It's an evolving portability. I use a computer when I have work to do (e.g., requires Adobe or a spreadsheet). If I'm just screwing around, 90% of the time that's on the phone or iPad. We keep a big iPod in the house as a sort of storage device, along with my external drives, but phones have replaced the iPod. With the evolution of cloud services, I eventually won't have to load in new podcasts or music on my device in the mornings. It's just there. As for battery, I keep phone plugged in at work, and the iPad lasts for a while on its own. At least in theory. We'll see how it actually goes down in practice.

You still may have no interest in this, but I'm interested because my phone/iPad have replaced my computer as entertainment box. I've even come to terms with giving up on physical media, because I can't remember I took a cd out of the box in the closet.

it's 2011 and I have a short attention span and a fast phone: let's party.

Elwood: It's 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark... and we're wearing sunglasses.
Jake: Hit it.

Yeah, I can see what they are hoping for down the road with no physical storage and just keeping everything in the cloud and you can listen from anywhere. But frankly, I find it little more than a novelty until it is further developed. When it is fast enough that the wait times for listening to whatever I want is next to nothing and I can listen at work, in my car, over my home stereo or wherever else I am quickly and easily I'll be interested. Right now, it's too limited to really sound like much if anything of an upgrade over just storing everything on my big ass iPod when I want to listen digitally.

[deleted rant about apple's proprietary bullshit used to go here]

little things built in to try to force you to buy music the way they want you to.

OK, then tell me how to copy music from my computer at work to my iPod and then put it back with the rest of my music on my home computer. Or, how to rename tracks while I am at work and came across a song named wrong and then let that title stay instead of being changed back when it syncs with my home library. This is all crap built around not wanting to let you transport music from one place to another...unless you've bought it from iTunes in which case you're fine to buy wherever whenever and take with you. I guess there are the usual third party software solutions, but they all have issues of their own. I kind of expect not to have to go outside Apple for decent functionality after I pay their premium prices for something.

That was my other thought with Apple. With Amazon/Google you are uploading so you have control on content. With Apple's itunes synch, you'd essentially be giving them free access to search your music files. What if it tags stuff that isn't out that a record company is wondering how widespread a release got out? I dunno. I know it sounds like I'm being hard on Apple in this thread, but I just see problems. I'm sure it will be worked out, and I might even use it--but I when I read about these features, it kinda bugged me out.

where do you get your podcasts and how do you get them on your android device?

In switching to Android, I've already become accustomed to my podcasts being ready for me in Listen evryday and with 4G, they are an easy get if they arent ready.

Also, I'm only in an actual office one maybe two days a week, otherwise I'm on the road or at the warehouse--Basically it's 2011 and I have a short attention span and a fast phone: let's party.

Yeah this was kind of what I was getting at. I can see it being the way to go down the road when its pretty much ubiquitous technology and you can just login to your music database in any car radio or stereo. I don't see enough of a benefit to doing it now though. My ipod and laptop serve my needs for portability fine and I'd also worry that once amazon/apple/google have gotten everyone to sign up they'd start charging or jack up prices as having to reupload everything would create high switching costs. If I were an ipad user, maybe i'd think differently but I have no interest in using my phone that way.

Yeah this was kind of what I was getting at. I can see it being the way to go down the road when its pretty much ubiquitous technology and you can just login to your music database in any car radio or stereo. I don't see enough of a benefit to doing it now though. My ipod and laptop serve my needs for portability fine and I'd also worry that once amazon/apple/google have gotten everyone to sign up they'd start charging or jack up prices as having to reupload everything would create high switching costs. If I were an ipad user, maybe i'd think differently but I have no
interest in using my phone that way.

guys, just make it a backup solution. keep multiple copies of all of your tunes locally, but update your online music service of choice, so it's there in the event you are somewhere with access to a computer, and you want to hear that specific song or album. it's a good "extra".

this.

streaming Ride right now!

Hey Saint, what ap do you use for Last FM scrobbling?

I've been using Simple Last Fm Scrobbler. It was working fine when I was using Winamp but it doesnt seem to recognize Music as a music player and is only scrobbling sporadically.