Apple, iPad, iPhone

how do I transfer iTunes metadata about iPhone and iPad?

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I have hit a second snag in moving my iTunes 11 library on my old Mac to iTunes 10 on my new Mac.

When I plug in my iPhone, which was previously syncing with my old Mac, to my new Mac, I get the warning that this iPhone is synced with another Mac. I’m given the option of either erasing it and syncing it, or doing nothing. I would be happy to let it erase and sync since all of the content that is on the iPhone is on the new Mac. However, the vast majority of the 64GB of content on my device is music, and I really don’t want to have to go through all of the playlists and artists and albums and configure which ones get synced.

Other than manually rebuilding this information, is there any other way to do this? All of the content that’s on the phone is on the new Mac, so I’m not trying to transfer content off of the iPhone. I just don’t want to have to go through and manually configure what syncs to the iPhone and what doesn’t. I have the same issue with my iPad 2 syncing with the new Mac: same error message, all of the content is on both the iPad and the new Mac, I don’t want to have to rebuild the list of what syncs and what doesn’t (which is about which movies and books sync).

I still have the old Mac and its old iTunes library. I would try to reimport the iTunes library, but I’ve added a bunch of content to the new iTunes library before I tried to sync with my iPhone. Moving to iTunes 11 on the new Mac is not an option. I’d rather take the time to rebuild the sync lists rather than do that.

iPad, iPhone, Mac

yes, you can move your iTunes 11 library to iTunes 10

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I asked earlier if anyone had any pointers on moving an iTunes 11 library to iTunes 10.  I didn’t want to downgrade iTunes 11 to iTunes 10 on a single computer, but rather wanted to move an iTunes 11 library that exists on one Mac to an unused iTunes 10 library on another Mac.

The answer appears to be an almost-perfectly-unqualified yes.  Via Twitter and app.net, I got several suggestions.  I decided to try the one that was the easiest: export my iTunes 11 library to XML, and then import it into iTunes 10.  I figured if it didn’t work, then I probably hadn’t lost too much time.  It worked!

So here are the steps that I followed:

  1. On my old Mac, I launched iTunes 11 and went to File -> Library -> Export Library, and saved my library to a flash drive.
  2. After that had completed on my old Mac, I quit out of iTunes and ejected the flash drive that held the library file, and also ejected the external hard drive that housed the actual media in my iTunes library.
  3. On my new Mac, I connected both the flash drive and the external hard drive.
  4. On my new Mac, I launched iTunes 10 and went to File -> Library -> Import Playlist and selected my exported iTunes library.  It began churning away.  Since that library has ~35k items in it, it was clearly going to take awhile, and I left it to do its thing while I ran some errands.
  5. On my new Mac, I checked and everything that I was most concerned about (playlists, ratings, etc) was there!  All of my metadata had been preserved, and my media files had been moved to my new Mac’s hard drive.  (Thankfully, I had enough space.  They’ll be moved off to an external hard drive soon.)  I spot-checked several songs, playlists, videos, and podcasts, and everything was there.
  6. To confirm that I had everything, I compared the size of my new iTunes media folder with my old iTunes media folder, and discovered that the former was larger by about 8 GB.  I discovered two things that didn’t get copied over: all of my Books, and all of the application files for my iPhone and iPad.  The former is surprising, since it had gotten everything else, the latter is unsurprising.  So on my new Mac, I went to File -> Add to Library and added those books and applications back in.

Next up is to move my photo library from my old Mac to my new Mac, which should be a lot easier, and then sync my iPhone and my iPad to the new Mac and make sure that everything works.  Once that is done, I’ve got a few clean-up items to do on my old Mac, and then I can let it go to its final resting home.

Many thanks to Brian Webster for the original suggestion.  I’m pleasantly surprised that it was so easy.

Apple, iPad, iPhone

can I move iTunes 11 library to iTunes 10?

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I have an old MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard and iTunes 11.  I have a spiffy new retina MacBook Pro running Mountain Lion and iTunes 10.  The abomination that is iTunes 11 was released after I got the rMBP, and I never upgraded it.

The old MBP is the machine that is the one that syncs with my iPhone.  It has my portable iTunes library, as well as my photo library.  I’d prefer to move everything over to my spiffy rMBP, but I also don’t want to have to upgrade to iTunes 11 on it.  I also don’t want to lose all of the metadata that I have stored in my iTunes library, such as playlists and song ratings.

I’m not trying to downgrade iTunes 11 on my old MBP.  My iTunes library has been updated multiple times (new songs, new ratings, new playlists) since I unwittingly accepted that update, so I don’t think that any of the downgrade options will work for me.

iCloud syncing is very much not an option, not least of which because my iTunes library is larger than its limit.

I realize that I’m asking for a lot here, but I’m hoping that someone might have done this and my search-fu just isn’t awesome enough to have found the documentation of it.  I’ve found plenty of documentation about downgrading, but not my scenario.

An alternate scenario would be for me to start syncing with my server at home instead of syncing with my laptop.  I haven’t pursued this seriously because there are multiple iPhones in the house (mine, my husband’s, and our household line) and I haven’t found a good solution for dealing with one iTunes library, multiple Apple accounts (and the resulting differences in which apps are available where), and multiple iPhoto libraries.  We currently have the home media server set up with a shared account (which is what is used for adding new content to the iTunes library and all playback), and we have individual accounts on the server.  Apple’s guidance for using multiple devices on the same computer is useless for this household’s use case.  So unless there’s an awesome solution that I haven’t found, it seems like it’s a lot easier and less error-prone to maintain my own iTunes and iPhoto libraries on my own laptop.

iPhone

iOS 7 sturm und drang

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At WWDC this week, Apple showed off iOS7.  Macworld has a great overall review of the new iOS, and they’ve done some deeper dives as well.  The beta of iOS7 is visually quite different: lots of changes to the icons, the default color palette is lighter (to the point that some are questioning whether it will even look good on a white iPhone), and lots of the overwrought skeuomorphism has been removed.

Such a big visual change has, predictably, brought about a lot of sturm und drang from people who like to imagine that they’re visual or interaction designers who work on mobile operating systems.  These are always entertaining to read, so long as your tolerance for uninformed opinion and hand-wringing is high.

The most entertaining, and also the most infurating, example of the sturm und drang that I’ve discovered is “iOS 7: An Estrogen-Addled Mess Designed for 13 Year Old Girls”.  There’s probably a drinking game to be written for that article, although I fear the idea of creating one because it would likely result in alcohol poisoning while trying it out.

user experience

a quick test of your product

I read a great blog post about cognitive overhead, and it reminded me of one of the simplest pieces of user research you can do on an established product.  I’ll quote the article:

Let people use your product, and then ask them to tell you what it does. They’ll think you are crazy for not knowing already, but what you hear can point to cognitive hurdles you’ve missed.

This is an awesome way to get some fantastic data about how your users see your application.  If their answers surprise you, either because they talk about things that you don’t think are important, or they miss things that you think are essential to your product, then you’ve got some problems that you need to address.

Nadyne

how to update your resume

I have to admit, I’m seriously tempted to update my resume with some of these phrases from Design Jargon BS.  Or maybe just keep them in mind for my next meeting.

  • “Ensures focus and consensus whilst encouraging maximum creative flexibility across multiple touchpoints”
  • “Develop a deeply cohesive BrandWorld where all transmedia applications connect effortlessly”
  • “Our digital dept may actually be made in binary. They eat, sleep & drink digital then regurgitate it into information”
  • “Messaging that emanates from organisations synonymous with communications that denote direct unequivocal propositions”

I have to stop now, otherwise my brains might leak out my ears.

user experience

on being senior

John Allspaw wrote a great blog post titled On Being a Senior Engineer.  I read it, nodding along, and realized that his post isn’t really about being a senior engineer.  As Allspaw puts it, “I expect a ‘senior’ engineer to be a mature engineer”.

He’s totally right.  A senior engineer, or a senior user experience professional, or (I think) a senior anything is about maturity.  It’s not just about the number of years that you’ve worked with a given technology or done a particular job.  It’s about how well you get your job done.  These items from his post particularly resonated with me:

  • seek out constructive criticism of their designs – When you’re senior, you know that your work isn’t automatically perfect.  You know that others have valuable perspectives, that they have knowledge that you don’t have, that others can be the source of a valuable insight that you wouldn’t get otherwise.
  • understand […] how they are perceived – Allspaw said it well here: “Mature engineers know that no matter how complete, elegant, or superior their designs are, it won’t matter if no one wants to work alongside them because they are assholes.”  Oh, and this too: “Be the engineer that everyone wants to work with.”
  • understand that not all of their projects are filled with rockstar-on-stage work – There’s a lot of work to get done.  Being willing to do the work that needs to get done, not just the high-profile work, is one of the ways that you become senior.  This is related to, but definitely not the same as, being the person who everyone who everyone wants to work with.
  • lift the skills and expertise of those around them – One of the most important things that you can do in a senior role is to help your team be better. If you’re the rockstar on your team, but everyone else around you is floundering, you’re not senior.  You need to help those around you so that they can be rockstars too.  Create a team of rockstars, and that’s one of the ways that you become senior.
  • make their trade-offs explicit when making judgements and decisions – Nothing is perfect.  Life is a balancing act.  When you’re making trade-offs, document them.  It will help others understand your thinking, which makes the team better and which helps with gathering constructive criticism.  It will also help yourself in the future so that you remember why it is that you decided on one thing over another.

Allspaw makes a lot of other awesome points, and I feel like I’ve lifted enough from his post as it is.  His blog post is one of the most insightful and thought-provoking that I’ve read in quite some time.  It’s long, but I recommend reading all of it and thinking about how it applies to your career and your life.

a Macintosh girl in a Microsoft world

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