Q: I was wondering if it is better to automatically sync your iPod or manually manage it. What are the advantages and disadvantages to both?

- Leann

A: For the most part, the use of automatic synchronization versus manual management of an iPod’s content is a matter of personal preference. iTunes and the iPod were clearly designed to favour automatic synchronization as the preferred approach, but manual management is still available for those who prefer to have more direct control over their iPod’s content.

It is generally our opinion that automatic synchronization is the preferred choice, as it makes for the most straightforward iPod experience for a novice user who is simply synchronizing one iPod with one computer. However, where automatic synchronization becomes impractical is for those users who are regularly connecting their iPod to more than one computer to load content onto it. Since automatic synchronization requires the iPod to be effectively “associated” with a single iTunes library, it can become difficult to load content onto the iPod from any other computers. Connecting an iPod that is set to use automatic synchronization to a different iTunes library will result in iTunes prompting you to either cancel the connection of Erase and Sync the iPod to the new iTunes library (erasing all of your existing content on it in the process):

Setting the iPod into manual mode temporarily can help with this, but unfortunately if you load new content on using a secondary computer, this content may be erased as soon as you return to your home computer and set the iPod back to automatic mode. This is because an iPod in automatic synchronization mode mirrors the content in its “home” iTunes library, so in the same way that any content that is present in that library is added to the iPod, any content that is not present would be removed.

Automatic synchronization has the benefit that any new content you add to your iTunes library can be automatically added to your iPod on the next sync without having to track it down and add it yourself. Further, you can manage a single set of playlists for both your computer and your iPod, and information such as ratings, play counts, and last played times will synchronize back to your iTunes library from your iPod. In manual mode, playlists are managed directly on the iPod itself (via iTunes), and any playlists that you create or modify in iTunes are not transferred to the iPod unless you manually transfer them. Further, playlists cannot be transferred back from your iPod into your iTunes library.

Many users who have iTunes libraries that are larger than their iPod’s capacity fall back on manual management as the solution, but this is not strictly necessary. If you still intend to keep your entire iTunes library on your computer, you can still synchronize a subset of this content through the use of playlists, and still maintain the other benefits of automatic synchronization.

In fact, although many people do prefer to use manual management, there are really only two common scenarios where it’s actually required: For those users who do not intend to maintain an iTunes library on their computer but only on their iPod, and for those users who regularly connect their iPod and load content onto it from multiple computers. In this two specific situations, automatic synchronization is not at all practical, and manual mode should be used instead.

For most other common situations, the choice between automatic and manual mode is really just a matter of personal preference influenced in many ways by how you think of the relationship between your iPod’s library and your iTunes library. Essentially, in automatic mode the iPod is an extension of your iTunes library, mirroring the content of that library and any changes you make to it. In manual mode, the iPod is treated as a completely distinct library of its own, with no connection to the iTunes library on your computer.

Q: When my friends receive a call on their iPhone, they’re seeing the picture of the person show up full screen with a banner across the top listing the person’s name. However, on my iPhone, the pictures show up as a much smaller version to the right of the user’s name, and my normal wallpaper still appears. How do I get this full-screen image to appear on my iPhone? Is there a setting I’m missing somewhere?

- Alex

A: Actually, this is not a setting on the iPhone itself, but is determined by how you have added your contact photos to your contacts.

Photos taken with the iPhone’s camera or the iPhone’s photo library and assigned on the iPhone to a contact (using the “Assign to Contact” option from the Photos application, for instance) will always be displayed using a full-screen display in place of the wallpaper, both when receiving calls from that contact or making calls to that contact.

Photos that are assigned to contacts on your computer’s address book application are synced to the iPhone and displayed as a small thumbnail icon to the right of the person’s name.

However, if you’d like to take your existing contact photos that are displayed in the smaller size and convert them to the larger presentation, there is a way this can be done without having to sync all of the original photos from your photo library and reassign them on the iPhone itself. Instead, simply edit the existing photo within your contacts on the iPhone by editing the contact and then tapping on the photo itself while in “Edit” mode. Select “Edit Photo” from the menu that appears, and then simply immediately hit the “Set Photo” button without making any actual changes to the photo. The photo will be re-saved in the larger format and will now display full-screen.

It should be noted, however, that the quality of this will depend entirely on the source and format of the original photo. Low-resolution photos may look quite bad when enlarged to full screen and may therefore need to be synced and re-associated directly from the iPhone’s photo app.

Q: If I rip my CDs using iTunes in MP3 format will there be any restrictions on the number of CDs I can burn from those MP3 files?

- Imran

A: Absolutely none. In fact, regardless of whether your rip your CDs in MP3 format or AAC format, there are no restrictions placed on these. Only files that are purchased from the iTunes Store have any kind of restrictions on them, and in this case even this only applies to normal iTunes Store purchases—“iTunes Plus” tracks are free of any DRM restrictions as well and can therefore be burned to CD as many times as you like and freely converted to any other format.

In fact, even with DRM-protected iTunes Store purchases, you can still burn an individual track to CD an unlimited number of times as long as it is burned from different playlists. The iTunes restriction on burning CDs only applies to complete playlists and limits these to 7 burns. This is presumably intended to prevent somebody from mass-producing copies of a given album or mix CD.

Note that iTunes Plus tracks, even though they do not contain DRM, still contain tags that identify the original purchaser of the track and their iTunes Store account. These tags, however, will not be present if you convert these files to another format (ie, MP3) or burn them to CD.

Also keep in mind that although you can burn an audio CD from any iTunes-supported format, burning an “MP3 CD” from iTunes requires the original files to be in MP3 format—iTunes will not automatically convert other formats to MP3 for you when burning an MP3 CD.

Q: I’m curious about the iTunes movie rentals. I was wondering if I were to rent a few movies and transfer them to my iPod, would they be still be deleted even if I didn’t plug the iPod into a computer for about a month?

- Danny

A: Yes, iTunes movie rentals are deleted when they expire regardless of which device they are stored on. The iPod itself has a clock, so regardless of whether you connect your iPod to your iTunes library or not, it will use its internal clock to check the expiry time of a given rental, and the rental will be expired/deleted when that time passes.

Note that even changing the clock on the iPod is not an option, as there is still an internal clock that is not user-settable. In fact, if you change the time on your iPod classic or iPod nano and then reset the device, you’ll find that it always returns to the correct time, even without connecting it to your computer.

In fact, it has been speculated that the lack of a similar “secure clock” in earlier iPod models may be a reason why movie rentals are in fact not available for the fifth-generation iPod models.

As an aside, if you are actually watching a rented movie when it expires, the iPod will permit you to finish watching the movie, even pausing it or navigating backward and forward throughout, until you actually exit the movie. Further, the iPod will even notify you when you stop watching the movie that the time limit on it has expired, and provide you with the option to either resume watching it, or confirm that you do in fact want to delete the movie.

Q: Can I download podcasts to my iPhone using WiFi without connecting to my computer and the iTunes Store?

- Martine

A: Unfortunately, no. At this point, the “iTunes WiFi Store” application only supports purchasing of music content. Audiobooks, podcasts and video content must still be purchased and/or downloaded via iTunes and synced to the iPhone from your computer.

For users who have jailbroken their iPhones, there are some third-party applications that provide this capability, however these are of course not supported by Apple, and hacking or jailbreaking your iPhone may in fact void your warranty, so it’s not a recommended solution.

Alternatively, there is the possibility that the coming iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK) may allow a third-party developer to write an application that provides this sort of a feature.