Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Is your iPad going completely "PC-Free" with iOS 5?

  • Yes! No more iTunes!

    Votes: 54 28.9%
  • A little bit of both. iTunes & iCloud

    Votes: 88 47.1%
  • No. I like syncing to iTunes

    Votes: 31 16.6%
  • No, what are you crazy?! 2001 FTW!

    Votes: 14 7.5%

  • Total voters
    187

musika

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 2, 2010
1,285
459
New York
With iOS 5, PC-Free is a great feature. Are you planning on going completely PC-Free, iCloud-only, and ditching iTunes Syncing for good on your iPad? Or are you staying old-fashioned and still using iTunes sync for your iPad? :p

pc_free_icon.jpg
 

Roessnakhan

macrumors 68040
Sep 16, 2007
3,518
510
ABQ
WiFi Sync or cable sync. I don't buy music through iTunes, and I don't want to pay for iTunes Match.
 

Pete the Geek

macrumors regular
Mar 5, 2011
186
0
Sioux Lookout
It won't change much for me. I use the AppStore, DropBox and iCab on my iPad for 90% of my data syncing needs. I will still rely on iTunes for backups, OS updates, movies and other large files. I'm old-school and reluctant to start paying for "cloud" storage - though I recognize that it is inevitable.
 

IrishVixen

macrumors 68020
Jun 20, 2010
2,497
104
I'm already PC free save for firmware updates...and as I'm jailbroken, firmware updates are something I approach with a great deal of caution anyway.

It's not at all hard to be PC free. Update your apps from your device, not the computer. Buy apps that already sync with the cloud (Dropbox, MobileMe, etc.). Sync your contacts/calendars/notes with Google, or other solutions (those of us on MobileMe have been doing this for years already.) Use Pandora, TuneIn Radio, Spotify, etc. for music. Stream movies via Netflix or others. You get the idea. (This, BTW, is also how I get away with using just 8 GB of a 16 GB device.)

iTunes is the biggest piece of crap software I have ever used; having spent my entire adult life in tech, and specifically in software, that's saying a lot. Trusting your information solely to an iTunes backup is basically asking to lose something critical. And frankly, anyone who has ever dealt with a loss of data will tell you multiple backups are a must anyway.

Want to take advantage of iCloud and OTA? Enjoy--Apple's finally making it easy to do. But make sure that you back up anything you care about or can't afford to lose elsewhere as well. It just makes sense.
 

anjinha

macrumors 604
Oct 21, 2006
7,324
205
San Francisco, CA
iTunes is the biggest piece of crap software I have ever used; having spent my entire adult life in tech, and specifically in software, that's saying a lot. Trusting your information solely to an iTunes backup is basically asking to lose something critical. And frankly, anyone who has ever dealt with a loss of data will tell you multiple backups are a must anyway.

So instead of relying on iTunes for backups you rely on... no backups?
 

Zcott

macrumors 68020
Oct 18, 2009
2,307
47
Belfast, Ireland
Having been running the previews of iOS 5, I can say I'll be almost entirely PC-free. iCloud backups mean no need to back up to my computer, and the only reason to do a wifi sync is to put new music on my device. For anything else like installing apps from the laptop, it's all installed automatically on either iPad or iPhone. Really excited about this.
 

BornAgainMac

macrumors 604
Feb 4, 2004
7,281
5,250
Florida Resident
If iTunes is still required, I wish it could be any iTunes library. It could always sync the differences back instead of asking to erase the device first. iCloud could make this more possible.
 

IrishVixen

macrumors 68020
Jun 20, 2010
2,497
104
So instead of relying on iTunes for backups you rely on... no backups?

You might want to reread what I wrote, because I think you missed the first part.

The only time I back up through iTunes is just prior to upgrading firmware--and that's essentially as a backup of a backup, since, as I said, my critical data is backed up elsewhere, using reliable sync setups built in to the apps I primarily use. This makes a regular iTunes backup mostly unnecessary. It's convenient to have a one click way of restoring, but when it fails--and yes, iTunes backups can and do fail--I'm not stuck trying to replace lost data or media. I use iTunes only after making sure I've synced to everything else AND made an additional copy of certain things via PhoneView.

Paranoid? Hell, yes. iTunes lets me down routinely, and did so well prior to jailbreaking. But even if it didn't, anyone who has spent any time in tech with a disaster recovery team knows that putting all your data in one place is stupid. Hard drives fail. Computers are stolen. Cloud servers are hacked or a disaster hits a server farm. It happens.

(And yes, because of that, the cloud based backups that contain vital info, such as contacts, are also backed up in more than one place. Those aren't necessarily PC free, because having a local cache of your data is also important--for me, most data is stored on both the iPhone and iPad, plus on two local hard drives and in at least one location in the cloud. I'm sure I'll use iCloud for some stuff, but it will never be the whole solution for me, and I believe it shouldn't be for anyone. At the very least, copy that backed up data to another cloud--Dropbox, Amazon, etc.)
 

HazyCloud

macrumors 68030
Jun 30, 2010
2,779
37
To the above poster, that's what I do. I keep a couple copies locally and another with an online backup company. One backup is none and two is one. ;)
 

xraytech

macrumors 68030
Mar 24, 2010
2,518
214
I have about 80GB of music file and maybe half of them were ripped from CDs. So unless Apple comes out with an 100GB iPad, I'm still going to sync to my MacBook Pro once and a while.
 

HazyCloud

macrumors 68030
Jun 30, 2010
2,779
37
I have about 80GB of mp3 files that were ripped from CDs. So unless Apple comes out with an 100GB iPad, I'm still going to sync to my MacBook Pro once and a while.

You still wouldn't have to plug it in. You can manually delete music with iOS5 and sync back via Wi-Fi. There's really no need to plug it back to your MB.
 

xraytech

macrumors 68030
Mar 24, 2010
2,518
214
You still wouldn't have to plug it in. You can manually delete music with iOS5 and sync back via Wi-Fi. There's really no need to plug it back to your MB.

No, OP's point is to completely do away with connecting to Tunes on the computer. I argue that I still need to connect Hardwired or Wi-Fi. Unless I'm am misunderstanding iCloud.

Okay now I'm confused...
 
Last edited:

HazyCloud

macrumors 68030
Jun 30, 2010
2,779
37
No, OP's point is to completely do away with connecting to Tunes on the computer. I argue that I still need to connect Hardwired or Wi-Fi. Unless I'm am misunderstanding iCloud.

Okay now I'm confused...

Ahh, I see what you mean. In that case, you would need iTunes Match if you didn't want to use a computer, which you would still need to use iTunes Match.

*scratches head*

I'm confused now too.
 
Last edited:

tbayrgs

macrumors 604
Jul 5, 2009
7,343
4,867
I'll go completely wireless but will still sync with iTunes periodically to load video from my iTunes library--really the only reason I connect now (save for firmware updates).
 

porcupine8

macrumors 6502a
Mar 2, 2011
844
5
I won't be changing a thing til 5 is JB. I'll take my tweaks over the improvements if forced to choose - let's hope lack of comex doesn't make it a permanent problem!
 

Macman45

macrumors G5
Jul 29, 2011
13,197
135
Somewhere Back In The Long Ago
I Voted For A Bit Of Both

But I will put in a "If" here. If (see told you it was an if:) ) I can sync wirelessly from my iPad from Pages, which I use for copied emails and documents I write at night, to my iPad without having to sync AND send my Goodreader PDF's too then it would be a No....Itunes free.
 

Bernard SG

macrumors 65816
Jul 3, 2010
1,354
7
I will use a cable only when absolutely unavoidable. For example to transfer very big files from my Mac to the iPad, which will rarely happen.
 

BergerFan

macrumors 68020
Mar 6, 2008
2,170
63
Mos Eisley
I'm really looking forward to trying all this out, especially the wireless backups, PhotoStream and being able to create and edit photo albums on the device.
 
Last edited:

Saberon

macrumors 6502a
Sep 16, 2008
982
1
Think of it like this.


If you can do it while plugged into your computer with a USB cable, you can do it with WiFi Sync.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.