On 12 October we will be able to download the new iOS5 onto our iPads. Can we then remove iTunes from our computers to recover, in my case, much needed space? Or, keep it for backup? Comments please.

it'll be kept on my computer as my main music storage location and for music listening when im working on my desktop.

other than that, it'll be pretty redundant for me - my ipad will be wirelessly backed up to my portable flash drive once a week (which is what i use itunes for currently as i have no choice), and i purchase apps and music via my ipad anyway.


it's actually a pretty good question - what exactly or essentially will itunes be useful for from now on?

As the OP suggested, will it still be needed for backups?

Tim

Originally Posted by Tim SPRACKLEN

As the OP suggested, will it still be needed for backups?

Tim

From what I understand you could get rid of iTunes and use iCloud as the back up but I'm still a bit reluctant about that. What's a couple of GB of data on a 2TB drive worth these days anyway?
I'd be waiting for a while (maybe iOS 5.1 at least) until I seriously considered pushing the delete button.

You need to keep iTunes yes

Well, the video clips I've seen show your iDevice being backed up wirelessly, at night, when you're not using it ... to iTunes.

So, for now, I see iTunes being needed as something the iDevice is being backed up to.

For now...

Marilyn

I appreciate all your useful comments to my thread. Thanks folks!

Apple will offer only so much free cloud storage (5GB, if I remember right), and I think they're only going to store content like music, books and apps, so you'd still need some place to back up everything else, even if you trust them to store music, books and apps.

I'm not the trusting sort, so I back up everything, lol.

If you go over Apple's cloud storage limit, you'll have to pay, or get free storage elsewhere.

Also, cloud storage relies on an Internet connection (whether wi-fi, my-fi, 3G, 4G, LTE, whatever). If you plan to stream or otherwise draw a lot from the cloud, you will need a data plan with a big allowance. And if your data speeds are slow, that can affect your quality of music, video, etc.

I hate iTunes on my slow nearly 4 year old laptop, but I understand it works a lot better on Macs. My next computer will be an iMac, but I am hoping this Toshiba laptop lasts me for at least another year (until I get a salary- I'm student teaching this fall and spring and will be licensed in June) so I can actually afford one. But I'm glad iTunes will mainly be obsolete soon. I just plugged in my iPad yesterday to grab a podcast and to transfer a couple episodes of Breaking Bad and a couple movies onto it. It froze twice and took a good half hour just to do this. Aggravating!

The Windows laptop I synch to is 4 years old, too. I run XP and haven't had iTunes freezing problems since I ditched Vista on another laptop. I dread switching laptops, because it will involve switching over my iTunes stuff.