I probably haven’t mentioned my strong distaste for iTunes’ draconian presumptions about how I want to manage syncing my iDevices.  I presume the presumption that data must only flow one way — especially with respect to music, video, books, etc — is based entirely on the presumption that if people can steal data by downloading content to one iDevice and uploading it to another machine they will.  This completely discounts the large pain in the nether regions the entire process is.  And it completely disavows the concept of people owning the rights to copying their own music collection for personal use.  With the advent of Pandora and the concept of renting an unlimited music collection by the month, I can sort of see where they’re coming from.  On the other hand, if my entire collection wasn’t ripped from CDs I’ve purchased, I may have purchased it from iTunes.  Which, I guess would mean there isn’t a problem, because then it would be in my iTunes account, and I’d be able to put it on any device easily, wouldn’t I? Except, I didn’t buy it from iTunes.

That’s neither here nor there, because I’d planned to compensate for that problem.  I did want to get my calendar and contacts to the new iPad.  The Mac Mini in the Central Texas house is my primary iTunes sync machine.  I have the Mac Air with me here in San Antonio.  I wouldn’t mind having the latest calendar and contact information on this machine.  I figured I could sync the original iPad with the Air and get that update completed.  I managed to do that safely.

The tricky part came with the new iPad.  I didn’t want to lose what I had on it.  That’s where I screwed up.  But I’d probably have done the same screw up when we got back to Central Texas.  When it asked if I was to sync the apps on the new iPad, I clicked NO.  This was a mistake.  It removed the apps I’d added to the new iPad.  That was no big deal — all the apps were still accessible, and I could easily sync them back onto the device.  I lost all my set up — user names and passwords entered, data entered, etc.  This was a bothersome problem for two apps I’d added extensive information to since loading the apps onto the iPad — Easy Note (the shopping list program), and HomeBudget.  I restored the data to Easy Note as it had been left on the old iPad, but I lost pricing information I’d input from the most recent shopping experience.  Not a big deal but annoying.

The saving grace on HomeBudget is an HTML email back up of of the file I happened to take just before I synced the device.  I only wish I’d done a full back up.  At least I was able to restore from the back up I’d taken to load the data on the iPad2 shortly after I bought it.  I have about five days of data to input again — and I do have the HTML email to re-create it from.

The last hassle was getting app data from the applications that rely upon the iTunes sync process for back up etc.  Since I chose not to restore the original iPad to the new iPad (because I didn’t want to lose the data I had on it, grrr), I couldn’t get the data easily.  I finally copied it from the iTunes app section to a folder I’d set up on my external hard drive.  I could drag and drop most files.  Unfortunately, while I can create folders and store data in them, I can’t copy them into iTunes.  Which means I will have to re-create my folder structures on the new iPads in those apps.  This whole process is a bit of a pain.  I’m sure it’s because of my choices, but I’m not fond of this process.

I find it somewhat pathetic that in the “post PC” era, the iPad and other iDevices are so dependent upon a computer device to do anything critical.