Well, I appreciate the advise...but it was simple to add or remove songs or video with iTunes using the checked option. Most off all it was fast. I do not want to spend countless hours rating 6000+ videos and songs or mess with playlists. I may just end up installing iTunes for the cell on my laptop and use that to sync since there is no profile manager to make this simple and fast. Sorry, but much as I like the iPhone and iPad, when it comes to the iTunes interface it falls way short and really complicates what could be a painless interface.

Originally Posted by Verndog

Well, I appreciate the advise...but it was simple to add or remove songs or video with iTunes using the checked option. Most off all it was fast. I do not want to spend countless hours rating 6000+ videos and songs or mess with playlists. I may just end up installing iTunes for the cell on my laptop and use that to sync since there is no profile manager to make this simple and fast. Sorry, but much as I like the iPhone and iPad, when it comes to the iTunes interface it falls way short and really complicates what could be a painless interface.

It sounds like something is lost in translation here. It may pay for a step-by-step tutorial to be presented here, because it should not be as complicated as you're making out. i will see if I can find something appropriate for your situation.

I agree you are making it out to be a lot more complicated than it actually is.

You want to have different syncing for each device, so you have to change how you were previously syncing based on one device.

You do not have to create a smart playlist based on ratings, there's lots of options. You don't necessarily have to create a smart one. Just create two normal playlists (ipad music and iphone music) and just drag from your main library which songs you want in which, this is just as easy as going thru your library and ticking and unticking selections. You then just set up the sync settings for each device to only sync to the relevant playlist.

Perhaps I'm not fully understanding the OPs problem, but I agree that they seem to be making it unnecessarily complex. I have my iPhone and iPad synced to the same iTunes library. They show up under the 'devices' on the left-hand side of the iTunes window, and each one can be set up with different apps, music, movies etc.. as per the settings under each tab at the top of the screen.

This is my iPhone:-


Any my iPad:-


For example, I don't keep much music on my iPad so I have it set to sync just a basic playlist. On my iPhone, I have a different basic playlist, plus random favourite albums, plus whatever's 'recently added'. Same iTunes library on the same laptop, totally different content on each device, all managed through the tabs in iTunes. Simples

HTH Pete

After a bit of thought, I've come up with a way for you to migrate to playlists with far less effort than setting up and maintaining two libraries/computers will take.

In iTunes create two normal playlists. One for the iPad, and one for the iPhone.

Now go to the Files Menu and create a Smart Play list. Set it up as Checked is true.

With the Checked playlist selected, go to the Edit menu and choose Select All.

Now drag the content to your other two playlists (see alternate option for smaller device)


At this point you now have two playlists that contain all your checked songs.


In the playlist for the device that you want to have fewer songs, remove the songs you don't want.

Alternately you could go to the the Checked playlist and start unchecking songs, then drag the results into the lesser-sized playlist (rather than the entire list and then deleting.


Now you have two playlists, one for each device, and you've done about the minimum amount of work possible to make them different. All that is left is plugging each device into iTunes, going to the Music sync tab and changing the settings to sync the right playlist for that device.

From that point on maintaining the playlists is simply a matter of removing and adding content. If you use the sorting and selection tools you can probably do this faster than checking/unchecking every single song.