Given my reputation as someone who knows a thing or two about computer troubleshooting, I am often asked by friends and colleagues to help out when trouble strikes their Macs or iPods. There is a particular distress call that I now get as often as once a month. Sadly (or happily, if you are reading this before the disaster strikes you), it is completely avoidable. Part of the reason it is not avoided is a failure by the user to take adequate precautions. But the other part is directly attributable to a failure on the part of Apple itself. Here’s the deal:
It starts out when the user is having such a serious problem with their computer that they decide they need to completely erase its hard drive and re-install the operating system. Not surprisingly, most of the people in this dilemma are PC users (Macs, I am happy to say, are much less prone to a problem that would require such a drastic remedy).
The next step occurs when, after getting their drive up and running again, the user realizes that they have now erased their entire iTunes Library and have no backup. This is the part that is entirely the user’s own fault. Of course, they should have made a backup long before the trouble hit. When I get this call, it makes me wonder about what other critical files they may have lost, but I usually don’t go there in my conversation. No point rubbing salt in an open wound.
The third step is when the user realizes that all (or most) of their library of songs are still on the iPod. “Great,” they reason, “I can just copy the stuff from the iPod back to my computer and all will be well again.” That’s when they discover the obstacle that Apple has put in their path. Apple provides no way for users to perform this operation. This is not an oversight on Apple’s part, but a deliberate decision. The reason? To prevent piracy—or at least to inhibit it.
The logic is: If you can copy files from your iPod to any computer, you could easily illegally transfer your music to another person’s computer. While there is a certain sense to this, the logic is ultimately flawed. First, I am confident that Apple could set it up so that copying files from an iPod back to a computer would only work if you are connected to the computer that was the origin of the iPod’s files. Sure, hackers would find a way around this. But hackers have found a way around the current restrictions anyway. So what’s the big deal? Second, even if you did copy files from an iPod to another computer, it would still not play the copy-protected files downloaded from the iTunes Store, unless the computer was one of the machines authorized on your account. In fact, starting with iTunes 7, you can transfer songs purchased from iTunes to another authorized computer (as detailed here). You just can’t copy the rest of your music. My guess is that Apple would be happy to eliminate this restriction altogether, but that the music industry folks insist that it stay in place (despite how ridiculous it is).
Anyway, back to my friends in crisis. When they discover that Apple has put this roadblock in the path to music recovery, one of two things happen.
In the “happy ending” scenario, they immediately call me. I inform them that there are many third-party utilities, for both Mac and PC, that can accomplish the desired task (just go to VersionTracker and search for “copy iPod” to see what I mean). They download one of these utilities, do the transfer, and all is well again.
In the “sad ending” scenario, they connect their iPod to their computer, iTunes launches and presents them with a message that innocently asks if they are sure that they want to sync the iPod with their computer, adding that, if they choose to sync, “All existing content on the iPod will be replaced with the content from your iTunes library.” In the haze of their anxiety over having potentially lost their music, and because the serious implications of the message are not emphasized nearly as much as they should be, they click the OK button.
What happens next, you probably already know. The contents of the iPod, with all its songs, are replaced by the contents of the presently empty iTunes Library on their computer. In other words, rather than repopulating iTunes with their missing songs (what the user hoped and mistakenly expected would happen), they now have erased their iPod as well. The final result is that their songs are now completely gone, from both iPod and computer, and beyond any reasonable hope of recovery by any means.
When friends call me at this point, I have little to offer but condolences (and, when they have calmed down enough to listen, the gentle suggestion that they maintain backups in the future).
Considering how many times I have have been called to deal with this disaster, I have to assume it is not a rare one. The good news is that it has an easy fix, even for people who did not back up their files. But it requires that Apple implement the fix. Ideally, Apple should allow iPod-to-computer transfers, as I described above. If Apple can’t get the music industry to swallow this, Apple should at least provide a much clearer, in ALL CAPS, warning about the consequences of clicking OK to that dangerous iTunes message—perhaps even having a second message pop up before the erasure takes place saying “Are you REALLY sure you want to do this?” and explaining the consequences again. Doing so, would save a lot of people from a lot of heartache. Please Apple, step in and do something to help out here.