Itunes and syncing annoyances

[aruv]

Hi I have a question about the way Itunes syncs apps, photos, music, etc.

A little background: Our household uses Itunes a lot, we have 2 iphones, two itouches, and a nano. We have over 200 downloaded apps in itunes, TONS of music, TONS of movies, etc.

Here's the question. My wife's phone is synced to itunes, but neither one of us really understands the benefits of syncing to itunes. Every time she plugs in her phone it adds a bunch of useless apps our kids added. One time she ended up with 120 apps on her phone, our entire picture library, and the rest of the space filled up with music that she didn't manually add. It's a pain in the ass to say the least. She had to go through all the apps and manually check off the ones she didn't want. But then every time one of the kids plugs their itouch in, it adds their apps to itunes and then when she plugs her phone in again it adds them to her phone. This can't be the way it's done. Or is it?

I have never synced my iphone. How would I do that with minimum headaches? I have a whole bunch of apps (cydia, rock, etc) I'd hate to lose, but I want to add picture folders to my phone. It tells me I can't add these folders unless i sync my apps. which makes no sense at all.

Is this syncing thing really worth all this hassle?

 

[SophiaLee]

I just make different user accounts on the computer and each iTunes is customized to that user w/ their apps and music, contacts, etc...

 

[aruv]

I just make different user accounts on the computer and each iTunes is customized to that user w/ their apps and music, contacts, etc...

Is that really the only option to prevent other people's apps from being automatically added to your device?

 

[bstpierre]

First thing you should do is turn off automatic syncing when a device is connected. Then for each device you can set what you want to sync and what you don't want to sync.

Sounds like you are all sharing the same iTunes store account. You should each have your own.

The individual user accounts is probably the next best thing to everyone having their own computer.

 

[SophiaLee]

Is that really the only option to prevent other people's apps from being automatically added to your device?

No, but it's the best as far as I can tell. Other methods seemed to mess w/ contacts and stuff.

 

[o JRoD o]

When any of you connect your iPhones, click on the Apps Tab.

Under the apps section...scroll down to the bottom of your apps, and there should be a box that says something along the line of "Automatically Sync New Apps." Uncheck that box. Don't know the specific wording, because I don't have my computer in front of me.