Its time for the iphones or iTunes to do this

Old post from my old site. It's a short rant about not being able to synchronize your iDevices with multiple iTunes Libraries. I would like to know how to synchronize an iphone or ipad, or itouch or even an ipod with my iTunes library on my MacBook Pro, and also with my iMac at work, and even with my Wife's Macbook.

Don't we all want the ability to sync our iPhone, iPod, iThing with any of our computers? I am, and I'm tired of not being able to do this. Why can't I have a set of media on one computer, and maybe an entirely different set of media on another computer, then be able to synchronize my iPhone to both of those libraries? It seems trivial to me.

I have many reasons why I would need this and I think I'm not the only one.

Take this example, at work I subscribe to certain podcasts that are related to programming, systems administration and some other tech related stuff. I also have about 300 songs that I copied from my home library; these are my "work music." At home I have a similar situation, I listen to a number of podcasts, and I have music, pictures and video. To add another factor into the mix, I also have my MacBook Pro which has yet another set of media. I wish to be able to synchronize a set of media from each computer whenever I plug my iPhone into that computer. Really... is it that hard? Don't sync it back the media to the other computers that don't have it to begin with... just down to the iPhone. If some of the media overlaps, then don't duplicate the data, just link to it. Things like ratings, renames should sync back up to whichever library has the item being rated. The only thing that should be synchronized across all computer and devices are things like adress book, calendar & notes.

I understand the problem with different file systems, like for example going form a Windows PC to a Mac might be a problem because they format the iPhone or iPod differently. I also understand the impications as they relate to Privacy, but there are facilites to manage that already by "authorizing" each computer with your Apple store account. But this problem is beyond that, since it is a problem even across the same platform, and the files are the same. Videos are videos and the music files . Even if all the computers in question have the same OS and use the same filesystem on the device.

...this is bullshit!