Itunes question

So I have been slowly migrating my life on to my MCB. My Iphone has been synched to my Thinkpad. So I am ready to take the plunge and synch with the MCB. I gather my contacts (which are synched via Outlook on my work computer) will not be affected by this, right?

Also, I don't want all of my music on my computer synched onto the Iphone. I have quite a few tracks on my computer. I there any way to uncheck a bunch of stuff at once, or can it only be done one track at a time? Thanks.

 

In iTunes you can select / deselect whether you want contacts, calendar, notes, etc to sync or not with the iPhone. If you're currently syncing music to your phone via that Thinkpad and contacts via Outlook then you should be fine, but I haven't kept up much on using Outlook sync with the iPhone so others may have to clarify that for you.

The music is the same way; you will need to put some work in ahead of time to limit the amount or sync - although you probably are best served by creating a smart playlist (or group of playlists) of music that you want to download onto the iPhone rather than use the "all music" option. This will manage what gets pushed to the phone when you sync.

 

Thanks. Hopefully, someone else will chime in with some additional info.

 

Just keep in mind that you may have to use manual syncing of content, otherwise iTunes will try to match your iPhone to your MCB's library (whatever that is). Manual syncing would mean that you have to drag-and-drop new content through iTunes onto your iPhone.

I too suggest you get to know your way around playlists and smart playlists when it comes to selectively syncing media since the whole uncheck/check method is extremely outdated and not very useful since you have to go through your entire library to see what is being synced over whereas playlists allow you to see right up front what will be synced over. Setting up a smart playlist isn't very difficult. For example, you can set one up to randomly pull tracks from your library and limit the size of the playlist so that it fits on your iPhone. You can also setup another smart playlist based on song ratings. Rate a song at 5 stars (or whatever you set it up as) and it will automatically be added to the playlist. That will give you more control over what is being synced over and a lot easier than unchecking songs.

 

Thanks. I'll need to read up on how smart playlists work.

 

The ipod / iphone should be able to sync to multiple computers as I have had problems where I can't sync it to one computer that I am using now because I synced it to the computer at home.

I hope and pray that Android beats Apple $%@ in this market so finally apple gets its head out of you know where.

 

That isn't going to happen, Apple has too much of a stronghold on the DAP and tablet markets. That being said, iDevices can be synced to multiple systems so long as auto-sync isn't enabled. That is what gets many people in trouble as they setup auto-sync on one system, take their iDevice to a different computer, and try to sync it. Manual sync mode must be used when syncing from multiple computers.

 

It used to work, but I think what killed it is that I got some songs from someone and couldn't authorize them on different computers. Also, why can't gmail and yahoo be synced with the address book, not just one or the other?

 

I dont think Android will catch Apple for years on usability as far as the music side goes, even with iTunes being a pita sometimes.

 

Luckily the days of DRM for music files are gone. Back when that was relevant, you could authorize only 5 computers to playback your purchased content. Anything beyond that required that you call/e-mail Apple to have them clear your iTunes Store authorizations so you could start from scratch. There is still DRM on TV shows, movies, and apps but there isn' for songs or music videos.

As for the other part, I don't know since I don't work at Apple. I guess they were thinking that most people only have one address book and not multiple accounts. It isn't an issue for me since I only have Gmail but I can see how it would be a pain.

If they even approach Apple at all. There are more Android smartphones out there than iPhones but Google took the software approach (similar to MS) in that they put their software on devices from multiple vendors. That has always been the best way of spreading your software around. So Google has outnumbered Apple in the smartphone market for a while but still has a long, long, long way before they even approach Apple with slate tablet sales. Last I checked, Apple still had about 97% of that market not too long ago and it didn't look like anything was going to change. Google has done a really good job to get where they are now but Apple has had a head start in the music business, with iOS, and with slate tablets. Google may never catch Apple in some areas while they might do so in others.