iTunes and Apple rant

Abe

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I was in the unfortunate position of trying to put some movies of my kids on my mom's iPad mini. What the f..k is wrong with Apple. She bought it while she was visiting my brother in Aus and he set it up for her. The only way to copy the movies across to it is to wipe out everything (photos, etc) on it. Some stupid resync thing. There are some apps out there that are supposed to work but that feels like I would be taking a big chance on corrupting something.

We have an older iPad at the house that we use from time to time. Fortunately, we have never had to copy anything onto it. Putting anything on my kids Nexus 7's was a breeze. Couldn't have been easier. How on earth do all of you apple clients live with that craziness? Only 1 iTunes library per iPad? What happens if your laptop is stolen, must you then forget about the contents of your iPad or are you now forced to use the "iCloud" service just to get your stuff off? Does that even work?
 
I was in the unfortunate position of trying to put some movies of my kids on my mom's iPad mini. What the f..k is wrong with Apple. She bought it while she was visiting my brother in Aus and he set it up for her. The only way to copy the movies across to it is to wipe out everything (photos, etc) on it. Some stupid resync thing. There are some apps out there that are supposed to work but that feels like I would be taking a big chance on corrupting something.
The iPad is probably synced to your brother's computer, if it had been set up independently of a PC then I don't think it would have been a problem. All previously downloaded content can be redownloaded. https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3141
 
Three letters. VLC.

The Apple ecosystem is build around the app and iTunes stores so basically if you want a movie you must buy it from iTunes and then you can watch it. If you want to watch movies from your collection on a different PC then download VLC and copy it like that.
 
You need to use a different app than the stock video player (which is pretty lousy anyway, as all stock players everywhere are). I use AVPLayerHD which I've found to be the best one but VLC might also be good. Then it's a pretty simple matter of dragging the movies onto the right pane in iTunes. You don't need to re-sync anything to do that. So take a breath and relax; it's not all that drastic of a problem.

http://media.idownloadblog.com/wp-c...nfuse-1.0-for-iOS-iTunes-File-Sharing-001.jpg

^^ That's the sync area you need to look for in the app section of the iPad in iTunes. The same goes for basically any third party application where you can add content from your PC - Kindle, etc.

Only 1 iTunes library per iPad? What happens if your laptop is stolen, must you then forget about the contents of your iPad or are you now forced to use the "iCloud" service just to get your stuff off? Does that even work?

iCloud syncing of personal data works pretty well actually. Remember all you're basically using iTunes for is the content that belongs to your own account - so media that you've bought, mail and things of that nature. If the contents of your laptop get stolen though, it's a pretty easy matter to restore content from your iPad to another PC, and then set up a new sync using your normal iTunes login.
 
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Three letters. VLC.

The Apple ecosystem is build around the app and iTunes stores so basically if you want a movie you must buy it from iTunes and then you can watch it. If you want to watch movies from your collection on a different PC then download VLC and copy it like that.

Can't use VLC. She is going on a flight and I thought it would be nice for her to watch the kids easter hunt movies on her iPad. She will be on a plane :)
 
You need to use a different app than the stock video player (which is pretty lousy anyway, as all stock players everywhere are). I use AVPLayerHD which I've found to be the best one but VLC might also be good. Then it's a pretty simple matter of dragging the movies onto the right pane in iTunes. You don't need to re-sync anything to do that. So take a breath and relax; it's not all that drastic of a problem.

http://media.idownloadblog.com/wp-c...nfuse-1.0-for-iOS-iTunes-File-Sharing-001.jpg

^^ That's the sync area you need to look for in the app section of the iPad in iTunes. The same goes for basically any third party application where you can add content from your PC - Kindle, etc.

I dragged the movies into iTunes. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that the iPad was linked to iTunes on my brothers PC or something like that. The only way that I could link her iPad to her own PC was to wipe everything. I basically backed up the iPad and then let iTunes wipe it and Sync the movies onto the iPad because that was the only way I could get the video clips onto the iPad. It's a really stupid restriction. As I said before, what happens if her PC is now stolen? There will be no way to copy the contents off the iPad onto her new PC. We are not talking about restricted content here, just normal photos, etc.
 
I dragged the movies into iTunes. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that the iPad was linked to iTunes on my brothers PC or something like that. The only way that I could link her iPad to her own PC was to wipe everything. I basically backed up the iPad and then let iTunes wipe it and Sync the movies onto the iPad because that was the only way I could get the video clips onto the iPad. It's a really stupid restriction. As I said before, what happens if her PC is now stolen? There will be no way to copy the contents off the iPad onto her new PC. We are not talking about restricted content here, just normal photos, etc.

No, no. Listen again. You need to use a non-stock movie player on the iPad. Download VLC or AVPlayerHD. That's step 1.
Then step 2 is, you attach the iPad via usb, don't do a sync as no syncing is needed to transfer this content, and drag the movie directly into the app folder, NOT the normal movie folder. It will transfer it without doing a sync-wipe. The list of app folders is in the bottom of the apps section of the iPad view in iTunes.
 
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Why would it wipe out the photo's?

That is what it did. It came up with a message saying that the iPad is synced with another iTunes library and asked if I wanted to erase the contents and sync from the PC. That's what I ended up doing after doing a backup. I will put the contents of her iPad back on when she gets back from here trip.
 
That is what it did. It came up with a message saying that the iPad is synced with another iTunes library and asked if I wanted to erase the contents and sync from the PC. That's what I ended up doing after doing a backup. I will put the contents of her iPad back on when she gets back from here trip.

Yeah that was totally unnecessary.

Syncing, btw, means by definition that you make the content of one device match the content of another. You can't have a proper sync without erasing. So one iTunes per device sync is a very logical restriction. It has no bearing on whether you can add content without needing to sync though.

Where it becomes more painful is if you want to retrieve iTunes music or pictures from one device that DO require a full resync. I'm not sure how to do that very easily.
 
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No, no. Listen again. You need to use a non-stock movie player on the iPad. Download VLC or AVPlayerHD. That's step 1.
Then step 2 is, you attach the iPad via usb, don't do a sync as no syncing is needed to transfer this content, and drag the movie directly into the app folder, NOT the normal movie folder. It will transfer it without doing a sync-wipe. The list of app folders is in the bottom of the apps section of the iPad view in iTunes.

It's too late now :). She is on the flight at the moment.

I understand what you are saying now but my point still stands, why on earth do you need to jump through hoops and sign over your second born child just to get some home movies onto the damn thing. This is not rocket science, it's a task that 99% of people on the planet who use an iPad would want to do. She is visiting my sister in the UK on the next part of her trip. She can't even plug her iPad into my sisters PC and get a copy of the photos of her baby.
 
How would that work with photos on the iPad? I can understand the apps being redownloaded.

On a mac I use image capture - plug in via USB and just copy those across. IIRC on windows the iPad should just show as an external drive and you can copy that way.

EDIT - in windows it shows up as a camera and you can just copy across the photos.
 
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It's too late now :). She is on the flight at the moment.

I understand what you are saying now but my point still stands, why on earth do you need to jump through hoops and sign over your second born child just to get some home movies onto the damn thing. This is not rocket science, it's a task that 99% of people on the planet who use an iPad would want to do. She is visiting my sister in the UK on the next part of her trip. She can't even plug her iPad into my sisters PC and get a copy of the photos of her baby.

You don't have to jump through hoops, that's what I'm saying. It's really not difficult. I come to work, plug in my iPad, and drag movies onto AVPlayerHD, go home and sync with my home PC. You didn't know what you were meant to do and freaked out. It's happened to me before as well. There's just a way you're meant to work with it.

Regarding photos, the simplest way is to use the DCIM folder that shows when you attach the iPad.
http://ipad.about.com/od/ipad_tips/a/How-To-Copy-Photos-From-Your-iPad-To-Your-Pc.htm

Yeah bwana is right. It comes up as an external drive but you only have access to the photos folder. But that's fine for copying your pics across.
 
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You don't have to jump through hoops, that's what I'm saying. It's really not difficult. I come to work, plug in my iPad, and drag movies onto AVPlayerHD, go home and sync with my home PC. You didn't know what you were meant to do and freaked out. It's happened to me before as well. There's just a way you're meant to work with it.

Regarding photos, the simplest way is to use the DCIM folder that shows when you attach the iPad.
http://ipad.about.com/od/ipad_tips/a/How-To-Copy-Photos-From-Your-iPad-To-Your-Pc.htm

Yeah bwana is right. It comes up as an external drive but you only have access to the photos folder. But that's fine for copying your pics across.

Ok, so photos is sorted, why couldn't they do that with home movies? You mean to tell me that downloading an extra app and working around the system by copying the movies to the app folder is "working as intended"? I googled the error and apples own forums say that your only option is to wipe it. Do a google for the error message and see what you get. The other thing you get is a slew of apps that talk directly to the API and are questionable at best.

Say whatever you want but it's a work around to a very restrictive, stupid limitation in the Apple ecosystem.
 
itunes sux balls. backed up my stuff and updated my phone software. damn itunes will not recognize my backup. everything after that it recognizes though. fsucking retarded. im hoping to get my hands on software to recover my stuff from that backup. really important stuff lost.
 
itunes sux balls. backed up my stuff and updated my phone software. damn itunes will not recognize my backup. everything after that it recognizes though. fsucking retarded. im hoping to get my hands on software to recover my stuff from that backup. really important stuff lost.
To a major release or a beta?
 
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