Apple has come a long way since the days of the Macintosh Apple II, but it seems in their effort to keep all store purchases secure and "un-pirateable" they've also made their users lives a living nightmare.
iTunes is probably the most hated piece of software out there that isn't a virus, or malware (Well... technically speaking). It makes seemingly simple tasks incredibly complex. And things like recovering your library after a PC crash become almost impossible.
Its less offensive now, but a few years ago, it would seem iTunes updates would show up every couple of days, but were close to 100MB in size. That's not an update, that's the whole damn software to be downloaded every couple of days. Now it seems to have cut back on the frequent updates a little. And also reduced the size a tiny bit too. But still at an average 70 or 80MB a pop it still kind of annoying.
Still since there is no alternative to manage your iDevices, were stuck with it, so here are some tips to keep iTunes under control or at least make it a little less aggravating.
# 1. Consolidate
Consolidation is one of the few things that can aid in maintaining control of your library. If you have music strewn about all over your hard drive or in different hard drives, it makes it very hard to manage, and recover should something go wrong. Consolidating makes iTunes copy all music, videos and playlists to a single location for it to manage.
Go to File->Library->Organize Library and tick the Consolidate check box to make iTunes put everything inside the iTunes library folder.
# 2. Weed Out
We all like to have all our content at our finger tips, but there comes a time when you need to do some spring cleaning, and remove things you no longer need. Clearly 3 moth old Podcasts you downloaded from a website devoted to onion chopping that you've been to only once may not be relevant any more. Remove them not only to free up space the limited storage on your device, but also to make maintenance of your library a little easier.
I've had to backup iTunes libraries for clients that are in the 100's of GB but most of the space is taken up by old podcasts or video files they haven't watched or heard in years. While keeping your video and music library for posterity is always good, there are somethings that are just not worth the space they take up. Things like podcasts and other time relevant content like news casts etc..., can be erased. With iCloud you can still re-download the content should you need to in the future.
# 3. Keep a single Apple ID.
Yes as annoying as it sounds, the best practice is to keep a single Apple ID. Why because you can never merge the extra accounts, and you'll have content in one you won't in the other. It also makes it hard to keep a functional consolidated library if content is strewn about in several accounts. I'm a victim of this myself, I have 2 accounts. The problem used to be you could not download content from a country specific store while in another country. This seems to have changed, as I can now download content from the American store while abroad. So I keep only my american account. But when I used to travel, I had to use a local account to be able to download things. Sadly there's no way to merge account purchases. So my purchases in the other account have had to remain there. As of this writing there is still no way to merge Apple ID's from different countries which is very very annoying for many, many people. It becomes more irritating when you realize content in certain country stores is really bad, and you still have to resort to an american store to download.
I would suggest to keep an american account for pretty much everything. It does not affect your carrier fees, or local country data whatsoever, but does it make it easier to manage content, and get the most up to date content.
# 4. Backup.
This is the most important point. Backup your iDevice regularly to your iTunes library, and backup the iTunes library as well.
Backing up your iDevice also downloads your Camera Roll. Which otherwise does not get synchronized in iTunes. So its important if you wish to have your photos saved.
Backing up your library is also a must, as it will let you restore to any iDevice should the need arise. Backing up the entirety of the library folder whether on a Mac or PC, will preserve everything stored in your library and synced, as well as your iDevice backups. Which contain other things not synchronized to the Library like the camera roll.
Should your computer hard drive die, having a backup of your library handy, and up to date and a current backup of your iDevice should reduce headaches to a minimum.
And remember, there's no way to restore your library from your device. Though there are some applications out there that claim to do it, but almost all of them cost, and I don't know if they are any good.
