Tips for installing iOS 4

Are you still having trouble trying to upgrade your iPhone or iPod Touch to Apple's new iOS 4? If so, here's a workaround that could help.

Trouble upgrading to iOS 4?

(Credit: James Martin/CNET)

After Apple released iOS 4 on June 21, a small but significant number of folks anxious to upgrade started reporting various issues from long download times to error messages to backups that never seemed to finish. In my corner, I tried several times to update my iPod Touch 2G by following the standard steps, but without any success.

Each time I triggered the update, the software would start to back up my device only to run for hours and hours without making much, if any, progress. I even kept the backup running for more than seven hours one night to find in the morning that it was stuck at virtually the same place.

Some people reported backups or downloads that took hours but finally did finish, while others have bumped into specific errors that prevented the update from running.

In preparation, Apple did release a support document in early May to anticipate and respond to many of the possible errors. But on my end, I found that running a restore and update instead of a direct update was the only fix that worked. Hopefully, following the steps below may help some of you who already tried to install iOS 4 but have experienced issues similar to mine.

1. Make sure you've upgraded iTunes to 9.2 to be ready for iOS 4.
2. After connecting your iPhone or iPod Touch, right-click on the name of your device in iTunes and select Back Up to make sure all your apps and data are fully backed up.
3. After the backup completes, click on the Restore button in iTunes. You'll see the warning message asking if you're sure you want to restore your device to its factory settings. Go ahead with the restore, which will refresh your device back to its original state and then update your firmware to iOS 4.
4. After the restore completes, check your iPhone or iPod Touch to confirm that iOS 4 installed. Click on the Settings icon, select the General category, and then select About. The version should say 4.0.
5. Now you can restore all your apps and data from the earlier backup. To do that, right-click on your device in iTunes, select Restore from Backup, and then choose your recent backup. This should put back all of your apps, though you'll need to manually copy any data that you don't sync automatically. For example, I always manually copy music from iTunes to my iPod Touch since I don't want my entire library to transfer. After the restore, I had to recopy all the tracks that were initially on my device. But otherwise, all my apps and other data were just as I had left them.

You can read more about this process from some of the sources that I double-checked, including CultofMac and the Unofficial Apple Web Log.

I did find a few alternative methods for performing the upgrade if the traditional steps fail. One option suggested downloading iOS 4 directly and then clicking on the Update button while holding the Shift key in Windows or the Option key on a Mac. This lets you upgrade directly without going through the entire restore process.

But doing the restore and update worked for me, so it's something you might want to try if you still can't get that pesky iOS 4 upgrade to run.

How to display your iPad on an external monitor

How to display your iPad on an external monitor

In this video, CNET editor Brian Cooley shows you how to display your iPad's screen on an external monitor.

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How to make the most of your MacBook

Make the most of your MacBook

Trying to justify spending money on a MacBook when you could have bought a cheaper Windows laptop? Take a peek at these five handy tips for Mac OS X.

How to set up your new MacBook

Set up your new MacBook

Because Apple computers are so intuitive, you may be overlooking some simple but helpful settings. A few tweaks to your security settings, dock, Finder, and keyboard are really all it takes to make your MacBook even easier to use than it already is.

If you're a first-time MacBook owner, this how-to will introduce you to your computer's security settings and help you enable a few of your Mac's most useful features.

So before you say, "Hey, there's no right-click on MacBooks?!" walk through the following tips:

Rev up security settings. Go to System Preferences > Accounts > Login Options. Disable automatic log-in so that a password will be required on start-up or wake-up. Back at System Preferences, head to Security and check "Log out after" your desired duration of inactivity.

Customize the dock. Right-click the divider line and select Position on screen > Left. To remove unused applications, right-click the program and select Remove from Dock. Add folders or drives by dragging them to the dock. Tip: Right-clicking an open application on the dock will give you access to options, like switching playlists or repeating a song in iTunes.

Tweak the Finder. Add shortcuts to the sidebar by dragging folders like Documents, Pictures, or your Drop Box. Individual files can also be added. To customize the Finder toolbar, right-click it and select Customize Toolbar. Drag and drop buttons for easier navigation.

Activate hot corners. Go to System Preferences > Expose and Spaces > Expose. Use the drop-down menus to select actions for mousing over corners of your screen.

Enable right-click and tab. To switch on right-click, head to System Preferences > Trackpad and check "Secondary click" under the One Finger options. To use the Tab key to navigate in areas like dialog boxes and forms, go to System Preferences > Keyboard and Mouse > Keyboard Shortcuts and select the radio button next to "All Controls" (at the bottom).

How to transfer music from an iPod to your computer

Transfer music from an iPod to your computer

Most of us store music in two places: on our computer and on our iPod(or other MP3 player). But if your computer crashes indefinitely, all the music you (hopefully) purchased disappears along with it. So what's left? A handicapped iPod, as Apple restricts its gadgets to sync with one music library--any attempts to sync with a different computer will result in a deleted iPod.

Naturally, there's a workaround. If you'd like to safely move songs from your iPod (except the iPod Touch) to any computer, follow these steps:

How to transfer music from an iPod to a Mac
Step 1: Connect your iPod and launch iTunes. In the iPod management screen, scroll down to Options and check "Enable disk use." iTunes will give you a warning--select OK.

Step 2: Now your iPod will show up as a drive on your Desktop. But before you can access its files, download and install a program called Houdini. Houdini lets you view the music folder that's automatically hidden by Apple.

Step 3: Open Houdini, click "Folders," and then "Reveal." Locate your iPod, and open "iPod_controls." Highlight "Music," and press Choose.

Step 4: Now in your iPod folder, open iPod_Controls > Music. Highlight all of the folders and drag them into the desired folder on your hard drive. This might take a while, depending on how much music you're transferring.

Once the files are copied, you've successfully transferred the music. However, you'll notice that the songs have four-letter names and are scattered among many folders. It's OK. Once you import the music into iTunes (or any other media player), the program will reinstate the titles of the songs.

How to transfer music to an iPod to a Windows computer
Step 1: Connect your iPod and launch iTunes. In the iPod management screen, scroll down to Options and check "Enable disk use." iTunes will give you a warning--select OK.

Note: If you get an error message asking you to reformat upon connecting, your iPod was originally formatted for Mac and cannot be used in Windows. One workaround is to install a program like MacDrive, which will allow your Windows machine to read Mac-formatted drives. Clicking "reformat" will erase your iPod.

Step 2: Now open My Computer and open your iPod drive.

Step 3: Open Tools > Folder Options. Click the View tab and check "Show hidden files and folders."

Step 4: Now in your iPod folder, open iPod_Controls > Music. Highlight all of the folders and drag them into the desired folder on your hard drive. This might take a while, depending on how much music you're transferring.

Step 5: Highlight all of the folders again, right-click, and select Properties. Uncheck "Hidden." Close this window.

Once the files are copied, you've successfully transferred the music. However, you'll notice that the songs have four-letter names and are scattered among many folders. It's OK. Once you import the music into iTunes (or any other media player), the program will reinstate the titles of the songs.

How to upgrade a Mac's hard drive

There are a couple of reasons--besides replacing a broken drive--why you might consider swapping out your Mac's hard drive. One is to increase your available storage capacity, and another is to better the performance of your drive. While most Macs ship with 500GB to 1TB drives that should be adequate for most home purposes, you can now get up to 3TB of data on a single drive, and the standard 7,200rpm mechanical drive crawls in comparison to the performance of some SSD drives these days.

Generally if you are just looking to increase the storage capacity of your drive, my initial recommendation is to consider other options for managing your data. Unless your installed programs and operating system are filling up your drive, you can likely migrate your movies, music, and other large media to an external volume to free up space on your boot drive without going through the hassle of replacing it. There are numerous high-capacity external storage options available, including expandable USB and FireWire RAID arrays that can accommodate up to numerous terabytes of storage.

If on the other hand you are looking to increase the speed of your drive, then the only way to do this is to replace the drive with a different technology such as an SSD or hybrid drive.

Before replacing your drive, first determine if your system has a user-serviceable drive. Some Macs such as the Mac Pro desktops and 15-inch and 13-inch unibody MacBook Pro systems have drives that are easy to access, but other Mac systems have the hard drive buried deep in the chassis and require delicate removal of parts to access them. You can look up the procedure for accessing your Mac's hard drive on sites like iFixIt, or Apple's Support Web page.

Another thing you will need before starting is to have your replacement drive available, and then you can use following procedure to clone your current OS installation to your new drive and then swap out the drives:

1. Attach new drive to computer: Get a USB or FireWire drive enclosure (e.g., theMurcury Elite or Mercury On-The-Go) that is compatible with your drive, or a drive adapter cable (such as the NewerTech Drive Adapter) that can attach to your new hard drive, and then use this to attach the drive to your computer. If you use an enclosure you can use it to turn your old drive into a handy external drive, but if you do not wish to do this then the cheaper option will be to use an adapter cable. Once the drive is attached to the system it will mount, and you can then use Disk Utility to partition and format it.
   Do you have a Mac Pro? If your system has multiple drive bays and one bay is available, then you can use that bay to manage the new drive instead of using an enclosure or adapter cable.
   As an optional step you can zero out data on the new drive using Disk Utility, which will help detect and replace bad blocks and ensure the entire surface of the drive is readable. Advanced drive maintenance tools like Drive Genius may have more in-depth routines for "breaking in" drives in this manner, but a simple zeroing out of the data should suffice for the most part. Keep in mind that if you are upgrading to an SSD drive then you should avoid zeroing out the data, as this can degrade performance especially in systems that do not support TRIM and other SSD garbage-collecting options (this will depend on the combination of the drive's firmware capabilities and the Mac you are using).
2. Clone system to new drive: With the new drive attached and mounted on your Mac, use a cloning utility to make a mirror copy of your old disk to the new one. Reputable cloning tools include Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper, but if you cannot get these programs you can also use Disk Utility. In Disk Utility, select the old boot drive in the drive list and click the "Restore" tab. Then drag the destination volume (the new disk) to the "Destination" field and click "Restore."
3. Replace internal drive with cloned drive: Once the cloning procedure is done, unmount and disconnect the new drive from the system, and then shut down your system. Using the instructions for your Mac, open the system and replace the old drive with the new one.
   If you have a system with multiple drive bays, then once cloning is finished you only need to shut the system down and remove the old drive, or you can just reboot the system to start using the new drive and format the old disk to use for other purposes.
4. Run general maintenance routine: After the system has booted successfully to the new drive, running a general maintenance routine on the system is a recommended step that will ensure all hardware settings, caches, and other temporary items are rebuilt fresh with the new hardware installed. In addition to running a maintenance routine, ensure the new drive is selected as your boot drive in the Startup Disk system preferences, which may prevent delays at start-up while the system searches for an available boot volume.

Overall this procedure will work on any system to upgrade or migrate a single volume. You can use it to upgrade storage drives, external drives, and even use it to migrate individual RAID volumes to a volume on a single disk or another RAID array.

For newer systems or those still covered by AppleCare, keep in mind that while this procedure will work, unless your system has a user-serviceable hard drive then you may void your AppleCare warranty by opening the computer chassis. Be sure to contact AppleCare to discuss your options before attempting to do this yourself.

iCloud, iTunes Match: Your questions answered

When Steve Jobs announced iCloud last week at WWDC in San Francisco, he left us all asking questions about how exactly the product will function.

The books, apps, and music (U.S. only) components of iCloud are already available, but since the full product will only launch in September, Apple won't provide any support until then.

Below are your questions from throughout CNET, including e-mails, Twitter, and Facebook. Apple will offer complete details in September, but here's what we know so far.

iCloud

Q: Can I use iCloud as a backup service for my music if my computer crashes?
A: If you set up your new computer with the same iTunes account you used to purchase your music, then yes, you can redownload all of your tracks. However, this only takes care of music you purchased from iTunes. If you have a digital library of ripped music, you should also sign up for iTunes Match when it becomes available, as it will allow you to "back up" up to 20,000 non-iTunes music files to the cloud. iTunes Match will cost $24.99 for a yearlong subscription.

Q: Is there a Web site to access iCloud? Where can I see all my files?
A: As far as we know, the only way to access iCloud is through your Apple devices and computers. Although there isn't a Web site for your content, your iCloud "hub" can be found by going to iTunes > iTunes Store > Purchased.

Q: Is iCloud available outside the U.S.?
A: Sort of. Right now, U.K. users can already use iCloud for apps and books, and will receive the rest of the services (like mail, contacts, and photos) in September, alongside U.S. subscribers. However, music is a little more complicated. According to The Telegraph, Apple is in very early talks with the PRS (Performing Right Society, like the British version of America's RIAA), and iCloud music probably won't arrive in the U.K. until the first quarter of 2012.

Q: Will I be able to sync music I ripped from a CD or downloaded elsewhere to iCloud?
A: Yes. For $25 a year, iTunes Match will upload up to 20,000 ripped songs to iCloud. If the songs you're uploading are available in iTunes, Apple will upgrade your tracks to 256KBps bit rate, AAC, DRM-free quality.

Q: Is there any streaming whatsoever with iCloud?
A: No, and this is the key difference between iCloud and Amazon Cloud Player or Google Music. When you access music from your iCloud locker on a device, you'll need to download each song before playing (which hogs storage on your device.)

Q: Will iCloud sync podcasts and their played status?
A: Apple hasn't said anything about podcasts yet. Ideally, iCloud would allow you to enable automatic podcast downloading, and notify you when new episodes become available. Resuming paused podcasts on different devices would be convenient, but we'll have to see what Apple offers in September. It's possible Apple might adopt these features, since it's offering a similar "resume" feature with books and magazines in its Newsstand app.

Q: Can other people access the iCloud, or just me? Do all of the devices I use with iCloud have to be authorized under one user account? 
A: If you'd like to share your "cloud" with friends and family, each participant will need to use a single iTunes account. So, yes, it's possible. However, all devices would have to be under the same account, supported by the same credit card. That being said, everyone in that "cloud" would be able to access each other's purchases and content.

Q: What security or encryption will iCloud provide to secure our files? 
A: Apple's level of encryption for iCloud is unclear. CEO Steve Jobs briefly mentioned that file transfers will be encrypted, but he divulged no details about encrypting stored files. After its location data fiasco, we hope Apple improves security with iCloud.

iTunes Match

Q: What happens to your music if you don't pay the $25 iTunes Match fee after the first year? 
A: If you cancel iTunes Match, your purchased iTunes music will still be available, but matched (ripped) music will no longer be in your cloud. Instead, you'll need to store songs locally on your hard drive.

Q: Will my lossless music be preserved with iTunes Match?  
A: If your lossless music can be matched, it will be redownloaded on other devices in the 256KBps AAC format. Unmatched tracks (songs not in the iTunes Store) will be uploaded in their original format, preserving the lossless quality. In any case, the original file in your computer's iTunes library will be left unchanged.

Mobile Me

Q: I'm a MobileMe subscriber. What will happen to my account?
A: Apple recently e-mailed all MobileMe subscribers, informing them that all accounts will be extended, for free, until June 2012. At that time, MobileMe will cease to exist and users will need to shift to iCloud.

Q: I have different iTunes and MobileMe accounts. Will I be able to merge them?
A: This is a tough question asked by many people who are nervous about choosing between their MobileMe account and iTunes purchases. All we can say for now is to be patient. Apple will likely provide a (somewhat) easy transition from MobileMe to iCloud, but you'll have to wait until September to find out. For now, don't change anything--continue using your current iTunes account to make purchases.