World of Electronics

How to Play iTunes Music and Videos on Your Android Device

Apps and SoftwareConsumer Electronics Product Knowledge

Offering one of the largest music catalogs, Apple’s iTunes features over 28 millions songs, more than 1 million podcasts and lots of TV shows, movies, music videos and audio books. All of this is part of Apple’s seamless ecosystem. But what should you do if you wish to leave Apple’s ecosystem and start using Android without losing all your entertainment purchased through iTunes?
Don’t worry, there are several ways to get your iTunes contents to play nice with your Android phone or tablet.

What is important for you?
First of all, you need to outline what is important for you. Do you want to stop using iTunes and move all of your content to your Android device, or do you still want to use iTunes and sync your content to your Android device? Do you just want the music files or do you want a solution for your movies and TV shows too? Do you have old DRM protected files?
Apple sold DRM protected files up until 2009 through iTunes, meaning that until then, those files would only work with your iOS device. If songs in your library are labeled “Protected” in iTunes, then these fall under the DRM banner. All TV shows and movies offered in the iTunes store are still DRM protected.

Removing DRM protection
To remove the DRM protection on your files, there are a few options and some of them are less legal than others. If you want to do everything by the rules, Apple will let you “upgrade” your DRM protected songs to remove the restrictions, but they’ll charge you 30 cents per song to do this. This option can be found in Upgrade to iTunes Plus under Quick Links in the iTunes store. Note that this can only be done for your music files and not for your movie files. While this option is affordable if you only have a few songs to upgrade, a better option might be to sign up for the iTunes Match service for a onetime fee of $25, this will also lift the DRM protection of all your music tracks.
If paying to remove the DRM tag of your songs is not an option, then you could also have a look a 3rd party software which will do it for you. Tunebite or Aimersoft DRM Media Converter are popular and the free option Requiem is also often used. Just make sure to get the right version of the software, matching your iTunes version.
Removing the DRM is necessary to play your media files on your Android device so make sure to do this before you continue.

Moving Files
Once your iTunes files are DRM free, the only thing left to do is moving your files. This again can be done different ways.

Manual Move
Moving your files manually is the simplest but most tedious way. Very straightforward, this method is perfect if you just want to move a few tracks. Connect your Android device to your computer and select USB mass storage mode from the popup menu on your phone. Note that this method varies from phone to phone but this is the general way. Once connected, go “Computer” and open your android phone’s list. Browse to the Music folder and then select files directly fom iTunes and press “Ctrl+C” to copy them and then “Ctrl+V” to paste them into the folder on your phone or tablet.