iPhone does not support manually managing songs and videos [Archive]

Skwidspawn

06-30-2007, 03:47 AM

hmm, there is a really simple way to sovle this problem: Simply make a manual playlist and drop the songs you want into it. Then simply tell the iPhone to sync to that playlist(s). If you want to add tv shows you can drag them into the same playlist and tell the iPhone to sync tv shows from that list.
In my opinion, which no one asked for, smart playlists are a much better way to handle the iPhone, but then again my library is pretty well tended and creating smart playlists is really easy.

jhollington

06-30-2007, 10:46 AM

The reality is that there are only two specific situations in which you would ever need to use manual mode.

The first is if you have limited space on your computer and you don't want to keep your music in your iTunes library. Manual mode allows you to transfer your music to your iPod or iPhone and delete it from the iTunes library. However, this is a bad idea for a whole lot of reasons, especially if you're relying on the iPod to be your only backup of music. Disk space is dirt cheap these days, especially compared to an 8GB iPhone, so there's really no reason anybody should want to do this.

The second reason is if you plan to use your iPod on multiple computers. However, the iPhone itself is not intended to be used on multiple computers because of all of the other information that syncs with it. Trying to use the iPhone on more than one computer therefore has the potential to really complicate your synchronization. While it's not impossible to deal with this for somebody who is paying attention, the reality is that there is a huge potential for people to hurt themselves if they plug their iPhone into more than one computer, since there's so much data that now syncs back from the iPhone.

In any other case, there's is absolutely no benefit to using manual mode, and in fact there are a number of disadvantages, such as ratings and playcounts not being properly preserved, the risk of duplicates on the device itself (since manual mode doesn't very effectively track what's already been added), an inability to quickly rebuild your artwork database, and so forth.

As Skwidspawn suggests above, you can get all of the benefits of automatic synchronization and maintain a "manual-style" approach simply by syncing a single selected playlist.

two2die477

06-30-2007, 01:01 PM

I have three computers.... this creates a huge problem for me...

Surf Monkey

06-30-2007, 01:16 PM

The reality is that there are only two specific situations in which you would ever need to use manual mode.

I think you make a lot of un-warranted assumptions. There's nothing illegitimate about wanting to manage songs manually on the iPhone or the iPod and there are certainly more than two reasons why someone might want to do that.

jhollington

06-30-2007, 01:50 PM

There's only two reasons why somebody needs to do that. People may want to do this, but the fact is that the disadvantages of using manual mode far outweigh any other advantages, particularly since syncing a selected playlist is virtually the same thing for any other possible purpose.

Even with multiple computers at home (I have five in the house), it's far more efficient to keep the entire iTunes library on a single computer and automatically sync it than it is to try to manage manually adding music from multiple computers and manually managing the content. Of course, people may have reasons for not wanting to do that, so I'm not saying any other method is wrong, but it's easier in most cases.

Multiple computers in different locations are another story, of course (such as home and work or at home and the cottage).

Other than not keeping your music on your computer or using your device on multiple computers (including for playback purposes, to be fair), I can't think of anything else that most people would need to do in manual mode that can't be addressed by simply auto-syncing a single playlist instead, especially for a device like the iPhone that has no disk mode nor any interoperability with any software other than iTunes at this point (and quite possibly never will).

Surf Monkey

06-30-2007, 07:21 PM

There you go with the distinctions between need and want again. Obviously we're not going to get anywhere if we go down that road again.

Suffice it to say... there are more than two reasons that people might want to use manual mode. Apple should have included it. They also should have allowed you to use your own songs as ring and alarm tones.

jhollington

06-30-2007, 07:53 PM

Yes, I'm certainly not defending Apple, nor denying that they should have included both of these features, and I do think that it's an issue that they haven't included at least drag-and-drop (ie, manual mode). (Disk mode itself is far less of an issue for what is essentially a media player IMHO).

What I'm trying to suggest, however, is that other than for the two very specific reasons mentioned above (insufficient hard drive space or multiple computer use), there are some very reasonable ways of working around this limitation.

I also do think that many people use manual mode because they don't fully understand automatic synchronization, or they don't have a "comfort factor" with it. Many of the people who do use manual mode could just as easily automatically sync a specified playlist (or set of playlists) and get the same effect with additional advantages, such as the ability to sync back ratings and playcounts, and the ability to queue up tracks for synchronization while the iPod is not connected.

This is a clearer line than our previous discussions, since there really are two clear, specific and valid scenarios where you pretty much need to use manual management (ie, automatic synchronization won't work in these cases). For most other purposes, there are methods of using automatic sync that will actually work better than manual mode in many ways.

Pete_L_P

06-30-2007, 08:41 PM

hmm, there is a really simple way to solve this problem: Simply make a manual playlist and drop the songs you want into it. Then simply tell the iPhone to sync to that playlist(s). If you want to add tv shows you can drag them into the same playlist and tell the iPhone to sync tv shows from that list.
In my opinion, which no one asked for, smart playlists are a much better way to handle the iPhone, but then again my library is pretty well tended and creating smart playlists is really easy.
Skwidspawn is completely right on this. What most folks don't realize is that after setting up this playlist for iPhone sync (and perhaps calling the playlist "iPhone"), the process of dragging things onto and off of that playlist is exactly the same as dragging it onto and off of your iPhone.

You can drag entire playlists or a group of selected tracks right onto a playlist name (in this case the "iPhone" playlist) just as you might drag them onto the iPhone's icon. You can delete any tracks from that playlist whenever you want. In fact, all of these actions can be taken when your iphone is NOT hooked up to your computer. And you'll get exactly what you want whenever you hook up your iphone.

There's absolutely no downside to this. What am I missing here?

Pete

wolfpackfan

07-01-2007, 08:35 AM

This might be a dumb question, but you can sync multiple playlists with the iPhone, can't you? I would have no problem with not being able to manually manage songs as I already have all my albums organized into playlists.

jhollington

07-01-2007, 10:18 AM

Yes, of course you can sync as many playlists as you like, or all of them for that matter.

Only the Shuffle doesn't support multiple playlist sync, simply because there'd be no practical way to choose between different playlists.

In fact, all of the automatic sync settings for the iPhone are virtually identical to those used for the iPod, with the only real differences being that Movies and TV Shows have been combined into a "Videos" tab, and of course there is an additional "Info" tab for synchronization of contact/calendar/bookmark/mail-account data.

However, Video, Music and Podcast synchronization work much the same way as they do for the 5G iPod.

wkearney99

07-01-2007, 11:17 AM

cpivot

07-01-2007, 11:34 AM

OK, everyone in here seems pretty smart with the iPhone, how do you completely remove songs from it? And is there a reason why when I put songs from a cd onto my iPhone they didnt play any sound?

pared

07-01-2007, 11:53 AM

This is a pretty stupid argument. It's a feature in a regular iPod and it should be a feature here.

What if you take the phone with you to work, connect it to your computer at work and want to listen to music off of it? You can't because it's all grayed out.

paranoidxe

07-01-2007, 11:59 AM

So a $600 phone functions like a $79 shuffle..that is hilarious.

I agree, it should function like a regular iPod. You can get just as many duplicates in auto sync mode as you can with manual. The idea of having to keep my music exactly how it is when I sync to the iPod is really ridiculous. If I reorganize my files on my hard drive there goes a legit sync to my iPod.

cpivot

07-01-2007, 01:06 PM

so here are my thoughts on what I posted a few posts back, the only way to remove songs from the iPod feature on the phone is to restore the phone to its factory setting and sync your numbers back in? Any comments?

jhollington

07-01-2007, 01:25 PM

cpivot: I realize this must be a slightly frustrating situation, but since you've already started a thread here (http://forums.ilounge.com/showthread.php?t=200030) please do not keep posting this across the forums. Personally, I don't have an iPhone myself, so I can't comment on your specific problem, but this is obviously not the way it's supposed to work.

Getting back to the other discussion at hand, the reality is that the iPhone obviously should be able to function in manual mode, and the fact that it doesn't is a rather odd omission, and may have something to do with the new synchronization protocols that Apple is using for the iPhone. Since there's no "Disk Mode" anymore, iTunes presumably no longer uses the old method of reading and writing to database files directly, but is using some other synchronization method. Perhaps this doesn't support any kind of manual mode as effectively (yet). Certainly the lack of manual mode on the Apple TV may also be indicative of this as well.

Reorganizing files on your hard drive will not affect your ability to sync your iPod, as long as you leave them listed in iTunes. You'll merely get broken links to the files, but nothing gets removed from the iPod unless the database entry is also removed. In fact this is an alternative method people have used for years to be able to perform automatic synchronization without having to keep their entire library on the hard drive. Granted, it's messier than manual mode, but it does work.

My own point is not really whether or not the iPhone should have a manual mode (of course it should), but rather that there are many people out there who use manual management of their iPod devices simply because they don't understand automatic synchronization, and they're somewhat frightened by the concept.

On the other hand, if you really don't want to manage a library on your computer in iTunes, or you have more than one computer you want to connect your device to, manual mode is pretty much the only option effectively available.

iMagic

07-01-2007, 03:45 PM

What about creating playlists on the phone itself? Can it do this? It's always been annoying not to be able to create playlists on the iPhone itself. One would hope that with the text entry capabilities they'd make this possible on the iPhone.

You can create one On-The-Go playlist as on the iPod, but you can't save it as a normal playlist then create another. I agree it should have the ability to create and name playlists on board given it's better user interface.

jeg815

07-01-2007, 10:04 PM

The Apple Tech I talked to said many customers are complaining about not being able to manually manage songs, and the greyed out music. She thinks that Apple is going to update iTunes to allow these features, she said she couldn't believe this didn't work.

jbruette

07-01-2007, 11:16 PM

jbruette

07-01-2007, 11:27 PM

You can create one On-The-Go playlist as on the iPod, but you can't save it as a normal playlist then create another. I agree it should have the ability to create and name playlists on board given it's better user interface.

Here's an interesting observation on the iPhone... a deadend....

Go to iPod...
Touch "More" in the lower right corner...
Touch "Edit" in the upper left corner...

You'll see a "Configure" screen that does absolutly nothing. You can amuse yourself sliding the icons around the screen. But nothing more.... except touch "Done" in the upper right.

It almost seems like this is where you *should* be able create a playlist.

Maybe later.... ;)

jhollington

07-02-2007, 08:02 AM

Here's a real case (mine) where the iPhone sync falls way short...
Exactly. This is a scenario in which a manual mode would be very useful, although not strictly necessary, since all you really need to do is have different options selected on different computers and be able to sync both automatically with different content. In fact, the iPod actually can do this.

I don't have an iPhone to try this with myself (being in Canada), but have you actually tried using different sync settings on two computers?

I'm guessing it probably won't work, or at least it won't work smoothly. However, as I mentioned, you can do this with the iPod.... You'll get the standard "This iPod is synced with another iTunes library" every time you plug it in to the Calendar/Contact (ie, work) computer, but if you simply select "Cancel" it will you can proceed to configure the other information to sync, leaving the contacts and calendars alone (see our 3-29-07 Ask iLounge column for more info (http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/ask-ilounge-3-29-07/).

I have no idea if the iPhone will work the same way, but it's worth a try.

jbruette

07-02-2007, 09:40 AM

Exactly. This is a scenario in which a manual mode would be very useful, although not strictly necessary, since all you really need to do is have different options selected on different computers and be able to sync both automatically with different content. In fact, the iPod actually can do this.

I don't have an iPhone to try this with myself (being in Canada), but have you actually tried using different sync settings on two computers?

Yes, I have tried and no luck.

I'm guessing it probably won't work, or at least it won't work smoothly. However, as I mentioned, you can do this with the iPod.... You'll get the standard "This iPod is synced with another iTunes library" every time you plug it in to the Calendar/Contact (ie, work) computer, but if you simply select "Cancel" it will you can proceed to configure the other information to sync, leaving the contacts and calendars alone (see our 3-29-07 Ask iLounge column for more info (http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/ask-ilounge-3-29-07/).

I have no idea if the iPhone will work the same way, but it's worth a try.

When you select "Cancel", it seems to do just that... cancels without syncing anything.

Chap

07-02-2007, 10:13 AM

Actually making one playlist and using that to manually manage songs is about the same. Its just adding a minor step. Would I have liked to avoid this step? Yes, but I really dont' think its a huge deal. IT doesn't break anything by doing it this way.

jhollington

07-02-2007, 10:38 AM

Sure. In fact, there are some advantages to doing it that way, since this also means you can manage your iPhone content even when it's not connected, since the playlist will always be part of your library. So you can make changes to the playlist, and then connect your iPhone and just walk away.

That having been said, manual mode is an absolute necessity for those with more than one computer that they would like to connect their iPhone to and sync content with, or for those with insufficient disk space to keep their library on their computer (although to be fair, 8GB of disk space isn't much these days, so it's far less of an issue for an iPhone than it might be for an 80GB iPod).

Chap

07-02-2007, 10:43 AM

Actually I think that this might make synching multiple pc's easier. On a seperate pc I MIGHT be able to create a seperate playlist that syncs to that pc. With th current 5g ipods thats not possible. I'm going to test this now.

Chap

07-02-2007, 10:50 AM

Just tested it and no it won't do it. Your right this does suck. I you could have synched it with both, but had it differentiate by playlist I think it would have been exceptable, but it doesn't.

paranoidxe

07-02-2007, 11:46 AM

My problem with auto sync is you have to have your files identical as they appear when you add them to your library you go around changing filenames on your hard drive and you'll have yourself a invalid link.

jhollington

07-02-2007, 11:53 AM

So don't change file names on your hard drive. :)

To be fair, this breaks iTunes more than it does automatic sync, however.

In fact, it really has nothing to do with automatic sync or manual management at all. iTunes will not remove anything from your iPod or iPhone as long as it's listed in your iTunes library, regardless of whether or not the underlying file can be found, and if you're concerned about adding something else to your iPod, even in manual mode you'd still have to relink that file before you could transfer it to your iPod or iPhone.

As for the iTunes missing files issue itself, I just prefer to let iTunes manage my music file names for me and avoid touching the file system at all, although on a Mac you can move and rename files without causing problems, as long as you keep them on the same drive, as the underlying OS will track this information.

gquiring

07-02-2007, 04:36 PM

It took me an hour to figure it out that manual copies did not work. Why they changed the rules is just plain stupid. I wonder if they are trying to lock out 3rd party software from copying to iPhone with sync only.

jhollington

07-02-2007, 06:02 PM

Actually, I suspect that may be exactly why they've eliminated the traditional "Disk Mode." Too many problems over time have been caused by third-party programs messing with the internal iPod database and preference files.

However, this is really no need to eliminate manual management (ie, drag and drop) of the iPhone content. The two do not necessarily go hand in hand, and there's no reason you couldn't drag-and-drop content onto your iPhone, even without the presence of a disk mode.

chief-j

07-02-2007, 07:33 PM

Here's an interesting observation on the iPhone... a deadend....

Go to iPod...
Touch "More" in the lower right corner...
Touch "Edit" in the upper left corner...

You'll see a "Configure" screen that does absolutly nothing. You can amuse yourself sliding the icons around the screen. But nothing more.... except touch "Done" in the upper right.

It almost seems like this is where you *should* be able create a playlist.

Maybe later.... ;)

It may appear that way, but what this screen is for is to re-organize and customize the order in which your ipod functions appear across the bottom screen bar, and move items in and out. Example: you like podcasts, but not playlists (or you use podcasts more). Solution? drag the podcast icon with your finger to the area below, overtop of the item you want to replace. And it will move that function for you. It's actually a pretty good option, not a dead-end.

Mattk11

07-03-2007, 01:03 AM

Here's a real case (mine) where theiPhone sync falls way short...

My calendar and contacts (MS Outlook) are on my work computer. As it is my work computer, my personal music and video library is not to be stored on that computer.

My music and videos are on my home computer. As it is my home computer, my contacts and calendar are not maintained on that computer.

I want to sync calendar and contacts at work and sync music and videos at home. These are unrelated groups of data and there would be no risk of "cross contamination" so to speak.

I should be able to have checkmarks on just the calendar and contacts for syncing at work. And have checkmarks on my special iPhone playlist for syncing at home.

But, alas, Apple screwed up and didn't think this posibility through.

I use a MAC as my primary entertainment computer so this is the computer that I originally synched my iPhone with. No problem here. I syched, added some songs and videos but the MAC does not have my contacts or calendar.

I tried to synch with my Work Windows PC, but at first it did not work. I downloaded the new software and it still did not work. Finally, I restarted the PC and it synched up fine. I set the iPhone synch with contacts and Calendar and have done so a few times this weekend as changed have been made.

Took me a couple tries but I was able to sych with two different computers, an iMAC and an XP PC.

Matt

ljp

07-03-2007, 03:14 AM

Here's a real case (mine) where theiPhone sync falls way short...

My calendar and contacts (MS Outlook) are on my work computer. As it is my work computer, my personal music and video library is not to be stored on that computer.

My music and videos are on my home computer. As it is my home computer, my contacts and calendar are not maintained on that computer.

I want to sync calendar and contacts at work and sync music and videos at home. These are unrelated groups of data and there would be no risk of "cross contamination" so to speak.

I should be able to have checkmarks on just the calendar and contacts for syncing at work. And have checkmarks on my special iPhone playlist for syncing at home.

But, alas, Apple screwed up and didn't think this possibility through.

This works absolutely fine. It is possible to do. I'm doing exactly that. After you cancel the initial sync, go in and uncheck the music and movies syncs then check the outlook syncs. Then hit apply. Do the reverse on the home computer. It works fine, I've been doing it.

shahidhaque

07-03-2007, 02:31 PM

That is great that it is possible to separately sync contacts/calendar on one PC, and music/videos on another -- so long as you select sync only checked items, and then only check the ones you want to sync.

What would be really great, however, would be syncing contacts/calendar on two PCs, with iTunes simply modifying entries if they have been changed. As it stands, it seems like the iPhone wants to merge databases by adding a duplicate of each entry.

I didn't go through and allow it to do this, because I didn't want to totally fudge my Outlook. Can anyone confirm that this is what it tries to do if you select "merge" when prompted?

jhollington

07-03-2007, 03:14 PM

I know on the Mac, it will try to resolve duplicates as best as it can and not create them unless something has changed in each. However, iTunes on the Mac uses the underlying Mac OS X Sync Services engine, which is what actually handles this. I'm not sure what it will do on a PC, in this case.

jbruette

07-03-2007, 05:21 PM

It may appear that way, but what this screen is for is to re-organize and customize the order in which your ipod functions appear across the bottom screen bar, and move items in and out. Example: you like podcasts, but not playlists (or you use podcasts more). Solution? drag the podcast icon with your finger to the area below, overtop of the item you want to replace. And it will move that function for you. It's actually a pretty good option, not a dead-end.

Great idea if it worked. It does nothing on my iPhone. The pretty little icons get big and follow my finger. But no matter where I release them, they fly right back to their original location.

shahidhaque

07-03-2007, 07:44 PM

This works absolutely fine. It is possible to do. I'm doing exactly that. After you cancel the initial sync, go in and uncheck the music and movies syncs then check the outlook syncs. Then hit apply. Do the reverse on the home computer. It works fine, I've been doing it.

To be fair to the people who said this doesn't work, it is a bit of a hassle to have to cancel the initial sync and then uncheck what you don't want to sync each time. If the iTunes remembered your settings, as opposed to only the iPhone itself, then you wouldn't have to do this.

chief-j

07-06-2007, 12:20 AM

Great idea if it worked. It does nothing on my iPhone. The pretty little icons get big and follow my finger. But no matter where I release them, they fly right back to their original location.

Hmm, that's odd. It works fine on mine. Are you dragging from top to bottom? It won't work the other way around, although you should be able to drag across the bottom bar from left to right and right to left.

Sowelu

07-06-2007, 02:38 AM

Great idea if it worked. It does nothing on my iPhone. The pretty little icons get big and follow my finger. But no matter where I release them, they fly right back to their original location.I don't think you're 'getting' this 'Configure' screen. It's to reorganize and pick and choose the icons you want on the bottom of the 'iPod' screen.

You need to drag the icons you want down to the bottom bar, not around the black area where they currently rest. I changed mine to show the 4 icons that I'd use the most. It's not a hidden or incomplete feature.

Surf Monkey

07-06-2007, 03:39 AM

Exactly. Grab the icon you want to add to the bottom bar. Drag it down and drop it in the bar, on top of the icon you want to replace. It's really simple and it works fine.

iEverything

07-06-2007, 11:07 PM

I read through the thread and didn't see this mentioned. I'm thinking about getting an iPhone and just downloaded iTunes 7.3. I noticed under edt, preferences, iPhone that there is a checkbox to disable automatic syncing. To anyone with an iPhone, does this allow for manual syncing?

Sorry for posting, found the answer under the Instant Expert section for iTunes 7.3

ManuteBol

07-07-2007, 04:29 AM

cpivot: ...there are many people out there who use manual management of their iPod devices simply because they don't understand automatic synchronization, and they're somewhat frightened by the concept.

It's a pain in the ###. I completely understand automatic synchronization, and by no means am I frightened by the concept. I enjoy deleting and adding files directly to my iPod video. With the iPhone, it's drag and drop stuff into a playlist, then go through the synch process. With videos, you have to check the stuff you want to keep on the iPhone. Synchronization involves a bunch of extra steps that I find inconvenient and a waste of time.

jhollington

07-07-2007, 09:10 AM

Actually, you could just put your videos in either a separate playlist or even the same one as your music, and then select that playlist for synchronization under the "TV Shows" and/or "Movies" tabs (Music Videos are already treated as music in terms of syncing selected playlists, so you don't have to do anything special for them).

Then you'd just drag and drop your videos to your playlist in much the same way as you do your music, and not have to worry about checking/unchecking anything.

The overall benefits of automatic sync still outweigh the disadvantages, IMHO. For instance, if you need to rebuild your album artwork cache you can do this very easily, or if you ever need to do a "Restore" on your iPod and reload it from scratch for whatever reason, you have a record of what was on it, so you can just plug it back in and select the same playlists.

Not to mention that information like ratings, play counts, skip counts, and last played and last skipped times won't be transferred back to your library in manual mode. If you don't use this information, that may not be a big deal, but it can be difficult to restore otherwise.

(Note again to be clear for those who may misunderstand: I'm not defending the lack of a manual mode on the iPhone -- there should be one if for no other reason that the situations where people are using two computers, or where people don't want to keep an active iTunes library on their computer).

napalm

08-23-2008, 04:15 PM

JMG

08-23-2008, 08:57 PM

This is ridiculous. I just want to add music from my home computer, and itunes won't let me because it's "synced" with my laptop which has iCal and my contacts. I checked "manually manage music and vidoes", so why does it say I have to erase my iphone and sync.. its MANUAL, stupid itunes. I just want some songs, I guess I have to use my usb thumb drive and copy them over.. ridiculous. I guess it doesn't "just work".

baggss

08-23-2008, 09:37 PM

Ya, I have to agree with JMG on this one, this is just stupid. Every other iPod I own can do this, the iPhone should be able to too.

jhollington

08-24-2008, 10:44 AM

Leaving the pointless thread-necromancing comment aside, I do agree that the fact that the current implementation of manual mode is broken is definitely ridiculous, since this behaviour is inconsistent with any iPod model -- even the iPod touch.

Apple introduced "manual mode" in iTunes 7.6, but obviously got it very wrong in the process. I had really expected them to fix this in v2.0 and iTunes 7.7, but apparently they haven't done this yet.

The problem seems to be two-fold: If you set "manual mode" on your main computer, it will work fine, but the setting will not "stick" when you connect the iPhone to other computers. The second problem is that enabling manual mode on a secondary computer will prompt you to erase everything on your iPhone (using the standard "Erase and Sync" dialog, which makes no sense in this case).

So in other words, you can use "manual mode" on one computer, which takes away one of the largest benefits of manual mode on the iPod -- the ability to load music from multiple computers.

For the record, I still stand by my comments that for most people there are only two valid reasons why somebody needs manual mode: to avoid keeping content on your computer or to be able to load content from multiple locations. Any other use of manual mode that I can think of could be just as easily served through the use of auto-syncing playlists, with the many added benefits of automatic synchronization that i already mentioned above. (Perhaps our one-post thread necromancer would care to engage in a productive discussion by explaining why he disagrees, rather than merely stating that he does).

However, that doesn't mean that the iPhone shouldn't have a proper implementation of manual mode. Ironically, since the iPhone tops out at 16GB, the first scenario of wanting to keep content only on your device is going to be less common with an iPhone owner than a 160GB iPod classic owner, but the second scenario of using multiple computers is just as valid for the iPhone as it is for any other iPod, yet it's the one thing you can't do.

Personally, I still think it's a bug since the way it's implemented gives you no practical indication that you shouldn't be able to do this. Obviously it's just one of the many bugs that Apple has not gotten around to fixing yet.

Apple iPhone Bug Reports: http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

JMG

08-25-2008, 06:24 PM

^ I agree 100%. All of my other ipods are on autosync, with the nanos being autosynced with a playlist. I have had no use for manual mode until now. The iphone is in a special instance since my music library is primarily on one computer, and my contacts and ical are on another. Given what I've observed when switching to manual mode on another computer, where itunes wants erase the iphone, it does sound more like a bug than something apple would do on purpose. Although the underlying issue with that bug is probably a little more complicated than if it was just an ipod in question, as I am sure manual mode was tested, but left the way it is because of some bigger problem.

jhollington

08-25-2008, 08:06 PM

Well, personally I think it might have something to do with Apple's approach to ringtones, since they clearly state in their Terms of Use that Ringtones may only be synced from one computer, and that syncing ring tones from another computer will erase all existing ringtones on the iPhone.

In terms of loading media from one computer and calendar/contacts from another, however, you can do this.... Just start with the computer that you sync your media content from, and set it up for automatic sync. Once this is done and you have your media syncing properly, then connect the iPhone to the second calendar/contact computer, without setting the iPhone to manual mode, and configure only the stuff on the "Info" tab, leaving the other tabs alone. If you've already synced your contacts and calendars from somewhere else, you'll be given the opportunity to merge the contacts/calendar on your iPhone with what's on your computer or replace the iPhone content entirely.

It's a little bit dated, but the information in our August 8, 2007 Ask iLounge column (http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/ask-ilounge-8-2-07/) should still mostly apply to the current iTunes/iPhone versions.