7.6/1.1.3 Update brings Manual Media Management to iPhones
A big-old thank you to everyone who has written in to let us know that you can finally manage your iPhone media manually. Instead of having to sync the last 3 unwatched episodes of some show or another, you can just drag the shows you want to watch right onto that iPhone. Readers over at the Apple Support Boards are just as happy as I am. Select the Manually Manage Music checkbox and click Apply.
Yay!


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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
(01) said 11:37AM on 1-17-2008
Best feature in an update. Ever. I'd like to think it was my request to Apple Support that made this possible :-)
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damien said 6:06PM on 1-17-2008
Where do you find this!?!
Michel said 12:30PM on 1-17-2008
I can manually manage music and videos with iTunes 7.5 and 1.1.2 on my iPod touch. Not sure if it's because it's jailbroken?
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HS-L said 11:49AM on 1-17-2008
It even works without the firmware upgrade!
fantastic!
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(01) said 11:51AM on 1-17-2008
Michael: That's because you have a iPod Touch. Unmodified iPhones with 7.5/1.1.2 are forced to sync and have no option to switch to manually managing their media. Which was annoying to but it mildly....
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(01) said 11:52AM on 1-17-2008
Sorry: Michel (are we ever going to get and edit button in here?)
dukrous said 12:06PM on 1-17-2008
While this is fantastic, my favorite feature is that now you can sync by the last X least recent unwatched/played of whatever. It makes much more sense, especially if you just bought a season of some show.
However, I can't seem to make multi-track videos switch audio tracks...tried it with two different videos, one I made in Handbrake myself, and it doesn't work at all...
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Dimebag said 12:48PM on 1-17-2008
It appears QT 7.4 has a bug that does not play mp4 video tracks, anybody else experience this?
dukrous said 1:16PM on 1-17-2008
I can play the multiple audio tracks in iTunes, but not QT 7.4. Weird...
DrWho said 1:52PM on 1-17-2008
"While this is fantastic, my favorite feature is that now you can sync by the last X least recent unwatched/played of whatever. It makes much more sense, especially if you just bought a season of some show."
This is a most welcome addition. Finally no more messing with playlists!
Skwidspawn said 12:09PM on 1-17-2008
You could do this before. Simply make a manual playlist, then tell iTunes to sync all the videos in that playlist. Bam. Done. Been doing it for months. Works for Music videos, videos and TV shows you just have to designate the playlist from the specific media tab.
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adrenalin said 12:13PM on 1-17-2008
Too bad that iTunes 7.6 trashed my ringtones. There they sit, listed under ringtones in iTunes yet that don't sync to my phone. grrrr.
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gk said 12:45PM on 1-17-2008
Can podcasts also be managed manually? As before, iIt appears to me as if they can still only be synced.
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badweasel said 1:28PM on 1-17-2008
If this is true.. I might even be willing to jump to 1.1.3 and give up my apps until they start coming out in Feb. This has been my biggest beef with the iPhone since it first came out.
Does anyone know if this works across all forms of media? Example: on my iPod Video I can encode a movie, never actually load it into iTunes, and drag it from the finder right to the iPod icon IN ITUNES and it will start loading it onto the iPod. It never actually loads into the iTunes library, iTunes just loads it to my iPod directly from the finder. Also I can drag songs one at a time to the iPod. But in iPhone it has always been locked down so hard that you have to create playlists and sync them and do all this extra work. So does all this now work correctly in 7.6/1.1.3?
Apple.. Please never take features and/or functionality away again! Especially features like this that make your products easy to use. Making us go though 10 extra steps is never going to make us happy!
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Greg said 1:36PM on 1-17-2008
Just tried dragging an mp4 directly from finder to my 1.1.2 iphone on itunes 7.6, it worked just as you said. Didn't copy it to itunes library, just to the iphone.
Austin said 1:17PM on 1-17-2008
Just listened to Rush Limbaugh today...
He has an iPhone, loves it, happy with the 1.1.3 update, but HE WANTS COPY/PASTE FEATURE.
Hear that Apple? GET WITH THE PROGRAM AND GIVE US OUR COPY-PASTE FEATURE!
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Beanie said 1:21PM on 1-17-2008
When are we gonna get show notes with Podcasts? That is kind of a weird oversight.
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greg said 1:33PM on 1-17-2008
You can do it on 1.1.2 with itunes 7.6, no firmware update necessary. I haven't tried videos though, as i have none in itunes.
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badtzmaru said 1:34PM on 1-17-2008
I was all excited till i read i need to update to 1.1.3 to do this. not worth it!
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Liam D said 1:50PM on 1-17-2008
you don't have to upgrade to 1.1.3 on your iPhone to manually manage media, this is a function enabled by iTunes 7.6.