Mobile Fun Blog

iTunes is one of the easiest ways to download and organise your music if you use an iPod or iPhone – but what if you use iTunes to organise and play your music and don’t have an iPod or iPhone?

I’m sure that most of us don’t know that you can sync pretty much any phone with iTunes. Generally speaking, you’ll get a software disc in with your phone that will have a program on for copying your music to your phone, but this can sometimes be clumsy, lead to duplicate songs on your computer, or require your songs to be changed to a different format, but there are ways around this.

I recently came across 2 free programs, (one for Windows, one for Mac OS X) that will let you sync just about any phone with iTunes.

iTunes Agent for Windows users:

This is a simple and easy program to use. It doesn’t matter what phone you have, as long as your PC can recognise it as a storage device once you’ve plugged it into a USB port.

Once you’ve downloaded and installed the program, you just need to tell it:

1. How to organise the music on your phone:
   • iTunes saves it in the format: Artist / Album Name / Song.mp3
   • Artist Folder saves in the format: Artist-Album / Song.mp3
   • Flat saves in the format: Artist – Song.mp3
2. Where the music should be saved to on your phone
3. Which playlists you want to synchronise with your phone

That’s about all there is to it. It really couldn’t be easier. Further instructions on how to use it can be found on the iTunes Agent support website.

iTuneMyWalkman for Mac OS X users:

Again, a very simple and easy to use application, that will install scripts that will automatically sync your music when your phone is connected, without the need to launch a separate application.

Once installed, you’ll need to change some of the preferences to tell it where to save the music to on your phone, whether to autosync or not and what type of files you want to synchronise. (Movies, Podcasts, MP3 etc..)

You can use a combination of playlists and smart playlists, and iTuneMyWalkman will transfer over as much music as your phone will hold, or up to a threshold that you choose.

As with the Windows version, this really couldn’t be any easier, and this will work with all phones that can be connected via USB.

If you have a Nokia N-Series device, you may also want to check out Nokia Multimedia Transfer for Mac. This software is currently in Beta, but will also allow you to sync your photo’s with iPhoto, as well as sync your music and playlists over Bluetooth and USB.

One thing to bear in mind with both of these applications, is that they will delete any music off your phone the first time that they sync. So if you have purchased or downloaded an music files on your phone that you don’t have on your PC, you’ll need to back these up or send them to your PC before you start.

Getting a new game or ringtone or wallpaper for your phone should be one of the easiest things in the world. Ordering and paying for it is easy enough, just enter your mobile number, reply with ok to confirm you want it and job done. All that’s left to do now is to download your funky new tune to your phone. So how do you do it? Well, once you’ve ordered your tone, you will receive a text message from us with a link to a webpage where you can download the ringtone or game.

The message you recieve will be something similar to this:
http://wap.mobilefun.co.uk/index.wml?w=1&number=447890123456&pin=1234567

Now if you’re not that technically minded, I wouldn’t blame you if you’re a little bit confused right now and not 100% sure what to do next, but don’t worry, it’s all pretty simple. The link that you’ve received in your text message needs to be accessed from your phone and not from your PC. (If you try it from your PC you’ll get an error message that tells you to use the link on your phone.)

To view web links on your mobile phone its normally just a case of pressing a couple of buttons and the phone will do all the work for you. In most cases there is no need to type in the address that you’ve been sent. As each phone is different, the process for accessing web links varies quite a bit, so I’ve listed some instructions below on how to access web links on the most popular Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, LG and HTC phones and will add more over time.

If you get an error message that refers to a problem with the settings on the phone, you may need to get the Internet settings resent to your phone. It’s free and only takes a couple of minutes, and I’ve put a guide together on how to do this for you: Setting up MMS, WAP & GPRS.

Standard Handsets	Symbian S60 Handsets
Open the Message	Open the Message
Press "Options"	Use arrow keys to highlight the link
Scroll to "Use Detail"	Press "Select"
Press Select/OK
Scroll to "Web Address"
Press Select/OK
Highlight the address
Press "Goto"
Symbian S60 Touch Screen (5800 & N97)
Open the Message
Press the link in the message
Press "Open Link"

Standard Handsets	Symbian UIQ
Open the Message	Open the Message
Use arrow keys to highlight the link	Use arrow keys to highlight the link
Press "Open" (left soft key)	Press "Select"

Standard Handsets	Touch Wiz
Open the Message	Open the Message
Press "Options"	Press the link in the message
Scroll to "Extract Address"
Press Select/OK
Press "Options"
Scroll to "Go To URL"
Press Select/OK
Symbian S60 Handsets	Windows Mobile
Open the Message	Open the Message
Use arrow keys to highlight the link	Click the link in the message
Press "Select"

NB: You may experience problems when trying to download games and ringtones using Windows Mobile, as your phone might be recognised as a PC rather than a phone.

Standard Handsets	Touch Screen Handsets
Open the Message	Open the Message
Press "Options"	Press the link in the message
Scroll to "Extract Data"
Press Select/OK
Scroll to "Web Address"
Press Connect

Non Touch Screen Handsets	Touch Screen Handsets
Open the Message	Open the Message
Use arrow keys to highlight the link	Press the link in the message
Press "Select"

NB: You may experience problems when trying to download games and ringtones using Windows Mobile, as your phone might be recognised as a PC rather than a phone.