Apple, iPad, and the Crime that is iTunes

[Carouser]

I'm surprised the OP didn't encounter pop-ups or warnings when he plugged in his iPad and opened iTunes on the desktop. Is that really what happens? No notices, notifications at all? The OP didn't have to authorize anything?

-

Uh, what? I asked for an explanation, not a repost of part of the OP. No wonder you have trouble doing things; there goes my sympathy.

 

[aperry]

Man, I agree 1000% with the OP. iTunes is the single biggest drawback to iOS devices for me. It's bloated, buggy and confusing software and it's a shame that an iPad needs to be tethered to it for some of the most basic use cases (let's say... using a GarageBand song in iMovie, or just adding any new music at all!).

Whenever possible I jailbreak and use rsync to manually back up my iOS data because I don't trust iTunes. I'll admit, the root cause may be that I just don't fully understand iTunes syncing, even after 5+ years of using it. But that's because I've experienced situations like the OP's time and time again, in between bouts "unknown error" and "device could not be restored, error 1604" and a string of several consecutive iTunes releases that each broke my Airtunes/AE streaming (much more stable now with Airplay).

If I could be granted a single feature on the iPad, it would be to ditch the dependency on iTunes.

 

[CrzySausageBaby]

I've never had a problem with iTunes

 

[Kal525]

It's really surprising how some people don't read the information in the posts. I've repeated several times now that the biggest issue was not with the sync (although it is poor design). The main issue is with backups being overwritten.

 

[Mattstkc]

It's really surprising how some people don't read the information in the posts. I've repeated several times now that the biggest issue was not with the sync (although it is poor design). The main issue is with backups being overwritten.

on windows? you can recover the HARD way - http://www.ehow.com/how_6031007_recover-overwritten-backup-itunes-windows.html


otherwise use time machine and go back to before the backup was erased.

pain in the ass but will get your data back

 

[Kal525]

Uh, what? I asked for an explanation, not a repost of part of the OP. No wonder you have trouble doing things; there goes my sympathy.

I answered your question in my very first post. If you're too lazy to read and understand, it's not my problem, hence the repost. I figured you missed that part of the OP. As for your sympathy, keep it. I never asked for anyone's sympathy. I posted to express frustration and warn users of the potential dangers inherent with using iTunes for syc and/or backup.

Bottom line - the backup is all that matters. If you backup with a PC, move those backups out of the MobileSync directory or they will get overwritten.

 

[jaimeastin]

itunes is like a ball and chain... It is a pain non the less. I try to avoid it as much as I can... I and tell everyone one to FORCE the backup, not just allow it to sync...

I had it crash my iphone during an update. I assumed it backed it all up before the upgrade... After it finished it said it crashed... So I am like cool, I will just restore it... NOTHING THERE! I lost one of the most important things ever, a personal interview with my favorite blues singer... LOST, GONE FOREVER!!! Broke my heard and made me MAD!!! Not only that, but after I had to redo all ofthe setup, some of the applications will no longer sync. I have it on my computer, but iTunes will not add it... AND YES I PURCHASED THEM FROM ITUNES. When an app is no longer available on the app store, you are stuck and your money is gone... This is why I am not a believer in the app store... Give me the installer file and I will just hold on to it on my network or burn it to a cd... I contacted apple and they gave me 3 free downloads... YEAH RIGHT!

I use copytrans manager to manage my ios devices. They have other products to backup your whole library and devices too, move library to another computer, etc.

I know for some, itunes is worry free and easy... But for a LOT of people, it is nothing special and nothing but an umbilical cord from you to apple so they can suck all of your money and cripple you and your device... It is slow and I DO have mulitple computers and would like the option to drag and drop files between mulitple computers...

If they dont straighten this stuff out, even you fanboys will get smart and start complaining... ahhhh... blah blah blah.... Who cares....

I will do it my way and you all do it yours... I like my ios devices, I just wish apple was not trying to control all... They more so bully you into their avenues which I understand why..(make money and make sure you have the experience they want you to have buy doing it the way they approve of) This thinking though is combersome for most of us USED to a more open approach. Just the simple stuff we have been using for well over a decade.. file management, drag and drop files...

Why is it that microsoft got in trouble for their monoply over ie and such, and apple does the same thing and gets away with it?

 

[Carouser]

I answered your question in my very first post. If you're too lazy to read and understand, it's not my problem, hence the repost.

Your first post was unclear, so I asked for clarification. Instead of trying to do so, you just reposted a snippet and then called me lazy? What is wrong with you?

From what I can tell, you're doing unorthodox things with your iPad vis-à-vis both your computers. You got no prompts along the way about your iPad or whether it was authorized or anything like that? Oh wait, I'm too lazy (to care).

 

[OCJeff]

This may have been covered already, and if so I apologize, but the same thing happened to me.

Rest assured, if you did a "Backup" your data is there.... Just not the apps. If you do a restore, and then re-download the apps your data/settings will still be in place. It doesn't backup the Apps. Those need to be synced or downloaded.

-J

 

[Kal525]

Your first post was unclear, so I asked for clarification. Instead of trying to do so, you just reposted a snippet and then called me lazy? What is wrong with you?

What is unclear about wanting to transfer purchased apps to my PC as well as back up the iPad. It was just as simple as it sounds, so I reposted my intention. If you want to start spitting garbage about sympathy, go for it. I'll gladly let you win this pissing contest.

The constructive posts people have provided are very much appreciated.

 

[Carouser]

What is unclear about wanting to transfer purchased apps to my PC as well as back up the iPad. It was just as simple as it sounds, so I reposted my intention.

It's not simple when you never said if the iPad was authorized for more than one computer, whether and when you had backed up or synchronized it with the laptop, why you didn't do so with the laptop first, why you didn't update the iPad's software on the laptop first, and so on, why you did what you did in that particular order, and you still haven't said what iTunes did when you plugged in your iPad - did it do nothing? Did it recognize the device? Whether your data is as lost and mangled as you think it is, etc. I feel these things are important (I am interested in them anyway) . . . but you get bent out of shape when I want you to describe things better.

'spitting garbage'
'pissing contest'
'too lazy to read and understand'
. . . really?

 

[Kal525]

It's not simple when you never said if the iPad was authorized for more than one computer, whether and when you had backed up or synchronized it with the laptop, why you didn't do so with the laptop first, why you didn't update the iPad's software on the laptop first, and so on, why you did what you did in that particular order, and you still haven't said what iTunes did when you plugged in your iPad - did it do nothing? Did it recognize the device? Whether your data is as lost and mangled as you think it is, etc. I feel these things are important (I am interested in them anyway) . . . but you get bent out of shape when I want you to describe things better.

'spitting garbage'
'pissing contest'
'too lazy to read and understand'
. . . really?

Quoting my original post is getting bent out of shape? Didn't know that.

 

[alex2792]

Yup itunes is whack,I hate it. I have a synology nas where I store all my music and the fact that I can't create a library because the files aren't stored locally is beyond retarded. Not to mention that home sharing is completely useless.

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

 

[rx7dude]

i found itunes to be the opposite of what the op is describing.

I spent many years raging against apple and itunes, but that meant that i had to manually drag and drop all my music to an mp3 player or phone (which usually took way longer than a simple itunes sync) and every device handled the song/album information differently. Hell, my lg chocolate used to put the songs in alphabetical order instead of album order, which drive me nuts, so i would have to go in and rename all the songs with numbers to maket them play in the right order.

These days, i find itunes to be refreshing. There is no manual song management, and usually no album art management either. I have an iphone 4 that i find a pleasure to use (the ipod is my favorite part of the phone), and an ipad 2 on the way if apple ever decides to ship it. I love that i can just plug it in, it syncs itself up within about a minute, and i'm good to go. I have my computer set to automatically back up all my content to another hard drive in case my itunes ever freaks our or my computer crashes. Problem solved--life is much easier. I used to spend hours organizing and customizing my mp3s to work on specific players.

+1. I love the fact that my playlists are all synced to my Ipod, Iphone and Ipad. I just wish it could be done by wireless/cloud...

 

[Carouser]

Quoting my original post is getting bent out of shape? Didn't know that.

I will lay it out for you:
I asked for 'clarification' AKA elaboration or more details so that I might offer some assistance.
You reposted a single line from the OP.
I said this wasn't enough, and asked some questions, and said I was losing patience.
Then you tell me that you already explained everything and told me I was too 'lazy to read and understand', that I was 'spitting garbage', and characterized this as a 'pissing contest'. That is getting bent out of shape.

You still haven't answered my questions, which make me suspect iTunes told you you were doing something weird or along the way you got a notification you ignored.

 

[mfr1340]

back up

i have a hp desktop and 1phone4, ipad2, and ipod's, apple tv and over 185 apps on my system. i haven't had a problem ever. my wife has a iphone3gs, and a white 32gig wifi on the way, and my daughter has a iphone4, and a hp laptop. we all use the same desktop to synk. we just set it up on each person's desktop, and we all have axcess to all of the apps.
i am just lucky, no batt problems, no backlight, or dropped calls. i also have the top of the line netgear router, that has full bars when i am at my neighbors house, and comcast cable package. i can have 24 things hooked up wirelessly to the router, at the same time

 

[Kal525]

I will lay it out for you:
I asked for 'clarification' AKA elaboration or more details so that I might offer some assistance.
You reposted a single line from the OP.
I said this wasn't enough, and asked some questions, and said I was losing patience.
Then you tell me that you already explained everything and told me I was too 'lazy to read and understand', that I was 'spitting garbage', and characterized this as a 'pissing contest'. That is getting bent out of shape.

You still haven't answered my questions, which make me suspect iTunes told you you were doing something weird or along the way you got a notification you ignored.

Actually your exact words were: "No wonder you have trouble doing things; there goes my sympathy." And that's because I quoted a pertinent line from the OP?

And I actually do think I answered one of your questions in an earlier post.

3. Synced and let iTunes delete my apps, no big deal, since they were on my computer anyway at that point. I've read that after the delete message comes a friendlier message saying that purchased apps were found and that apps on the device will be left there. This didn't happen. I wasn't surprised.

If there's more you'd like to know so that a constructive discussion can be had, then cool.

 

[goMac]

Bottom line - the backup is all that matters. If you backup with a PC, move those backups out of the MobileSync directory or they will get overwritten.

You backed up a device that was locked to another machine? What did you expect? Making a backup from another machine doesn't unlock the backup. The backup still will only work from the original machine.

iTunes deleted the backup because there was no way it could have used the backup anyway. You made a backup that you never could have restored from. Whether or not it kept the backup doesn't matter.

 

[Kal525]

You backed up a device that was locked to another machine? What did you expect? Making a backup from another machine doesn't unlock the backup. The backup still will only work from the original machine.

iTunes deleted the backup because there was no way it could have used the backup anyway. You made a backup that you never could have restored from. Whether or not it kept the backup doesn't matter.

That is not what happened. Two backups were made on one machine. One backup was done manually by me, and the second backup was done automatically by iTunes after a software update, overwriting the previous backup.

 

[goMac]

That is not what happened. Two backups were made on one machine. One backup was done manually by me, and the second backup was done automatically by iTunes after a software update, overwriting the previous backup.

Neither of which would have worked. I've had software updates take down my iOS devices on non sync machines (I'm a developer so I commonly install beta copies away from home), and have never been able to restore from backup until I get to my sync machine.

 

[Carouser]

If there's more you'd like to know so that a constructive discussion can be had, then cool.

Did you open iTunes first or plug your iPad into your desktop first?
If the latter,
(1) did it open iTunes or did you have to open iTunes manually?
(2) did iTunes recognize the iPad? No prompts at that point? Nothing? That would surprise me.
(3) Was your laptop (not the computer which screwed up the backups) the initial computer authorized for your iTunes account and for your iPad?

 

[Kal525]

Neither of which would have worked. I've had software updates take down my iOS devices on non sync machines (I'm a developer so I commonly install beta copies away from home), and have never been able to restore from backup until I get to my sync machine.

Interesting. So you're saying I shouldn't be able to use the backups created by iTunes? I was able to restore from a backup, though. It was the empty backup, but I did successfully restore.

 

[goMac]

Interesting. So you're saying I shouldn't be able to use the backups created by iTunes? I was able to restore from a backup, though. It was the empty backup, but I did successfully restore.

If you backed up on your main sync computer, iTunes will give you a historical list of backups if you reset the device, and you can pick the one you want. That's the only way.

Other than that, no other way to restore from backups.

 

[Kal525]

Did you open iTunes first or plug your iPad into your desktop first?
If the latter,
(1) did it open iTunes or did you have to open iTunes manually?
(2) did iTunes recognize the iPad? No prompts at that point? Nothing? That would surprise me.
(3) Was your laptop (not the computer which screwed up the backups) the initial computer authorized for your iTunes account and for your iPad?

(1) iTunes was already open before I plugged in the device.
(2) iTunes did recognize the iPad. The only prompt I received was one which asked me to update the software.
(3) I can't remember, but it's possible that it was not authorized for my iTunes account. Though I never actually synced anything to that machine. I initiated a manual backup on it. That's a possible explanation for the apps getting deleted. But it seems that overwriting of the backups is by design.

 

[monaarts]

I actually didn't "sync" with my laptop initially. I did a manual backup, but apparently that was enough to set the "wipe everything" flag on my iDevice. Bottom line is that if you ever connect your iDevice to a different computer, it seems that the results are unexpected at best when connecting to a different device. And from what I can gather from some of the replies to this thread, even syncing with a single device has been inconsistent for some people. Good luck.

Seriously dude? You are using the software that clearly tells you not to use it that way. When using Microsoft Word the other day I pulled the power cord from my computer off without saving my work... Word is a piece of ***** because it made me loose all of my work! Seriously, they make it pretty clear to NOT do what you did. If you aren't happy with being locked into iTunes, go get an Android tablet - I hear they are so much more organized. lol