Love iPhone, Hate iTunes!

[e36Adz]

I have a 32GB Iphone 4, it is a great device which I enjoy using however, I cannot stand itunes. I am hoping itunes is great, and I am simply being an idiot here, so PLEASE can someone help me out with a few small issues.

(1) Now and again, for no apparent reason, when I connect my iphone to my PC I get this message...

"iTunes cannot read the contents of the iPhone. Go to the Summary tab in iPhone preferences and click Restore"

Why is this? I have found a fix, I had to install ifunbox and access the files on my iphone and delete 2 files from the itunes folder, it very annoying though! Why does this keep happening?

(2) Whenever I connect my iphone and start up itunes (and it actually works), all the boxes are unticked eg. 'sync music' box, 'sync films' box etc. Everytime I tick them, the next time I start up itunes they are unticked again.

So if I wish to add lets say some music, I have to copy it to music library, go to my device, re-tick sync music and it adds ALL the music files again, even though they are already on.

Can you not just add videos/music to the library and it just updates/syncs automatically?

I know I have some more queries but they are the main 2 right now. I am very new to apple stuff, this is the first apple device I have purchased and it is amazing, but I am not familiar with itunes at all and so far it seems like a nightmare.

 

[Judgeneo]

iTunes is the number one reason why I didn't buy an ipod, iphone may tempt me over if this antenna thing solves itself somehow.

Its just bad software IMO

 

[Morfik]

Both of those aren't normal behaviour.

As for iTunes generally..

Whilst iTunes does seem a lot more hassle than "drag & drop" that a lot of people prefer on Android phones once you have your library setup in iTunes it becomes great for making smart playlists of the music you really want. Feel like some Acoustic music to relax to? Then just setup a smart playlist for the acoustic genre and all your tracks rated 3+ stars. It's that simple and not something you could easily do with a folder system.

Sorry for the slight derail, I don't know the answer to your problems.

 

[e36Adz]

iTunes is the number one reason why I didn't buy an ipod, iphone may tempt me over if this antenna thing solves itself somehow.

Its just bad software IMO

At this stage, it does look to me like a valid reason not to buy an ipod/iphone, it really is appalling imo.

Over 100 views so far, does anyone know why I am having these problems? Does anyone else have similar problems? I am sure I must be doing something wrong because there is no way it can be this bad.

 

[CooK1E]

I have a 32GB Iphone 4, it is a great device which I enjoy using however, I cannot stand itunes. I am hoping itunes is great, and I am simply being an idiot here, so PLEASE can someone help me out with a few small issues.

(1) Now and again, for no apparent reason, when I connect my iphone to my PC I get this message...

"iTunes cannot read the contents of the iPhone. Go to the Summary tab in iPhone preferences and click Restore"

Why is this? I have found a fix, I had to install ifunbox and access the files on my iphone and delete 2 files from the itunes folder, it very annoying though! Why does this keep happening?

(2) Whenever I connect my iphone and start up itunes (and it actually works), all the boxes are unticked eg. 'sync music' box, 'sync films' box etc. Everytime I tick them, the next time I start up itunes they are unticked again.

So if I wish to add lets say some music, I have to copy it to music library, go to my device, re-tick sync music and it adds ALL the music files again, even though they are already on.

Can you not just add videos/music to the library and it just updates/syncs automatically?

I know I have some more queries but they are the main 2 right now. I am very new to apple stuff, this is the first apple device I have purchased and it is amazing, but I am not familiar with itunes at all and so far it seems like a nightmare.

This is a strange suggestion, but I had an iPod with a flaky disk, which used to give me these wierd errors. Running a CHKDSK against the file system seemed to sort it though

 

[FreeStream]

For No. 2 it shouldn't un-tick itself, thats weird.

Reinstall iTunes perhaps?


iTunes for windows is shocking sadly. Runs perfectly (as you would expect) on OS X however.

 

[kayomani]

Can't say I have ever had any problems with it tbh, might be a bit more bloated than it needs to be but my rig has the resources to throw at it so I don't really notice.

 

[Blackhawk47]

I don't really see the issue for No.2...No.1 isn't right and there is either some dust or something collecting in the 30pin connecter or something wrong with the device it self.

As for No.2 - basically import all your music into the iTunes library and you can add more music to it by doing the same method. When I put music on my iPhone I prefer to use the manually manage music and video and then you just drag and drop them from your iTunes library rather than pressing sync.