[iTunes] Manually Manage Music and Videos feature

[Bernard Munter]

On 02/10/10 160620, "Michael Prete" <michaelprete at cox.net> wrote:

> I have an iPhone 4 with iOS 4.1 and iTunes 10.0.1. When I connect my phone to
> iTunes on my iMac and select by phone in the left hand column under "Devices",
> it seems that the "Sync Music" check box under the "Music" tab becomes
> unchecked. If I check the "Sync Music" check box there and return to the
> "Summary" tab, I find that the check box for "Manually Manage Music & Video"
> has become unchecked. This seems highly counter-intuitive to me. I want to
> select certain albums, playlists, etc to be synced to my phone since I don't
> have enough storage to sync all my music, and to me that indicates "Manually
> Managing..." my music.
> 
> What the heck is going on? It seems that if I want to continue to select only
> certain specific parts of my music library, I must give up checking the
> "Manually Manage Music" checkbox. Any insights into how to properly use these
> features or why I can't have both boxes checked?
> 
With the greatest of respect, I humbly submit that "Manually Manage" and
"Sync" are mutually exclusive - at least in the way I understand iTunes.

I stand to be corrected, but I believe that Sync Music, under the Music tab
for the device, is the place where you must choose, in particular, playlists
(including 'smart' playlists) to be sync'ed. Other granular items that can
be chosen to sync are those in the artists, albums and genres categories -
exactly what you are after, IMHO!

You can sync items from more than one category at once, eg, a(n
hypothetical) "Favorite Tracks" playlist, anything from the "Bongos" genre,
anything by Alicia Bridges and/or "The Very Best Of The Dixie Cups" album.

By granular, I mean that items may be synced down to the level of individual
playlists, artists, albums or genres. Not individual songs. Individual songs
to be sync'ed need to be put into a playlist of their own, eg a song from
one album plus a song from another album, a couple from a third, etc. This
is as fine-grained as it gets. Then, you choose the particular playlist
created as described in the previous sentence by checking its check box
under "Playlists."

I've only ever used manual management with iPod Shuffles. In that scenario,
the management (not sync'ing) is done by dragging items 'manually' onto the
the device or the list of its contents in the main window area. There, they
can be dragged up or down the list into the order desired - I believe. All
in much the same way as you would manually create or manage a regular
playlist - think of the Shuffle as an 'hardware' playlist, if you will.

'Sync,' also, is a two-way process in which the playing position, status,
rating and so on, are copied _back_ to iTunes the next time the device is
sync'ed - which does not occur with 'manual management' AFAIK.

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