If you’ve ever needed an easy way to import third party media files to your Music application, then check out this new application called Bridge by iOS developer Jonas Gessner. The application looks as good as it works and it's very convenient if you don't want to use iTunes to get music on your iOS device. Bridge is fully compatible with podcasts, ringtones, music, and videos.
Paired with Dropbox and iFile, Bridge is going to be your best friend if you love music and videos. This combination will allow you to move media files from your computer to your iOS device without the assistance of iTunes. Bridge can then be used to move these media files to your iOS device’s native media applications such as Music and Videos.
The first thing you notice is the gorgeous application icon (by Surenix), followed by a gorgeous splash screen. Then you end up in the application itself, which is separated into three tabs – home, files, and download. The home tab offers instructions and a welcome screen, the files tab offers a window into your iOS device’s file system, and the download tab allows you to input a URL to download a media file from.
Whenever you import media files using Bridge, you will be given the ability to set its own album artwork, title, artist, album, and genre. The information you input here will be the information you see from the Music application when you are listening to music. When possible, Bridge will automatically read and auto-fill this information from tracks that have it included in the id3 tags, but you can still edit it if you want to. Also notice that Bridge has a complimentary preview bar that allows you to listen to the media file before it is imported.
If you go into the Files tab, you will be viewing your iOS device's file system. This is where using Dropbox and iFile come in handy. You can drag your music into your iPhone’s file system through Dropbox and iFile and then import it directly into your Music application (works for other media types too).
Alternatively, you can use links to download audio or video and import it to your iOS device. You can input the URL to the file you want to download and Bridge will download it. Once downloaded, you will be able to import it to your media library. It goes through the same basic process as using files from the file system and then you will get a notification when it finishes:
Now that the music file used in the screenshots above has been imported, we can go into our Music application and find the song that we just imported to our music library sitting there and ready to play at any time just like it had been synced from iTunes:
For podcasts, you will be able to find them in the Podcasts application. For movies, you should look in the Videos application. For ringtones, you will find them in the Settings application where you select the ringtones and text tones you want to hear when you get notifications.
Bridge also supports media anywhere the “Open In…” function can be used, such as in the Mail application and in Mobile Safari. This makes it simple to import media that you e-mail to yourself or to import media that you have stored on an online backup service with a Web page GUI.
In the instructions, Jonas warns that Podcasts are the only media type that will be able to sync to and from your computer and iOS device through iTunes when imported with Bridge. This means if you transfer media such as music to your iOS device with Bridge, you won’t be able to sync it to your computer. If you attempt to sync it, nothing will happen and the music will stay on the device and not transfer to the computer, so luckily it won’t be erased form the iOS device.
Bridge is certainly polished and it makes a powerful tool for anyone with a deep hate for iTunes. It’s also useful for the random media file that you may come across when you’re away from home and cannot use iTunes to sync it. Bridge works on the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad; you can find it right now in the BigBoss repository for only $1.99!
Name: Bridge
Price: $1.99
Version: 1.0.1
Repo: BigBoss
Developer: Jonas Gessner
Editor's Rating: 5/5
Reply
