Had a horrible day trying to backup and restore my brand new iPad, because iTunes is just about the WORST application for Windows, ever.

iTunes has reported my iPad as non-existent or only having 4Gbytes of storage (it's a 64GB model), and the apps sometimes just do not work after a sync operation (tap them, they open up and immediately close). ALL of the installed apps have had this behaviour, and iTunes says my ipad cannot backup due to various internal errors with weird numbers like -54 and -48.

Someone (somewhere) suggested using different USB adapters or ports, so I switched to using ports on the back of my (November 2009) computer instead of the front, which has (surprisingly) made a huge difference.

Had a lot of trouble getting Kindle App to work , because the keyboard defaults to capitalization of first letter, and Amazon has CASE SENSITIVE email addresses, sheesh. Took me a long time to sort out that.

the iPad itself is very very good when it's working. iTunes is so unreliable on Windows I'm honestly surprised it can be used. Awful awful application.

It makes NO SENSE to my why I need to jailbreak my iPad to use a wifi-sync utility instead of being dependant upon a cable tethering the iPad to my damned computer!

Wifi sync just makes incredible amounts of sense, whereas usb sync (when the PC can't supply the 'double wattage' to charge the ipad) makes VERY LITTLE sense.

I got Air Video working, and it's simply stunning to watch ripped DVD's over wifi, stunning.

So in closing, a huge thumbs up for the iPad, and a very very large thumbs DOWN to iTunes.

(I hope this message doesn't get censored)

I agree with you to a certain extent. I hate how I have to convert videos to put them on my iPad. I had to go out and buy a second hard drive just for my iPad converted movies.

I never had the issues that you had though.

I did get an error when I first started using iTunes, it was basically a Windows Sync fatal error, but then it would usually continue to sync anyhow. Eventually I fixed it but I forget how I did it. I basically just Googled the error message.

Hmmm I actually find myself in the other camp.
With the iPod touch I used every alternative to iTunes as I found it bloated, buggy and counter intuitive (yeah for apple....). Several times I found myself cursing as I just couldn't find the obscure blasted command I wanted to use.

With the iPad I had to install the latest version of iTunes and am suprised at how quickly it syncs and backs up. Also loading my files, films and books has been much easier than I anticipated.

Hopefully file transfers in particulare will be improved with the updated os in the fall.

Lol agree on converting films. Would be great if iTunes did that automatically for us.

I don't see why they couldn't incorporate that...after all, they have a built in WMV converter and whatnot. Perhaps a 10 dollar upgrade to iTunes or something so you could just drag and drop.

Another thing, and I think it might be related to my jailbreaking, although it happened BEFORE I JB my iPad, is how iTunes sometimes randomly rearranges apps. Before it used to rearrange them in ABC order. Now I'm not sure the logic.

I've been using iTunes with Windows PCs for years, and at times have had small issues, but nothing major. However with my iPad, I've had zero issues. It has worked perfectly, as have all apps that I've gotten for iPad (about 100). And I say this having synced at least once a day.

No we would not censor your post no need to you need assistance and that's what we are here for a huge number of members own PC's so lets see what we can do to. Fix your problem

Regards Colin

Agree, iTunes is crap. It could have been SO much better.

Love the live video conversion idea!

Sorry to hear you're having trouble. Just for perspective, we've had zero problems with iTunes under Windows (we've been using iPods and iTunes since they were available on both platforms) on any of the systems we have here - that's two running XP, one Vista and one Win 7 machine, with an iTunes Library running to around 400Gb on an external drive.

Hope you can get things sorted - please post again when you've resolved your issues; I'm sure it would be a big help to others who may be having trouble.

Cheers, Pete

I wouldn't say itunes is unreliable as they've hardly ever crashed on me unlike other 3rd party iphone/ipod compatible softwares.

They're just finicky on certain things like requiring certain voltages from usb ports and stuff.