Iphone 4 / Itunes on multiple computers

[IO540]

I bought a factory unlocked Iphone 4 for my girlfriend :)

I wonder if anybody here can illuminate a few things. I have done the usual googling and these seem to be genuine issues.

1) There is no manual APN config. I found some sites (e.g. Unlockit - APN Changer for your iPhone (http://www.unlockit.co.nz/unlockit) ) where you type in the APN details and the site downloads a little program to the phone. This worked for me (UK T-Mobile) but it seems a bizzare solution. Speaking to other Iphone users, it appears that at least some types of Iphone set the APN automatically (though in reality the vast majority of Iphones are used on contracts and are preconfigured) but sometimes this fails where users change the SIM cards around on an unlocked phone.

2) There is no way to stop auto powerdown when the Iphone is in the docking base (the one which connects to the PC via a USB cable). Why does it power-down (go into screen save mode) when it has external power?

3) There is no way to stop auto power down when certain apps are running. I bought and installed TomTom and sure enough that blocks the powerdown (IF external power is connected e.g. cigar lighter cable), but no other app does. The supplied Google maps doesn't block the power down so if you are driving or walking with the phone, it just goes blank after the specified time. This should NOT happen if the phone is externally powered. (I had the same issue on my Nokia E51 but there is a download one can get which detects when the phone is in the Bury car kit and stops the shutdown if external power is on). Maybe there is a 3rd party app which stops the auto shutdown when external power is connected, but I could not find one.

4) In some contexts (which I haven't worked out) one can end up with a photo, taken with the built-in camera, which cannot be deleted. There is a lot of stuff on google about this issue; a work-around is to use Itunes and sync, but there is no way to delete the phone from the phone itself (no dustbin icon).

5) No way to set the Safari browser font. The system font setting works but Safari ignores it. The finger zoom works of course but this doesn't reflow the page. I know some websites don't work with some fonts but any simple HTML website (take e.g. this (http://www.peter2000.co.uk/aviation/sardinia/index.html) one) will just reflow to any size font. This is very bad because a lot of older people cannot use the browser without reading glasses. The excellent LCD of the Iphone is largely wasted with such a stupidly limited browser.

6) There are some issues with having multiple Itunes installations e.g. one at home and one at work. It is easy for a secondary Itunes installation to simply wipe out a lot of stuff off the phone. There appears to be no option to sync Itunes from the phone. How can one get around this? I don't want to lose anything from the phone. Looking around e.g. here (http://www.ismashphone.com/2009/05/how-to-sync-your-iphone-to-multiple-computers.html) it is fairly obvious (I am a hardware/software developer) that copying over certain files from the initial Itunes installation to the second one would do it. Where these files are I don't know but there is a lot under Documents and Settings. There are a couple of "Apple something" places in that tree and in their total size they seem to add up to what I know I have installed on the phone (~ 2GB, most of which is TomTom Europe) and I wonder if copying over all this stuff will make the two Itunes installations equivalent. The biggest chunk is under My Documents / My Music where I found what must be the TT backup. In simple terms, this whole issue would be dealt with if one could simply copy the phone to the second or subsequent Itunes installation... why is this not apparently possible?

7) A question: if the VPN is active, will every internet app use the VPN only? One would not want some apps to bypass the VPN socket and use the default socket connection, as can easily happen under windoze.

8) While the Iphone itself provides an excellent clear interface for searching the Apple app shop, the equivalent facility in Itunes doesn't seem to work well. The search function on it is particularly useless. I don't know whether it is a config issue...

9) Is there some way to bulk delete emails? I know how to select individual ones and delete them all in one go but let's say you have 500 emails... this one is all over the Mac forums and seems to be a weird Apple policy. Is there some add-on app which can be used to delete the whole Inbox, etc?

Many thanks for any input on the above.

[skyhawkmatthew]

1. There used to be manual APN config in older versions of the software, but not any more, IIRC. The phone should automatically configure itself for whatever network your SIM is for.

2. This is true, unless you manually disable sleep, or have music playing, in which case the screen will remain dimmed (if in iPod app).

3. Yes, some apps will block sleep to enhance their functionality (mostly GPS apps and the like) - many apps like these will have an option in their settings to enable and disable this feature (eg. MotionX has an option to prevent sleep even running on battery, which I use when cycling)

4. I can't say I've ever come across this issue - quite odd!

5. Correct, you can't change the font in Safari. You can interpret this as 'limited' if you like, but it's simply displaying the web as similarly to a 'real' browser as it can. The rendering of that particular page on the iPhone seems to be quite accurate, if a little small on the text side...

6. You should be able to just turn on the syncing of whichever media you want synced from each machine individually, and have the other options turned off - for example my iPad has music and videos synced from one computer, apps from another and photos from a third!

7. I believe ALL network traffic travels through the VPN when it is active.

8. The computer-based App Store is like that, unfortunately.

9. No bulk-deleting emails apart from tapping on them all... Might I suggest doing this deletion on the computer instead?

[IO540]

Yes, after a few days' messing about I agree with your assessment.

The email issue was done by installing Altamail which has an easy bulk selection feature.

Itunes does odd things. I managed to move it from one winXP machine to another winXP machine, by copying over all its workspace (found in several places under Documents and Settings) but then the new install still realises it is on a different PC (once the Iphone is connected to it) and asks for a re-authorisation with the Apple shop, saying you can do this a max of 5 times.

My girlfriend's PC is Win7 and that keeps the Itunes stuff in a different place, so I have thus far avoided installing Itunes on it, because I don't want to risk the deletion of the installed apps.

Itunes also tries to sync bookmarks with IE (which I don't use, but have an old install with hundreds of bookmarks) and email accounts with Outlook Express (which I also don't use, except for send-to links). I have not yet found where this is disabled.

It is in any case possible to do what she needs, without Itunes. One can transfer photos from the Iphone, using Explorer (the phone appears as a folder under XP, or as a "DCIM" digital camera under win7). One could presumably also put pics on the phone in that way. I have not yet found a way to send audio to the phone but googling suggests various ways.

There are also Itunes replacements - example (http://www.copytrans.net/copytransmanager.php)

No wonder people jailbreak these things. Then you see the whole file system.

I am still interested in what people do when they go abroad, and up using roaming data (a big chunk of Iphone functionality relies on a constant use of internet data) but now they are without the huge UK "free" allowances.

Even if you bought an EU data bundle, all you need to do is pop over to say Croatia and downloading a few google maps will hit you with £10-£100.

There are also other solutions I have found. Copytrans (http://www.copytrans.net/copytransmanager.php), mentioned above, in its free version, transfers songs to the Iphone. Simple drag/drop from a PC. The free version watermarks any images transferred from the Iphone to the PC but you can do that operation with Explorer. So that covers most requirements, without using Itunes at all.

The remaining curiosity is that much of the Iphone "slick" functionality is tied to "unlimited" GPRS/3G data (or a WIFI connection). No way to config email to download just say the first 10k of each email. For most non heavy business users, this can work out hugely expensive if going abroad. I wonder how many people get caught out by this.

[marrylinedan]

Sync contacts & calendars to multiple computers "could" lead to data loss, corruption or both. If you use more than one computer, sync contacts & calendars to one & iTunes content to the other.
See more details at www.iphone-mac.com (http://www.iphone-mac.com/)

[mixture]

1) There is no manual APN config.

Yes. There is.

Try Apple's ICU utility.

http://s24.postimg.org/93er6nfwl/apple_icu.png

2) There is no way to stop auto powerdown when the Iphone is in the docking base (the one which connects to the PC via a USB cable). Why does it power-down (go into screen save mode) when it has external power?

Is this such a big deal ? It doesn't affect usability, you can still use the phone as normal.

In some contexts (which I haven't worked out) one can end up with a photo, taken with the built-in camera, which cannot be deleted.

Never seen this. But if you're convinced its a bug, figure out a way to reproduce it and file a bug report. :cool:

The excellent LCD of the Iphone is largely wasted with such a stupidly limited browser.

Stupid comment. I doubt you'll find any smartphone that does a better job .... simple.... with limited screen real estate, you have to make compromises. Apple have done quite a good job of making the browser usable in 99% of use-cases.

There are some issues with having multiple Itunes installations e.g. one at home and one at work. It is easy for a secondary Itunes installation to simply wipe out a lot of stuff off the phone.

Go read up on the Apple website onto how to backup and restore your iphone and itunes settings. Its all there, including the locations of directories. Use that to make multiple installations work. You can probably try to be clever about it and sync the relevant folders using rsync or something similar for Windows (at your own risk of course).

You should also be maintaining adequate backups so that it doesn't matter if you loose/wipe/destroy your phone.... this applies to any device, Apple or otherwise.

The restrictions are to do with Apple's licensing agreements with music and app providers in order to combat piracy. Its not Apple's fault, blame the freetards.

7) A question: if the VPN is active, will every internet app use the VPN only?

Go read the documentation. Apple support split-tunneling if so configured.

8) While the Iphone itself provides an excellent clear interface for searching the Apple app shop, the equivalent facility in Itunes doesn't seem to work well. The search function on it is particularly useless.

How are you trying to search ? What doesn't work well ?

9) Is there some way to bulk delete emails?

I filed an enhancement request for that a couple months back. So its somewhere on their to-do list as the request was not rejected. In the grand scheme of things, its a minor point.


No wonder people jailbreak these things. Then you see the whole file system.

The people who "jailbreak these things" are morons who have no background in IT.

You'll find nobody with a decent IT background, and particularly nobody with an IT security background will ever jailbreak their phone. What you gain in apparent flexibility is very much lost in terms of security (and also potential bugs and stability issues).