Noob question - sync

Brian The Snail · 13 Nov 2012 at 20:12

Hi

My GF has an iphone4 and would like an wifi ipad for Christmas. Currently I sync, update etc her phone with my laptop.

I would like her to be 'self contained' by having the phone and pad sync with each other as I'm keen to remove itunes from my laptop.

I've searched this topic but am a little confused. Can I sync the phone and pad using icloud or not? Can her music library, podcasts etc live on the ipad and sync up to her phone? Can her photos taken with the phone sync back down to the ipad for viewing?

Cheers folks.
Andy

Brian The Snail · 14 Nov 2012 at 20:57

Anyone?

jas72 · 15 Nov 2012 at 06:54

You'd need iTunes Match subscription if you really want to go down that route.

shine · 15 Nov 2012 at 08:19

My brother in law tried this. Without iTunes you can't sync your music without iTunes Match. Photostream can be used to sync photos but you'll quickly run out of free iCloud storage and you have no local backup of your data.

iOS devices are designed to run with iTunes - not using it is possible but in the longer run its probably more hassle than its worth.

Somnambulist · 15 Nov 2012 at 14:55

iCloud is great for syncing iOS devices in terms of emails/apps/notes/reminders/backups etc, but yeah, iTunes is a necessity for media.

Turbo-G · 15 Nov 2012 at 21:44

You don't need to sync with a PC/Mac these days if you don't want to.

It's likely she'll only want to use music/podcasts on the iPhone anyway. But either way, you just switch auto downloads on both devices and music/podcasts etc will automatically download I believe. Apps will behave in the same way too if you tell it to. I'm presuming all her music is purchased through iTunes?

With regards to photo stream, contacts, calendars, browser tabs, iMessage etc etc - these will all be sync'd via iCloud, no need for a PC.

The main benefit of having a PC/Mac is so you can backup to it imo, rather than backing up the device to iCloud, which is obviously limited in storage capacity unless you pay the extra, or previously a MobileMe subscriber.