NICEVILLE, Fla. —
Question: Since new cars no longer come with CD players installed, I’m in a quandary. I have about 400 music CDs that I’d like to move to my iPhone to listen to them on the road. Can you recommend a good, easy-to-use 3rd party application that will let me transfer audio CDs to my iPhone? I would like to avoid Apple Music and/or iTunes. I just don’t want to spend a lot of money on a music service and pay for the same music all over again. Thanks.
– Ed R.
Fort Walton Beach, Florida
The Geek’s Answer: There are several paths that I believe will lead to a solution that will make you happy, Ed. I’m pretty sure you haven’t thought of the easiest ones, and even the slightly more difficult ones include steps that you may not be aware of. At least you didn’t mention them in your question.
I want to mention that while new cars may not come with CD players pre-installed, having an aftermarket one put in is usually an option. These modern units often include touch screens and the ability to be connected to cameras (backup and otherwise) that add more value to your vehicle than just playing CDs.
Nevertheless, I can understand why one might not want to go to this trouble and expense.
The rise of digital streaming services has severely curtailed the popularity of the venerable compact disc. History shows that car manufacturers tend to follow the trend of what’s popular. Those of you readers who are as old as I am will remember in-car audio progressing through stages that include AM-only radio, AM/FM, 8-track tapes, cassette tapes, CDs, MP3 libraries, satellite radio, and finally, Bluetooth audio and Apple/Android CarPlay.
I might have even forgotten one or two, and I don’t claim these are necessarily in the correct order.
The point is that the audio system in your car very likely supports one or more media formats that were popular when your car was built, with the newest cars being on the end of the spectrum where satellite radio and digital audio live.
Now, Ed, to make use of your CD library, the first thing you want to do is get the music off of the CDs and into a format an audio system without a CD player can handle—namely, .mp3.
This process is called ripping, and you need look no further than the Windows Media Player built right into Windows for a good ripping tool.
I am not going to go into a lot of detail about how to do this beyond telling you to run a Google search on “how to rip a CD using Media Player” and follow the instructions. You’ll need a computer with a CD drive, and like cars, many computers don’t come with CD capability anymore. You can solve that problem by purchasing an inexpensive external USB CD drive. Check Amazon or local big box stores, and you shouldn’t have to pay over $25 for one.
The next issue is how to play these .mp3 files in your vehicle. You seem wrapped around the axle on your iPhone, Ed, but you don’t even need to get your phone involved unless you also want to use it as an on-the-go MP3 player outside the vehicle. One easy solution is to put the .mp3 files on a regular old thumb drive and then plug it into your car stereo’s USB port.
Most modern car stereos have one, and on many cars, it’s in the dashboard, console, or glove box. You’ll find that the radio will read the contents of the drive and then magically convert itself into an in-car player, with your music searchable by title, artist, album, genre, etc.
If you really do want your music on your iPhone, the Apple solution for that is iTunes. I know you said you wanted to avoid that, but I get the impression that you don’t know that iTunes will handle your personal .mp3 library just as easily as it will handle files from Apple Music or other pay services—except for free.
Just point iTunes to your library, pick and choose what you want to go to the phone, and do a sync.
If you are really dead set against using iTunes, there are other alternatives. I’m running short on space this week, so I’ll just drop the names VLC Media Player and iMazing and let you do your own research.
As with most topics, you can always learn more with a simple Internet search. Something like “How do I send music to my iPhone without using iTunes?” would be a good start.
Jeff Werner, a software engineer based in Niceville, Florida, has been writing his popular “It’s Geek to Me” tech column since 2007. He shares his expertise to help readers solve everyday tech challenges. To view additional content, comment on articles, or submit a question, visit ItsGeekToMe.co (not .com!).
