I have iTunes installed on my upstairs desktop and all my music files are on that computer. However, that computer, and really, the entire upstairs, has been commandeered by the kids. (Which is fine, that was actually the plan- let the kids run wild upstairs so we can keep downstairs fairly presentable.) Anyway, recently I have started to download and sync a couple of podcasts every day, and I would prefer to do it on my laptop in my bedroom. So they have this new home sharing thing, and I’m wondering if that would do the trick. I REALLY don’t want to move iTunes and all my files to my laptop. Apple’s website didn’t really answer my question- it makes it sound like home sharing just lets you listen to your music on every computer, it didn’t say anything about syncing your iPod to whichever computer you want. Does anybody know if home sharing will do this?
My understanding (and experience with my iPhone) is that your handheld device can only sync with one computer. Theoretically you can sync with another home shared computer, but you will have to watch out because the machine will try to overwrite everything on your iPod when it syncs. So you have to turn off manual sync. And I think it still causes problems, because they just didn’t set it up to work like that. I remember once I downloaded a song on my laptop, and I had to call in-house tech support (husband) to get it onto my phone. I believe it involved drawing a pentagram with goat’s blood or something.
For us, home sharing just means that we ripped CDs onto one computer, and we can then copy songs from that computer to the others.
I’ve used home sharing but not as far as synching goes. What it does (or did, a few years ago when I tried it) was allow you to play songs on one computer that are stored on another computer - but only when both computers were up and running iTunes.
It finally occurred to me that I could just add the network location of my other computer’s music files as a folder (\computername\my documents\my music) and not have to have iTunes physically running on the office computer in order to play its files on the living room computer. Duh me.
Anyway, I don’t know what this all means in the world of iPod synching, though.
That’s only true for the iPhone. You can hook an iPod to up to 5 (I believe) computers. And you NEVER want to sync automatically (or, if you do, you want to set aside roughly 30 hours a week to fix the problems it causes).
I don’t know much about the home sharing, but will once I get my desktop PC up and running as a make-do home server in the next few weeks. Zipper’s solution is the best - put all media onto one computer (Upstairs #1), and point your laptop’s iTunes library at Upstairs #1. Of course, this only works if you have a network set up, and your laptop’s iTunes becomes pretty useless outside your home. But that’s what iPods were made for, no?
The five ‘authorized’ computer limit is per iTunes Store account. It means you can purchase a song etc. from the store and play it on 5 different computers. If you replace a computer, you need to ‘deauthorize’ it first.
iPods are tied to a particular installation of iTunes on a single computer and have to by synced to that computer. If you sync to another iTunes, all the music on the iPod is replaced. As far as I know, there is no limit on the number of iPods you can sync to a given iTunes.
Sharing is simply making the music available via your network, to another computer and has nothing to do with the iTunes limit of 5 computers or syncing to iP*. Someone else’s iTunes can see and play the shared music, but cannot copy, delete, sync or add to that music. Other hardware devices like Sonos, Roku etc. can also see and play the shared music.
There seems to be a lot of good information over at iLounge.com about maintaining, moving etc. iTunes music.
We’re using iSharing at home - we use it to get songs off of each other’s computers, and it works fine for that. I just pull up his computer and grab the songs I want off of it. All our computers are Macs with iTunes, though.
There are two different things at play here:
“Sharing”, which has been part of iTunes for ages, is basically a streaming solution: it lets you listen to music, watch shows, etc. from another iTunes connected on a home network. You turn this on in Preferences->Sharing Tab. The data stays on the original computer, you’re just streaming it.
A relatively recent upgrade it iTunes (8? 9?) added “Home Sharing.” This extends the older sharing function with a new synchronization feature that can actually keep the physical files synched between computers. You turn it on from the “Advanced” menu, and it shares the list of specifically streamable items with the older sharing feature. This ads your computer to the “Shared” sidebar of nearby iTunes with a different icon. If you select the home share on the other computer, you’ll get “Import…” and “Settings…” buttons in the lower right. Import actually moves the data to the new computer (a feature that used to take third-party support), and you can use the Settings tab to set up automatic moves of future stuff. It works pretty well as long as the sharing computer is on all the time.
Mostly, I think this feature exists for two reasons: to allow you to move physical files to a laptop for travel, and so that you can synch iPods/iPads/iPhones with only one computer. Synching content with multiple computers works for media, but it can do nasty stuff to your contacts, calendars, and notes, so Apple’s recommendation is to sync each iPod (etc) with only one computer.
I use home sharing for the latter purpose: my wife can synch her iPod with her computer, and I can synch with mine, but we can share the apps and media between the two systems (so long as we’re willing to pay the storage cost of storing everything twice – not an issue as the set my wife wants is small).
We do it, too, and I have a Mac while the other two household members are Windows users.
If there’s something I want on my iPod from the other two libraries, I just drag and drop it into iTunes and sync from my computer. The others can do the same with stuff in my library.