Tag: iOS

iTunes 12 Syncing Is Broken Beyond Belief

Seth Anderson0 comment

Hello Would You Like To Restore Your iPhone Again
Hello Would You Like To Restore Your iPhone Yet Again?

Kirk McElhearn, a long-time Mac columnist, adds his voice to the chorus of iPhone owners dismayed with iTunes 12 and iOS 8.

Now, syncing an iOS device—iPhone, iPad, or iPod—is too often an ordeal. And it is because it’s become untrustworthy. Will the sync work at all or will your content disappear and be transformed into something that fills the amorphous “Other” category in iTunes’ capacity bar. Will all of your content sync or just your music, or music, or apps?

Sync problems between iTunes and iOS devices are all too common. (See the last thirty days of posts in Apple’s support forums about iTunes sync issues.) In a way, this may be a predictable side effect of Apple’s push to online services. The company wants everything to be in the cloud, and it would prefer that you buy all your music and movies from there as well. Local syncing isn’t really a part of that plan and so may be treated as an afterthought. The difficulty is that not all users are right for the cloud model. For those with large iTunes libraries, or with limited broadband bandwidth, cloud storage simply isn’t usable.

Given that, it’s time to revisit local syncing. In its current state, iTunes syncing is broken and it can only be fixed by Apple.

…

Apple needs to fix syncing. While users who don’t sync their iOS devices in this way aren’t affected by these issues, those people with small and large iTunes libraries alike report syncing problems. It’s frustrating, and the fact that there’s no way to find out what’s wrong makes it even more so. In an ideal world iTunes would have some kind of sync log or sync diagnostic tool, akin to the Network Diagnostics utility, that would help ferret out problems and let people get on with enjoying their media.

(click here to continue reading iTunes syncing is broken: Apple, please fix it | Macworld.)

 iPhone 6 and iOS 8 restore number 12
iPhone 6 and iOS 8 restore number 12

I’ve written at least once about my frustrations with syncing, and by my count, I’ve had to restore my iPhone 6-minus at least ten times since I got it last fall. Ten times! New Year’s Eve1 was number eleven, and for some reason2 the PIN I used yesterday would not unlock my iPhone today. Since I have Find my iPhone turned on, I was unable to restore directly via my Mac, and had to log on to https://www.icloud.com/#find, and remotely wipe the iPhone. 

Sync Music 2015-01-01 at 12.10.18 PM

Restore Number 12 finally began, and because I use my iPhone for more than just a phone, the syncing takes for freaking ever3, and I probably won’t have use of a phone for several hours. 

Sure there are much worse problems in the world, but iPhone owners want devices that we spend thousands of dollars annually4 on to actually work. Currently, the iTunes 12/iOS 8 platform is not up the usual Apple standards. Constantly having to reinstall the software is not customer-friendly.

Restoring iPhone From Backup 2015-01-01 at 11.33.01 AM

Syncing photos 2015-01-01 at 12.09.28 PM

Syncing apps 2015-01-01 at 12.24.52 PM

Footnotes:
  1. yesterday, 12/31/2014 [↩]
  2. fat fingers, or the beginning stages of a good buzz, or Jony Ive’s sense of humor, whatever [↩]
  3. between 4-5 hours, plus time to reset Apple ID, iCloud, the thumbprint, Apple Pay, etc. [↩]
  4. the device itself, the monthly bill, the apps and songs and etc. [↩]

Sign in To YouTube Using an iOS Device Like an iPhone

Seth Anderson1 Comment
Illinois Central

Electric Shocking Power!

For perhaps the five hundredth time this decade,1 I spent a long time trying to login to YouTube to upload a video, and my password was not accepted, even though I’d copied it right out of 1 Password. After wasting about ten minutes trying to figure it out, I remembered that because I have set up a 2-Step Verification for my Google account, I have to generate an App specific password for logging into YouTube. I’m not sure why YouTube is different than other 2-Step Verification services2, but at least the solution is easy enough, once you remember that is why your password keeps failing. You’d think Google could update YouTube to at least give a hint that enabling 2-Step verification means a user can’t login simply with email and password. I mean, would it be that hard for the YouTube iOS App to add a footer to the login page? Or at least a suggestion to look to the App passwords page if a password fails a few times?

Anyway, after I did the proper Google search, I ended up here, with these instructions.

Sign in using App Passwords

An App password is a 16-digit passcode that gives an app or device permission to access your Google Account. If you use 2-Step-Verification and are seeing a “password incorrect” error when trying to access your Google Account, an App password may solve the problem. Most of the time, you’ll only have to enter an App password once per app or device, so don’t worry about memorizing it.

…

  1. Visit your App passwords page. You may be asked to sign in to your Google Account.
  2. At the bottom, click Select app and choose the app you’re using.
  3. Click Select device and choose the device you’re using.
  4. Click Generate.
  5. Follow the instructions to enter the App password (the 16 character code in the yellow bar) on your device.

 

(click here to continue reading Sign in using App Passwords – Accounts Help.)

That’s pretty clear, and simple, once you know that is what you are required to do.

Perhaps since I’m writing a post about this procedure, I’ll remember next time I’m uploading a video from a new iOS device, or a new app that uses YouTube.

Also, the video was pretty dark, I’ll have to retry with better lighting next time I have a can of Nuclear Winter beer by Finch’s Beer…

My app specific list looks like this3

Screen Shot 2014 12 03 at 9 22 36 PM
Google App specific passwords, a partial list

Vimeo version…

Nuclear Winter Boilermaker- Finch’s Beer from Seth Anderson on Vimeo.

With a name like Nuclear Winter, what else could I do?

—
update, damn, this post became a spam comment magnet so we’re disabling comments for a while. Sorry.

Footnotes:
  1. every time I get a new iPhone or iPad, or Apple TV basically. Though some apps use YouTube as well, I’m guessing this has happened more than three million times since I’ve enabled 2-Step Verification [↩]
  2. for instance, I use 2-Step Verification for Tumblr, for Twitter, for Buffer, and probably some others too [↩]
  3. not all shown [↩]