an iPad Mini announcement in late October. First off, if you look at Android tablets, we've seen the only successful models have been the Amazon Fire and Google Nexus tablets. I believe their success is due to their small size. I purchased a BlackBerry PlayBook more than a year ago and adored it because it had a nice form factor. I always thought the iPad was too big and hard to manoeuvre. I liked the PlayBook because it was small and it fit between my hands well. What can we expect in the iPad Mini, you may ask. It's looking like a 20-centimetre display with a 4:3 width to height ratio. Expect a front- and rear-facing camera and an ultra-thin design. Sound pretty good? I think so. The only issues I see with this iPad Mini is aren't all of the applications developed for the iPad develop for that big-screen resolution? Are the developers really going to resize their apps to fit on the Mini screen? What do you think of the iPad Mini? Are you a fan of the big or smaller screen? Hit me up on Twitter, @thedavidbell, or through my email, db@thedavidbell.com -- let's talk!

New iPod Nano and Touch

Last week Apple decided to refresh its iPod Nano and Touch lineup. If you can even remember, the iPod Nano was falling off and becoming less and less relevant. Apple tried re-creating the Nano a few years back and making a super-small touch screen. The sales on that Nano were awful. It seemed Apple learned from their mistake and decided to make the iPod Nano a little bigger. I have to say I'm still not a fan of the Nano. My favorite iPod was the Nano back when it had the scroll wheel. As for the iPod Touch, you can now order the device in various colours. It also, of course, got some speed updates and a new and improved camera. Overall, not a big announcement -- something Apple did just to keep news buzzing.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition October 14, 2012 ??65535