iTunes and multiple devices

[Dancergirl]

At the moment we have

Dh's ipod
Dd1's ipod
My ipad

And we are soon to add another ipod for dd2. I think I heard somewhere that you can have up to 5 devices on an itunes account, is this right? So will it be straightforward to add dd2's ipod to the account?

I seem to remember having a LOT of problems last year with dd's ipod - it starting synching automatically and she ended up with dh's entire music collection which was then a real pain to get rid of.

I do like Apple products but there seems to be a flaw in that you can't delete stuff straight from the device (photos for instance).

What can't you delete from? I can delete from my iPhone, apps, music, pics.

I think you can add as many as you like - I work in a shop which resells apple stuff and we reset them all using itunes - it must have thousands of ipods on there now! Of course when someone buys it they sync to their own account.

When you plug it in there's an option for automatic syncing or not, just be careful not to tick that.

I run 15 iPads on one account at school...

That's on an iMac, I have heard that you can't do it on a PC, but I've never actually tried, or tracked down the evidence for the comment.

If you want to have different stuff on each one, you have to make sure they aren't set to sync automatically - on a mac you go to iTunes-Preferences-Devices and tick 'Prevent [devices] from syncing automatically' to stop them all syncing as soon as they are plugged in, I assume a PC version of iTunes has a similar setting. Then just tick the playlists/music/apps you want to sync with the one that's plugged in at the moment. I have different stuff on my iphone and ipad and once they have been set up, it recognises which one I've plugged in and synchs it with the right set of photos/music/apps every time. Though I don't plug in very often now, mostly it just syncs over wifi.

One thing you might want to check if you're using the same account for different peopleis that in Settings under Store, it's not set to automatically download music apps and books that are bought on another device.

Thank you, that's helpful. Yes we use a PC. I'll check that it's not set to synch everything before plugging it in. I just don't want a repeat performance of last year that caused dh and I a LOT of stress!

Just checked on the syncing multiple devices via Windows, and the restriction apparently is only that Windows iTunes won't sync multiple devices at the same time , which is what I need to do (I have a clever device in a special iPad case that syncs or charges automatically according to whether it's connected to the computer or not)

Which is why I now have a shiny new iMac on my desk at work....

We're thinking of going over to a mac at some point to replace our knackered old PC. Good move? Will I be able to use it easily after being used to Windows?