Whatcha doin' there iPod?

December 13, 2010 9:36 AM

What is an iPod doing when it's syncing in these non-transferring instances?

Have an iPod, which is linked to iTunes on a home computer. Sometimes said iPod is brought to work, where it's plugged in to the work computer and iTunes is used to play music from the iPod. Yes, I could hook the iPod up to the speakers directly and bypass iTunes all together, but I like actively scrobbling what I'm currently playing to Last.fm and this only works when iTunes is on. I know the Last.fm scrobbler will post what I'm played if hook it up to my home computer later, but that's not a fun as actively scrobbling.

Anyway...when the iPod is connected to the work computer and iTunes is turned on, the program always says it's syncing. It'll do "sync" for a minute or two, which prevents me from using the iPod to do anything and then it'll stop syncing and return control of the iPod.

So, what is iTunes doing or syncing at these times? What's it reading, transferring, makes notes of and/or what kind of information is it sharing with Apple? If it matters, it's an iPod Touch.

Yes, there's an option to prevent automatic syncing, so I can turn this off. At the moment, I'm just curious, not paranoid, what's going on behind the scenes when iTunes is sycing with a device that it is not linked to.

posted by nomadicink to Computers & Internet (10 answers total)

It's probably backing up your current settings, checking automatic playlists for changes, updating play counts, things like that.
posted by Tomorrowful at 9:38 AM on December 13, 2010

Response by poster: If there's a link that describes what's going on, that would be great. I tried searching Google, but most of what comes up is stuff about problems with syncing, which I am not having. Also, if you could tell me the methodology and/or keywords you used to find the link, that would be great!
posted by nomadicink at 9:40 AM on December 13, 2010

An app like Little Snitch would tell you if it's been talking to Apple, though I doubt it. I suspect, along Tomorrowful's lines, that it's simply presenting enough information for iTunes to understand what it is. My laptop, for example, is not my primary sync machine, but it knows that my iPhone is still on 4.1 and offers me the option to update it.
posted by mkultra at 9:48 AM on December 13, 2010

Response by poster: Also, after the sync is complete, and I go play music by tapping the Music buttong, the app opens and the message "Updating Library...This may take a few minutes" appears. This message also prevents the iPod from being used.

Any ideas what's going on there, since I didn't transfer anything?
posted by nomadicink at 10:04 AM on December 13, 2010

One of the things synced during this is song metadata - this includes the play count of songs. So, if you've played a bunch of songs on the iPod or in iTunes, it will re-sync that metadata. Even if you don't have the music in iTunes on that system, it still syncs some data related to it.

That's probably the bulk of the transfers on otherwise passive connections.
posted by Rendus at 10:13 AM on December 13, 2010

I've noticed this too when I connect my iPod to my work computer, but it seems to me like it didn't always do this. Everything is unchecked in the syncing settings, except for the Nike + iPod sync, where there doesn't seem to be an option. Do you use Nike+ on yours?
posted by teg at 11:31 AM on December 13, 2010

I am by no means an Apple or iPod expert, though I have had my share of trouble and troubleshooting on both. One thing I noticed with my iPod Touch and the various computers that I plug it into is that it does the stuff you are talking about on its "home" computer, which also happens to always have last.fm active. It does a minor amount of sync/update on another computer, which I have always taken to be checking for version & updates, but that computer does not have last.fm installed and so it seems to release my iPod from sync rather quickly.

Could it be that syncing the iPod engine & last.fm takes some handshaking and time?
posted by beelzbubba at 12:31 PM on December 13, 2010

Response by poster: Do you use Nike+ on yours?

Nope, not an Nike + user.
posted by nomadicink at 12:33 PM on December 13, 2010

Piggyback question (because during the longer non-transferring sync-ups, I hope this is what's happening, but I doubt it's true) -- does/can an iPod defrag itself?
posted by Rash at 4:48 PM on December 13, 2010

Flash-based players like the iPhone and iTouch don't need to be defragged, since there's no disk head moving across a platter to access data; it's all more-or-less equally accessible wherever it's physically stored.

In fact, flash memory tends to use a technique called wear leveling, which intentionally spreads out data across the physical segments. Because each of those segments has a finite lifecycle based on a number of writes, spreading them out increases the life of your memory.

So, in sum: defragging your iPhone/iPod is not only unnecessary, but harmful.
posted by mkultra at 5:30 AM on December 14, 2010