As a U.S. consumer of goods, I’ve always been very peeved at the fact that my iPod or iPhones in general cannot sync with multiple computers. How come all of my generic MP3 players can sync with multiple PCs while my iPod simply sucks at doing that?
I know, I know, Steve Jobs is evil and he implements anything to make money but what the heck, I have 3 desktop computers and 3 laptops!
Well, don’t fuss about it as there’s a solution for this using some simple HEX hacks.
It’s time that someone thought of this, they should really implement this on iTunes, although they’d probably make less money. I just think this stupid “feature” of not being able to sync on multiple computers is really, really, really idiotic and only serves purpose to make Apple richer while consumers suffer the consequences of deleting every music on their iPod whenever they moved to a new PC.
Without any further delay, here’s how to do it. (and screw you Steve Jobs, but the new MacBooks are cool though. :p )
On the machine your iPhone currently syncs with, open “iTunes Music Library.xml” with a text editor and find the entry between the <string></string> tags, after “Library Persistent ID”. In the example below this is 8B6C633F7DACB74B. Copy this entry exactly to a piece of paper, email, temporary file etc. You can then close this file.
iTunes stores your library information in two places. An XML file and a binary file. You now need to change the ID in both so they match your other library.
Make sure iTunes is not running.
On the machine you want to sync with open “iTunes Music Library.xml” in a text editor. Again, find the entry between the <string></string> tags after “Library Persistent ID” and copy this entry exactly. This time you can use the clipboard if you wish.
When you have a copy, replace this entry with the one you copied in part 1. Make sure you do not change anything else, and the length of the entry is 16 characters/digits. Save this file and close it.
In the Hex Editor, open “iTunes Music Library” (Tunes Music Library.itl on PC).
Select “Find and Replace” from the Edit menu. Make sure “Hex” matching is selected (not ASCII). In “Find” enter the ID you took a note of in Part 1. In Replace, enter the ID you copied at the start of Part 2. Choose Replace All, there should be one match.
Save this file and close it.
Start iTunes on the machine you wish to sync with and plug in your iPhone. When you select “Manually manage music and videos” you will no longer be prompted to erase your data, nor will the files on your iPhone be grayed out.
via hackszine, andrewgrant
