Sync N80 IE With iTunes Play List
In an earlier post I described how to enable Ogg Vorbis support in iTunes/QuickTime and Windows Media Player.
In this post I will describe how to synchronize the contents of a folder on the N80 IE with an iTunes play list using the open source tool iTunes Agent. By using iTunes Agent you get an "iPod-like" behavior1 and as a matter of fact, iTunes Agent can be used to sync iTunes with any Windows drive.
I use this approach described in this post to manage my .ogg music files on both my laptop and my N80. The same approach can be used to manage music in .mp3 format (and in principle iTunes .aac, but iTunes DRM prevents playing .aac on the N80. Or so I have heard…).
First, you have to decide on how to synchronize. Because iTunes Agent can sync with any Windows drive, you have the choice between the following two approaches:
- Sync directly to phone. The N80 works as an USB Mass Storage device2 and if you plug in the phone using the USB cable that came with the phone, you can map the phone memory card to a Windows drive3(see screenshot below). You then sync to this drive.
- Sync to memory card. If you remove the card from the phone and plug it into your computer using a card reader, it will be mapped to a Windows drive. You then sync to this drive.
N80 Setup
- Connect N80 as a "Mass Storage" device.
- Create an empty file in the root folder of your of memory card. This file is used by iTunes Agent to identify your phone. The file can be named anything you like, e.g. "N80_iTunes".
- Create (or decide on) a folder to use for the play list files. Note that if the folder is not empty, all files will be deleted on first sync.
iTunes Agent Setup
- Install iTunes Agent.
- Right-click iTunes Agent task bar icon and select "Preferences…"
- Add a profile for your N80:
- Click the "New" button and enter a name for your phone.
- Select the desired folder structure for the synchronized files - see iTunes Agent documentation for descriptions of the available options.
- Select the memory card folder to synchronize with (the folder you created/decided on above).
- Enter the name of the empty file you created in the root folder of the memory card.
- Select the playlist to sync with. Any play list can be used, but if you select the "Use device name…" option, a new play list will be created with the name you entered for your phone above.
- Click the "Save" button to add the new profile to iTunes Agent.
iTunes Setup
Simply add files to the play list iTunes Agent has associated with your phone.
The next time your phone is connected as a mass storage device, the iTunes Agent (if it is running) will let you know it has detected the phone.
You can then right-click the iTunes Agent task bar icon and select "Synchronize Devices…". This will start the synchronization process.
- I think - I do not own an iPod. [back]
- You don't need to have back]
- You don't need to have Nokia's PC suite installed for this [back]
- If you have trouble making Mass Storage work, try opening and closing the S60 Music Player. Until I did this, my phone would not go into Mass Storage mode, but complained that a program was using the memory card. [back]
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