So I'm new to this idea of syncing media. Previously, I used to use 'normal' mainstream phones which were extremely easy to put in/modify things. Just copy and paste. Now that I've got an iPhone, I have no idea how to even put songs in. Firstly, the phone didn't show up on My Computer. I then heard that I needed iTunes to modify the iPhone's contents. Fair enough. I don't really recall everything of what I did next, but I somehow managed to dump songs in through manual syncing. I also somehow managed to put images in, though it required me to put everything in one giant folder and I had to make do with one album, meaning absolutely no categorisation for my extremely large image collection. The thing is, I now want to do manual syncing again. However, iTunes now says that my iPhone is currently synced with another iTunes library (if someone could explain to me whatever is the difference between a 'library' and a 'playlist', I would be much obliged) and that if I wanted to do manual syncing again, I'd have to delete everything on my iPhone and replace them with whatever is in my library. I have no idea why iTunes claims such a thing when I'm still using the same computer to sync, but this is a huge problem for me because I recently cleared up all my songs in my computer... *PREVIOUSLY* [Computer] Transfer [iPhone] Songs ==================> No Songs *NOW* [Computer] Transfer [iPhone] New songs ==================> Old Songs Old songs(deleted) !Must delete old songs to transfer! How to I put the new songs in without deleting the songs in the phone? ------ Another problem I have is with figuring out how to edit song information such as adding custom album artwork and lyrics. Obviously, I can't even do this without resolving the above issue but if anyone knows how to, it would be great if you could tell me how. ------ Finally, I'd like to know how to manage images on the iPhone without needing another third-party application. Things as simple as creating albums and preserving the quality of the images when syncing (the conversion made during syncing killed the clearness of the archive-quality images). The entire image I have of syncing (probably wrong) is that it's like a humongous exchange of everything the computer has with everything the phone has. That's not what I'd like. What I'd like is the freedom of selecting what I want to copy and what I want to delete with ease.
Basically itunes is a bitch, I got no idea how you even managed to get anything into it before messing with itunes first. It must be recognising the songs in there as another library, my advice is keep all your music on your pc, in one place, find it and add that to the itunes program, those songs will be copied (unfortunatly) to the itunes music folder, then let it sync... My 10gb of music is on an external drive, so you can imagine the pain I go thru everyday.
you can get them onto the phone but you wont be able to get them off in a format that anything can read. Apple plasters DRM all over them and uses propietory formats to stop you using any other software.
There are some programs...my mate copied my entire library on my ipod to his pc. It took hours because of the size-but he did a perfect copy of everything on the ipod without loosing the sync (since he has a completely different itunes library ) One reckons there is one that can replace itunes entirly, but forgotten the name/not sure if it's the other program he's shown me. I need to research this matter.
@hypnos: I got them there through iTunes. Incidently... I've heard of such software as well, but I'd rather not deal with them, since my experience with third-party software ranges from underwhelming to extremely frustrating as they are often unstable. @loonylion: Huh. Well... unreadable conversion is not so much of a problem because I archive all my data in a HDD. I already had a vague idea that using the iPhone as a backup would be a terrible choice. So as long as I can get this data on the iPhone, I don't mind what Apple does to the data on the phone, since I still have the untouched originals on the HDD. @jad: Almost all the songs I have can't be found in your average Western mainstream media (self-published, unofficial music). Most of them were given to me by people with similar interests... but I suppose that's an option as well. If all else fails, I guess I'll just have to pull them from my archives again (HDD is currently being fixed). Thanks to all the replies so far. Still looking on tips on how to add album art, lyrics, photo albums and preserving image quality when transferring to the phone.
there are quite a few tools that allow reverse syncing, but I don't know if they support the iPhone. Alternately, to not delete them, you could manually manage media on your iTunes, rather than having it erase all you stuff.
Do you mean manual sycing? I can't do that because apparently, my iPhone is already synced to another library and therefore the only option is to erase everything and replace them with songs from the 'new' library, which ostensibly has nothing. Or so that's what iTunes says. If you mean really manual managing ala copypaste, I have no idea how to go about doing that, since the phone doesn't even appear on My Computer. I wonder why iTunes has to be necessary to manage files on the iPhone? Surely, standard file management would be far easier and less restrictive than something as unintuitive and user-unfriendly as syncing.
Because its Apple. Apple is the definition of vendor tie-in. Everything Apple does is proprietary so you're stuck with Apple.
Manually managing your media is the best way I think. Saves the hassle of anything mucking up if you have too many files to fit on your device. Theres a little checkbox you have to tick to do it when you plug your iphone in.
Ok, I have realised that I have no clue on how to operate iTunes anymore. Everything I've done was probably blind luck, so if someone could direct me to an idiot-proof beginner's guide to iTunes, it would be very much appreciated.
