iPAD question. How do I transfer my iTunes and photos?

[BulletProofMum]

Possibly a silly question but I am considering getting an iPAD. I read that there's no USB port so how do I transfer my photos and iTunes library from my old laptop?

any advice appreciated

The iPad comes with a special cable that will connect to a USB port on your computer and will transfer what you want from iTunes onto the iPad.

Thanks - is it an easy transfer? When I tried to transfer iTunes form one laptop to another it was a rather complicated process and I lost all my files names?

Yes it's a very easy process, but you're not transferring the iTunes library from the laptop to the iPad. The library will stay on the laptop, your photos will be the same. Think of what is on the iPad as being a copy of what's on your laptop but what's on your laptop is still the master copy, the real thing.

Copying an iTunes library from one computer to another should be a pretty easy process (I've done it a few times) but it's a very separate thing to syncing with an iPad.

Are you planning on getting rid of the laptop and just having the iPad? Right now I'm not sure that I would recommend doing that. Apple have made great steps towards making iPads (and phones) independent of a computer but they're not quite there yet.

My home laptop isn't working very well (trashed by my 6yo). I have my work lap top but the ids aren't allowed on it. We werethinking of havnign the iPad to do teh 'fun stuff' - internet, photos, iTunes apps rather than as a home computer per se.

Another Q (whilst I have you!) is 16 gB suffiecient for most needs or should I get bigger?

I'd still recommend having iTunes on a computer in the house and using that as the "master" that the iPad syncs with.

Can you/do you want to put iTunes on your work laptop? If so then we can look at transferring the library from your old computer to your work machine.

"is 16 gB suffiecient for most needs or should I get bigger?"

"Sufficient" is such a tricky word... If you go nosing around the Apple web site you'll notice that even they appear to have stopped giving guidelines on how much actual stuff (songs, apps or videos) that a device will hole because it varies so much.

Do you know how big your iTunes library is? That'll be a quick first guideline as to how much space you might need.

IT probably maintains just about enough functionality to be the master. I can't put iTunes on my lap top and need to get photos off both!

Good point re storage - my photos are 9gb on this laptop and there are more on the other :(

You will still want somewhere else to store your photos, at least two places to be honest in case one of them fails.

iTunes can sync photos from your computer to your iPad. But I'm pretty sure that when it does this it "optimises" the photos so that they look good on the devices screen and take up as little space as possible. So the photos aren't as "good" as your original photos. And then getting the photos that you synched onto the iPad off of the iPad is not a trivial task. The iPad and iTunes will presume that the originals still exist somewhere and as the ones on the IPad aren't as good as those it "simplifies" things by hiding them from you.

So putting photos onto the iPad from your computer is best thought of as being a one way process.

If this is just about space on your laptop(s) or making sure that your photos are safe then look into buying an external disk drive and move your photos onto it (and copy onto a second drive too if you're going to delete the photos from the laptop, having photos held in only one place is asking for them to be lost).

I know - just havn't come with a good solution yet! Neither of my laptops has a DVD writer.

RiP the 1000 on my Blackberry.
Note to self - new years resolution os to sort my bloody photos out!

I normally don't like recommending particular things but something like this should do the trick:
www.amazon.co.uk/Passport-Essential-Silver-Portable-Drive/dp/B004445JI6/