Friday, December 26, 2014

iTunes 12 and iPhone sync: time to treat OS X like Windows XP (usbmuxd bug)

I’m having so many iTunes 12/iOS Device sync issues with the 7 devices I routinely sync to one iTunes instance, including the usbmuxd file descriptor close bug described by Kelly Wickerson and FdeBrouwer/Oskapt (remind me of a 10.6 bug), that I’m going into XP mode. I really don’t have much hope of Apple fixing their exploding universe of bugs, I think Cupertino imploded around the time Jobs decided to build a monster corporate headquarters.

XP mode means:

  • I’ve bought a six port Anker USB charger to reduce the number of times iOS devices interact with iTunes 12/Mavericks. Much of the time kids devices connect to our USB hub they’re simply charging (I have automatic sync turned off).
  • When I do sync devices, I use the iTunes eject button to remote them. Long ago we needed to do this with iPods. I’m hoping iTunes will close its usb file descriptors when I do this.
  • I’m now rebooting Mavericks nightly. I used to do that with Windows XP, and at this point Apple is roaring past XP into the quality levels of Windows ME. Nightly reboots are the latest hotness.

Update

I wrote about this post and measures taken in an Apple Discussion thread — nothing too harsh. Not only was my post removed, but when I tried a revised post to the thread I got this…

Screen Shot 2014 12 26 at 10 14 23 AM

Yes, banned from the thread. I’ve never seen that before. Apple’s skin is getting thinner.

1 comment:

Apple Fanboy Dude said...

Even MacWorld is catching on to the iTunes sync disaster. See their article:

"iTunes syncing is broken: Apple, please fix it"