It's a carryover from the iPod days. You can thank the music industry's DRM for this.
this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2025
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That sounds credible because the message is so vague, it’s as if it was written for a single-purpose device.
It makes more sense when you think of how syncing music worked for iPods.
Music went from your PC to the iPod, and that was the only way. You're syncing your iPod with your PC to make your iPod match your PC. The iPod touch came out and let you download music on the device, but when you went to sync to make the data match you gotta make it match. Either copy the data to your PC, or delete it from the iPod.
…iTunes Store stuff maybe? If they are purchased, and thus attached to your account, you shouldn't be able to permanently lose those items anyhow.
Could be. If the items are still downloadable, I wonder why they want them on both devices or neither. I’m so confused.
This is the sync workflow that iPhones used to start with, right? The one that you used to use iTunes for at first, then Finder later.
I mean, it's sync. Having the same state on both sides after a transaction is pretty much the name of the game.
But these days purchases show up on both devices whether they’re downloaded or not. There’s a little cloud or arrow symbol beside them if I want to download them (eg Apple Music). So it’s confusing that there’s a separate policy that insist on both devices having the same content.
But I see in macOS Finder, when I navigate to my device there’s a checkbox enabled labelled “Sync music onto iPhone”. So maybe this is why (and I likely set that myself, I rarely ever connect my phone these days).
@FarraigePlaisteach It's a money thing. This way half the people forget how it works or even that they have the content already and then they might buy it again.
If you try to purchase something from the App Store or iTunes Store that you already own, you get a download button instead of a buy button.
What the fuck. I hope I never see this. I will start swearing like a sailor.
I know. It’s like “Would you like to be shot? (If you choose not to be shot, you will be hung)”.
I get that message when I'm turning off iCloud stuff. It's basically making sure I know I'm deleting whatever was being shared in iCloud off my phone. Since that's what I do want, I say yes and it goes about its business.
I’m familiar with that one too, yes.