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brainchild2b · Jul 30, 2003, 04:03 PM

I'm purchasing an iPod for a good friend of mine who lives on the other side of the country. I'm only going to see her for a few days and probably won't see her again for a couple months after that.

She's not very computer saave, but has an iBook (the newer model)
I want any tips or tricks I need to show her while I'm back home visiting since I haven't played with the iPod too much either. I want her to NOT have any problems and it to be as simple as connecting. Advice Please

My main question is:
What if say I put 9 GB of mp3s on her iPod when I give it to her and her iBook only has 3 GB of disk space left. How will this work? How is stuff sync-d? How can I adjust settings? I'd like to have the songs sync-d as much as possible but do they automatically copy over? What happens when they run out of disk space on the iBook?

Any other oddities that might trip up a total newbie (her)?

Anyone else given an iPod to a family member or somebody who didn't know how to use it? What did you learn?

icruise · Jul 30, 2003, 05:17 PM

In the situation you described, the only thing to do would be to put the iPod in "Manual" mode. That means that you manually copy the songs/albums you want over to the iPod and manually delete them if you decide you don't want them anymore. In this case, the iPod won't "sync" (it won't automatically add songs or update the playcount/last played time for songs on the computer that you have played on the iPod) but that's the only way to have more music on the iPod than you have on your computer.

GORDYmac · Jul 31, 2003, 11:53 AM

The real issue here is that iTunes will not allow your MP3's to remain on the iPod once she connects it to her computer. Upon connecting, iTunes will ask if she would like to use the iPod with her computer. If she say yes, it will erase the iPod and load her iTunes library to it.

The 9GB of MP3's will have to reside on her computer to begin with. Once she has loaded all 9GB to the iPod from her computer, she can then go ahead with the above suggestion.

icruise · Jul 31, 2003, 11:59 AM

Actually that doesn't appear to be true, at least in my experience (and when using manual mode). I was able to connect my iPod to my sister's computer in manual mode and it didn't erase my music.

G-mac · Jul 31, 2003, 01:24 PM

Is it possible to bring the MP3s on a few CDs, then transfer them to the iPod via her iBook? Would this work, or do the MP3s have to physically reside on the iBook to be transferred to the iPod?

By the way, she's lucky to have a friend who delivers iPods as gifts!

brainchild2b · Aug 1, 2003, 02:46 AM

That's the lamest thing I ever heard. Why the hell doesn't the iPod sync both ways? Didn't Apple think of this? Hot damn I'd be furious if I took my iPod to a friends house and plugged it in and my data was erased because I forgot to switch to manual mode.

GORDYmac · Aug 1, 2003, 11:07 AM

As I said, "Upon connecting, iTunes will ask if she would like to use the iPod with her computer. If she says yes, it will erase the iPod and load her existing iTunes library to the iPod."
In my experience, saying no will dismount the iPod. When you ship the iPod, put the MP3's on DVD-R's. She can add them as she sees fit.

And it's not lame, it's DRM. No iPod syncs both ways.

cpac · Aug 1, 2003, 11:37 AM

Originally posted by brainchild2b:
That's the lamest thing I ever heard. Why the hell doesn't the iPod sync both ways? Didn't Apple think of this? Hot damn I'd be furious if I took my iPod to a friends house and plugged it in and my data was erased because I forgot to switch to manual mode.

Yes they thought of this and took specific steps to make sure you couldn't transfer iPod to Computer.

Otherwise it'd be the easiest/fastest way to steal 30GB of music.

That's not to say it can't be done using an iPod, just that Apple made it difficult for that very reason.

kentuckyfried · Aug 1, 2003, 11:52 AM

I've had it on manual mode since day one...

I vaguely remember though that the automatic syncing does NOT erase your iPod. It merely syncs the music between the computer and that iPod. I put it on manually myself b/c I didn't want my computer to automatically dump mp3's on board that I might not like (that's actually one feature I miss about MD's....you can erase and re-arrange on the fly, the iPod can't do this).

As for syncing bothing ways...well....that's largely legal issues. But not that lots of creative and very sharp Mac fans have posted various utilities to extract mp3's from you iPod to any computer. =D
You can find them all at versiontracker.com

Originally posted by brainchild2b:
That's the lamest thing I ever heard. Why the hell doesn't the iPod sync both ways? Didn't Apple think of this? Hot damn I'd be furious if I took my iPod to a friends house and plugged it in and my data was erased because I forgot to switch to manual mode.

brainchild2b · Aug 2, 2003, 12:04 AM

I think it does erase because my friend said he first backed up all his songs to his iPod when he got it, then connected to his new computer and if formatted his only copy of his mp3s.

That's stupid on apple's part, it should WARN you that all date on the iPod will be deleted. Especially with people putting more than just mp3s on them these days.

Mastrap · Aug 2, 2003, 01:01 AM

Originally posted by brainchild2b:
I think it does erase because my friend said he first backed up all his songs to his iPod when he got it, then connected to his new computer and if formatted his only copy of his mp3s.

That's stupid on apple's part, it should WARN you that all date on the iPod will be deleted. Especially with people putting more than just mp3s on them these days.

It does warn you. Explicitly. It even highlights the 'no' button for you so you don't accidentally hit 'return' and lose your music. You have to be pretty dense to still wipe the iPod. Oh, and any data files on the iPod will not be deleted when you synch to a new computer. Synching doesn't wipe the drive, it just synchs mp3s.

You are asking for advice on how to steal music here. Not the cleverest thing to do.