Sunday, May 15, 2011

A Sync Trap For The Unwary Message List

On Friday I bought from Apple a new album (Grateful Dead's 1972 Europe Tour, if you're interested) and downloaded it. To transfer it to my iPhone iPod, I adjusted the sync settings to only sync that album, and then synced the iPhone.

With NO warning from Apple or the iPhone, to my horror this effectively erased or deleted all the other songs, albums and playlists off the iPhone. This meant I had to re-sync them all again.

Candidly, I think this is a serious design error. There should be some warning that you're about to delete an entire batch of songs. For example, somewhere in iTunes or on the iPhone, Apple could specify a warning, "You are about to delete all other playlists and albums off your iPhone. Do you want to proceed?"

One supposes we Users are supposed to know these quirks, but I sure did not and logically it did not make sense.

From now on, I'm going to leave my sync settings to transfer everything in iTunes.
-----

At the risk of sounding like a smart-ass, you DID tell iTunes to sync ONLY that one item.

It does. That is what syncing does - it puts on the device what you told the software to put on and it removes everything else. You are SYNCING, not "copying".

-----

I have to agree with Jeffery, it says sync, not "add to current existing contents on the iDevice".

-----

I had that happen before too, it's a pain but as long as your other music is still stored on iTunes, you should be able to put it back on the iPhone with another sync.

-----

It's a learning experience. For some folks EVERY learning experience is a pain.

-----

I wouldn't say that, I just think Apple would do better to have iTunes give clearer prompts for those who are new to it. Then once you learn what it is, include an option not to receive that help message any longer if you choose not to see it.

-----

iPhone and iTunes has lots of flaws...To avoid such problems, I manually backup all the iPhone contents on my PC in case of a crash or something like that I can resync all...takes a little time but works...

-----

In advanced options there is a checkbox to enable a warning if you're about to delete more than 5% of the iPhone's contents. 'course you have to know that's there.

-----

I could not find this either in the menu bar>advanced or among the options on the various sync screens. My phone is a 3Gs, maybe it's this option is in a different place?

-----

Synchronize, not copy.

There is a manual process if you wish. You just have to check/uncheck a box on the lower part if you select the iPhone.

Also, there is an option to sync only checked items, if that might be useful.

-----

Candidly? I think this is a serious user error.

-----

I think that some people don't actually understand, *really* understand, what "sync" means until this happens to them. I think many of us have probably done something similar. In my case, I set up a smart playlist for syncing music and failed to notice that multiple conditions were linked with AND, not OR, operators by default. Imagine my surprise when nearly all of my music disappeared from my iPod ...

-----

The problem with the "sync" method is the sync itself...

When you "sync" what does it mean?

- Will the iphone will have the contents of the computer OR the computer will have the contents of the iphone OR the newer override the older?

I believe the last one is the correct one on iTunes world.

It should have 3 options when you connect the device:

computer - > iphone, iphone => computer or the newer will override the older...that is it.

It is never clear, and should show more explicitly which ways the data will travel...simple as that.

That should be for all the sync applications out there...

My two cents...

-----

Well, I have to admit I'm confused with this one. But per my observation, Contacts - newer over older, Apps - it's complicated (if you delete from iTunes, and not on the iPhone, it gets back).

Music, Photos, Videos - all from the computer.

Apple iPhone iTunesApple iPhone iTunes

No comments: