Using With Two Computers

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DanMan4040

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I have a 512 shuffle and I have two computers. Can I get music off of both or do I have to choose one? Whenever I try to open the shuffle using itunes it asks me to replace all songs. Can I change this or do I have to only use one computer, because my normal iPod can do this easily.
 

zip22

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you can only use the shuffle with 1 computer. i have no idea why apple did this, but it doesnt seem like its going to change.

(note: you can use it like a usb thumb drive with any computer, but the itunes functionality is limited to 1 computer at a time)
 

fleurdelee

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i thought that you could also manually fill the shuffle, which I haven't done so I'm not sure.

If so, though, you can turn off the auto fill feature and pull songs from each computer.

However, like the regular iPods, you can't take share music between the two computers without an additional program.
 

zip22

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nope, even without autofill, the shuffle can only be used on 1 computer. its not like the larger ipods.
 

mtnagel

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If the 2 computers are networked together, you can use it on 2 different computers that have the iTunes files on a network share drive.
 

hotphil

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Even with a network-shared library I still thought the shuffle locked itself to one PC/iTunes installation?
zip22 - the reason is to attempt to stop the shuffle being used as a distribution tool.
 

mtnagel

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hotphil said:
Even with a network-shared library I still thought the shuffle locked itself to one PC/iTunes installation?
That's what I thought too until I tried it. I have my library on my second internal hard drive (D:) on my desktop. I have my laptop wirelessly networked and I have that D: drive as a network share drive on my laptop as my Z: drive. On my desktop, I have iTunes pointed to that D: drive and on my laptop I have it pointed to the Z: drive. I can make a change on the laptop to the library (say change the genre of a song) and it will show up as changed on my desktop. I used to use my desktop to update my Shuffle, but then I installed the iPod updater on my laptop and just plugged it in and it updated fine. It didn't ask me to delete the files.

But of course, this means nothing when I remove the laptop from the network.
 

hoffm11

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If I wanted to use my Shuffle on my home and work computer for Data files, can I do this? I don't care about transferring music between the 2.
 

ShuffleDAG

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Theoretical question here:

How do you deal with the Shuffle is you change computers? I'm thinking of getting a Powerbook since our iMac is my wife's primary computer.

Cheers and Thanks.
 

mtnagel

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ShuffleDAG said:
Theoretical question here:

How do you deal with the Shuffle is you change computers? I'm thinking of getting a Powerbook since our iMac is my wife's primary computer.

Cheers and Thanks.
If you plug it into another computer with iTunes, it will ask if you want to associate it with that computer and delete all the music on it (at least that's what I've heard). You can then sync with music on the new computer.
 

mtnagel

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hoffm11 said:
If I wanted to use my Shuffle on my home and work computer for Data files, can I do this? I don't care about transferring music between the 2.
Why'd you ask again? I already said you can.
 

ShuffleDAG

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mtnagel said:
If you plug it into another computer with iTunes, it will ask if you want to associate it with that computer and delete all the music on it (at least that's what I've heard). You can then sync with music on the new computer.
Thanks mtnagel.

That's what I've "heard" but I was hoping someone had confirmed it. The guy at the Apple Store Genius Bar didn't really answer this same question to my satisfaction.

Thanks again.
 

kat_ryder

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"If you plug it into another computer with iTunes, it will ask if you want to associate it with that computer and delete all the music on it (at least that's what I've heard). You can then sync with music on the new computer."

Yes that's right, I just got my shuffle last night, when you plug it into another computer and answer yes to associate with the new computer wipes everything and then you can load music from the new computer.
 

georgerr

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If you don't want to wipe all your ipod content but simply add some song, you can use some iTunes "alternative" software with the appropriate ipod plugin.
I'm currently using winamp + ml_ipod in my windows 2000 computer at work - and it works fine.
 

dravenspectr

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I have an interesting take of this situation. I have two computers, a 1.6ghz Pentium 4 running XP SP2 and a iBook G3 600mhz running OSX 10.3.8.

Now do to the smaller hard drive of my iBook, it has a 10.5 gig iTunes library. I keep a more complete iTunes library of 21 gigs on my PC. 98% of the iBook songs are on the PC, vice versa, 49% of the PC songs on the iBook.

I installed my 1GB shuffle on both machines (iBook first), it shows up on both machines in the iTunes playlist list under the same name.

Here's the thing, both machines recognize the shuffle. Both machines have different shuffle playlists. When I plug it from one machine into the other (P4 to iBook), iTunes will see which songs are supposed to be on the shuffle and remove all that are not present in the current iTunes library, but it'll leave the songs it expects to see. Same happens on the other machine, it'll immediately remove the songs it doesn't see in the library.

Yet, it will only start removing songs when iTunes is open. In the pref pane, there's an option to auto-launch iTunes. If the shuffle auto-launches iTunes, it will "fix" your shuffle's music. If the auto-launch is left off, you're welcome to plug in and move files, recharge without the re-sync and without changing your current shuffle playlist.

To recap my overly long explanation, install the shuffle on every machine, just ensure that the iTunes have the same songs in the alternate library.

Rock on.
 

Diane

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kat_ryder said:
"If you plug it into another computer with iTunes, it will ask if you want to associate it with that computer and delete all the music on it (at least that's what I've heard). You can then sync with music on the new computer."

Yes that's right, I just got my shuffle last night, when you plug it into another computer and answer yes to associate with the new computer wipes everything and then you can load music from the new computer.
Then you could go back to computer #1 and wipe out everything again? My SO and I are supposed to be sharing a Shuffle. In addition I got an iBook. My main iTunes library is on my G4 tower with sharing turned on, but I see that we can't easily take songs from that main shared library and import them into the other computers or anything.

Since we have different workout music tastes, for the moment we don't mind wiping each others stuff out when we swap the Shuffle back and forth.
 
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