iPhone: The Missing Manual

Chapter 11. Syncing the iPhone

When you get right down to it, the iPhone is pretty much the same idea as a PalmPilot: it's a pocket-sized data bucket that lets you carry around the most useful subset of the information on your Mac or PC. In the iPhone's case, that's music, photos, movies, calendar, address book, email settings, and Web bookmarks.

Transferring data between the iPhone and the computer is called synchronization, or syncing. Syncing is sometimes a one-way street, and sometimes it's bidirectional:

• Contacts, calendars, and Web bookmarks get copied in both directions. After a sync, your computer and your phone contain exactly the same information. So if you enter an appointment on the iPhone, it gets copied to your computer—and vice versa. If you edit the same contact or appointment on both machines at once, your computer asks you which one "wins."

• Audio files, video files, photos on your computer, and email-account information go only one way: Computer→iPhone.

• Photos you take with the iPhone's camera get copied the other way: iPhone→computer.

This chapter covers the ins and outs—or, rather, backs and forths—of iPhone syncing.

Automatic Syncing

So how do you sync? You put the iPhone into its cradle. That's it. As long as the cradle is plugged into your computer's USB port, iTunes opens automatically and the synchronization begins. iTunes controls all iPhone synchronization, acing as a the software bridge between phone and computer.

Tip

Your photo-editing program (like iPhoto or ...