Moving an iPhone from a PC to a Mac: how difficult?!?

Posted on June 30, 2010 by Shaun

I picked up a shiny new Mac Mini today and so far am very impressed with it, but I have run into a problem which I never expected. It seems that moving an iPhone from a PC to a Mac is incredibly difficult and despite over an hour of searching the web have yet to find an answer that ensure that my apps, data, music and videos are carried over as they are now.

The Mac Mini wants to wipe my iPhone because it is currently synced to another library and I still cannot see how to move everything from my PC to the Mac. If I ignore the fact that Apple should have made this process a lot easier (does it not want people to move to Macs?) I would appreciate ANY help you can offer!!! Please use the comments link if you have been through this problem and found a solution.

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9 Responses to Moving an iPhone from a PC to a Mac: how difficult?!?

  3. Shaun says:
    June 30, 2010 at 8:52 pm

    Thanks Murray- my concern is that these seem to talk about music, playlists and little else. Concerned about apps, my data and other stuff as well.

  4. Austin says:
    June 30, 2010 at 8:56 pm

    Last two posts on this page:

    http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=526316&page=2

    Also, you could try the genius bar in the local Apple Store?

  5. Philippa says:
    June 30, 2010 at 9:31 pm

    I’m sure I’ve done this, by copying my itunes library in full, setting my iPhone not to initially sync or transfer, but doing a back up then syncing. I’m sorry I really can’t remember all the details though.

  7. Sid says:
    July 1, 2010 at 8:57 am

    I’m considering the same move Shaun. How is the MacMini?

  8. Shaun says:
    July 1, 2010 at 9:02 am

    Not bad at all. Will write something up about the experience for 247 tomorrow- haven’t got anything done for tomorrow yet:)

  9. bobbd says:
    July 1, 2010 at 1:47 pm

    Shaun, if this is your first Mac, welcome to the Mac. I went through the same switch (Windows to Mac plus the iPhone switch) a year ago. I’m now a Mac “bigot” or “snob” as the case may be. I haven’t opened my Windows laptop in a few months now. The last bit was using QuickTax to do income taxes. Next year I’ll probably use Taxfreeway. And I’ve switched from Quicken running under Crossover to MoneyDance.

    I’m glad you got things moved. I can’t remember how I did it but it wasn’t that simple. Luckily my data was backed up elsewhere so I didn’t lose anything. And you’re right. You’d think Apple would have an obvious section about this in their Mac 101 on switching to a Mac.

    Bob