Ipod nano sync to multiple computers

[dfb8085]

I got my wife a iPod nano for Anniversary this week. She has installed iTunes on her desktop and loaded and synced her music to the iPod. She would also like to sync it to her laptop so as to not have to run upstairs each time. Anyway she loaded iTunes on her laptop and when she tries to sync her iPod to it the error message reads you have already synced this to another computer and will not allow her to do that. Anyway are we missing something or is there a trick to make it do it or what?

Any help is appreciated

Thanks

 

[pkcable]

Not to my knowledge. Apple designed it this way, your devices can only sync to 1 computer, it's sorta copy protection.

Maybe with a jailbreak you might be able to do something, but the process MAY be complicated.

 

[joe_fresh]

Go into one of the tabs on iTunes, there should be an option to authorize this computer, Now i am not sure if it will load up songs you manually loaded to iTunes but i know it will load songs purchased from the tunes store

 

[Kaitokomauri]

You wife needs to make sure that she has the same set of music files loaded on her laptop's iTunes as she has on the library with which she initially synced the Nano. Otherwise, the laptop's iTunes would simply wipe the iPod and put only the music loaded on the laptop's library.

You might want to have a look at the Home Sharing feature for iTunes which is available to use for up to 5 computers at a time:

Understanding Home Sharing

 

[Fausty82]

I got my wife a iPod nano for Anniversary this week. She has installed iTunes on her desktop and loaded and synced her music to the iPod. She would also like to sync it to her laptop so as to not have to run upstairs each time. Anyway she loaded iTunes on her laptop and when she tries to sync her iPod to it the error message reads you have already synced this to another computer and will not allow her to do that. Anyway are we missing something or is there a trick to make it do it or what?

Any help is appreciated

Thanks

Apple only allows a device to be synced up with one computer at a time. Trying to sync it with a subsequent computer will result in the message that your wife got... all it's saying is that iTunes will wipe the content off of the device that was synced from the first computer and sync it with the content of the second.

If your wife has the same content on both computers, go ahead and sync it with the computer that going to be generally more accessible.

Now, if, while you're in you home, some of the advanced features like home sharing might work for some devices (Apple TV or a different computer), it won't work with an iPod. iPad or iPhone... those devices can only play music that was synched to them, as far as I can tell. And even if it does work with those devices (don't think it will), when she leaves the range of your local wifi network, you will lose acces to the library. It MIGHT be possible to share the iTunes libraries across the network using the Home Sharing option and then sync the music from the laptop... but it's still going to be limited to syncing with a single computer - either the desktop or the laptop... or she will constantly be wiping/re-syncing every time she changes computer choices.

One option that may be work exploring is the iTunes Match, which basically allows you to pull individual music tracks down to your device from the cloud (music that you own/have previously synced with iCloud)... that'll cost you $25/year, but might be worth it.