I have recently set up my own business and to celebrate being free of corporate tyranny and controls I've gradually gone all Apple and now boast an iPhone, iPad and MacBook Pro in my stable relegating the Nokia, Blackberry and Thinkpad to the metaphorical dustbin. I do however have some questions that I'm hoping learn'd FT'ers will be able to provide some assistance on..

Previously I had at home, a desktop PC where I kept my iTunes library and to which I synced my iPhone and my iPad. I then got iTunes Match and whilst I still have a copy of my music on the PC it is "in the cloud" as it were and I use Match/iCloud on both the iPad and the iPhone. They also both backup to the cloud.

The iPhone and iPad still sync to the PC - for example, if I want to add a film to the iPad I select to sync it from the PC iTunes sync screen. I keep my movie files on a NAS. I also have downloaded some TV series - presumably these are kept on the PC's harddisk in the iTunes folder.

I now however want to switch so that my MacBook is the main computer and I use it to manage the content on the iPad in particular (ie which films I put on it so I have the selection I want to watch when I am travelling).

I have set up the new MacBook and told it my Apple ID and it has worked out that my library is in the Cloud and allows me to download music. I haven't tried to download any of the TV series I may have bought.

So questions I have....

1) Do I need to transfer the iTunes library from my old PC to the MacBook? given the music is in the cloud I'm guessing not. What about the TV series - presumably I can just do a "download purchases" on the MacBook and they would be re-downloaded? For movies I am assuming I would need to re-load them into the MacBook's iTunes library by pointing it at the appropriate folder on the NAS.

2) What do I need to do to tell the MacBook I'd like to use it to control the sync of the iPad and iPhone. At the moment if I try to connect them it says they are synced by another PC and gives me the option to wipe them which I'm (hopefully understandably) cautious to do. My gut feel is that I should let it do it then restore from the iCloud backup running it from the MacBook iTunes. They currently sync over Wifi to the PC so presumably this would stop this happening. Do I need to change anything on the old PC (which is still being used in the house by the kids)?

Thanks in advance. I think I'm probably just being a bit dumb but having spent hours poring over various bits of information across the internet they all refer to transferring libraries when you move from PC to a Mac but none seem to cover the case of what happens when you manage your library in the cloud and when you sync iOS devices to the previous computer by wifi!

You might find this a worthwhile $10 investment:Take Control of Switching to the Mac at http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/catalog#. It was written in 2008 but still relevant for you.

The first thing to do is to go into all instances of iTunes, in preferences/devices and check the box that says "Prevent iphones, ipods and ipads from syncing automatically". Hit OK, etc to make that change stick.

Be careful if you allow it to sync to the mac. Make sure all the content you are getting from the pc is also on the mac, including pictures, content not purchased from itunes and anything not in the cloud.

Take an encrypted backup on the pc first, in case you have to restore. Make sure the backup is encrypted (a checkbox in itunes), so it includes all your network settings, saved passwords, etc. Otherwise it won't include that stuff. You will have to turn off cloud backup to do that for now. You can turn it back on now, but you can still let contacts and everything else sync to the cloud, those are individual settings on the iphone and ipad.

Once you tell it to sync with the mac, it won't sync with the pc anymore. Unless you go back to the PC and tell it to do the sync there. itunes knows where the device is currently syncing.

You can also copy itunes libraries. The steps are consolidate the library, then copy the content over. (search for it, you'll find it.) but it sounds like you already set up a new itunes library on your mac. You can replace it if you want to. Anyway, this is in preferences/advanced on the mac, the location of the library is there and you may want to check the two boxes below that. (depends on how you are storing your movies, if you don't want copies in the itunes library vs just a pointer/entry, then you may not want to check one of them.)

As long as you have an up to date encrypted backup of your iphone and ipad on the PC before you let the mac's itunes sync with them, you should be able to easily go back until you get it right.

If everything is purchased from the itunes store or matched (not everything always gets matched, you have to check) then maybe not? The movies, sure you can re-import them into the new itunes. Or you can just clone the itunes library from the pc and make that your new itunes library on the mac if you do it properly. If you purchased the movies in the itunes store, I think you can just download them again. The itunes library on the mac could even be on the NAS if you want it to be there. For now, don't let it share the same location with the PC, they both have some meta data files they will want to manage individually so they don't share well that way.

If the items show up in iTunes with the cloud icon, you are good. The file doesn't have to be present on the local file system. iTunes will download it when it's needed. Same on the devices. (You can download whatever you want to, ie, if you want to watch a movie or tv show when you don't have a data connection, you'll need to make sure the file is downloaded on the device.)

Good luck.

-David

You can create a smart playlist that will show you everything in your itunes library that is not in icloud. I think this will do it. In my case, "ineligible" was the interesting one. it was mostly movies and video not purchased from the itunes store. (though looking at it again, it's including some tv series purchases from itunes in that list, and you can just download them again from "purchases" in itunes. so you will have to filter and adjust as necessary.)

file/new smart playlist.
Match ANY (change the default from ALL) of the following rules: (Hit the + sign to add a new rule entry)

icloud status is local only
icloud status is ineligible
icloud status is Error

uncheck "limit to 25 items" ... and uncheck "Match only checked items". Check "Live updating" so it's always current.

You can sort the results by any of the columns. There might be duplicates (you can check for duplicates separately and eliminate them before you start this if you want to. That's also easy to do in itunes.)


Also, I think with your movies, you want to be careful if you attempt to consolidate your library. Not sure how much space you are using, but if you consolidate it, it will create copies of those movies if they aren't already consolidated. Adjust those settings as required for your situation. If the PC's itunes library is not consolidated, it will make it much more difficult to copy your itunes library over to the mac, if that's what you decide to do. But you can find everything not in the cloud using this smart playlist and copy over what you want individually. You have lots of options here. Just be careful not to corrupt the old PC library or backups.

-David

You could use the Windows Migration Assitant in Lion:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4796

edit: that might not work because it creates a new account on the Mac, but I'll leave it for you to look at it.

I'm not sure if this is relevant to your question but keep in mind iCloud is different than iTunes Match.

iCloud has a max [i believe 2 gb] of storage and is NOT meant to store your music but more as a 'general backup'. iTunes Match is specifically designed as the cloud solution for music and costs $25/yr. But you can pay/use it for one year and not renew.

Note, macworld.com did a series of articles explaining 'how do' here:http://www.macworld.com/article/1163...d_to_know.html There about 5 articles, one super long FAQ.

Again, my understanding is if you activate and upload your collection via iTunes Match, then syncing it btw pc and mac using your apple.id is seamless.

Good point, I was using icloud as a synonym for iTunes match in parts of my posts.

-David

I'm sorry I just can't let this go without comment...You do realize that Apple is bigger than all of the companies you mention, COMBINED (based on market cap)?

Microsoft: 268 billion
Lenovo: 9.58 billion
Research in Motion (Blackberry): 7.05B
Nokia: 20.18B

Total: 304.81
Apple: 570.97 Billion

If you consider employees, yes Apple is smaller - 60k vs 91k employees, however that doesn't count vendors, contractors and others indirectly employeed by the two companies.

Now, are you REALLY fightining against corporate tyranny?

Celebrating freedom from corporate tyranny by going to another corporation?

Genius!! Why didn't I think of that?

How about using open source software products or making your own solution instead of complaining about "corporate tyranny" while extolling the virtues of the tyrannical corporation of YOUR choice?

Giant DERP to you, my brilliant Apple Fan!

Thanks guys for all the helpful responses - job for the weekend. I like to understand the process and where things are going/how they work rather than using the migration wizard so that is why I've avoided it. On reflection migrating to a Mac is a bit of a red herring as I'd have the same question moving to another PC!

And I'm afraid the last couple of posters misunderstand the tyranny to which I rebel - it is not the evil of Microsoft, IBM or others but rather the corporate straightjacket I've faced from working for some of the world's largest professional services firms for the last 20 years where choice is largely banned and you are stuck with the kit you are given. The tyranny is my lack of ability to express choice, not the choice I make!

Don't worry, some of us understood you. I deal with the same lack of choice at my company.

I can't believe I forgot about using itunes home sharing to copy content from one itunes library to another.

http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/...er=rss&emc=rss