iTunes 9.1 now has a space-saving checkbox when you plug in your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad.
When you select your device in iTunes, you'll see a new checkbox in the Options section that allows you to convert higher bit-rate songs to 128 kbps AAC.
When you select this box and sync your device, iTunes will automatically downsize the songs being sent to your device to 128 kbps. This is a smaller bit-rate, and therefore a smaller audio file will be uploaded to your device.
Of course, audiophiles will probably be scoffing at this checkbox because some may make the claim that higher bit-rates sound better. But, you can barely tell the difference in quality, especially with Apple's included earbuds. Plus, you can seriously save some space by doing this. We saved ~6 GBs by converting our 1,324 songs on our iPhone to 128 kbps. Now, we have plenty more room for those iPhone and iPad applications. Oh, and who can forget our Mythbusters subscription?
Before checking the magical box
After checking the magical box
Phil13
April 12, 2010 at 4:42pm
I have tried doing this several times since I discovered it, but the problem is that not only as previously stated that it takes forever to sync, but that it will not allow me to sync about 250 of my songs to my iphone. I went to the apple store to see if they could help me, but they had never heard of this problem happening. Does anyone know what is going on? This is getting really frustrating as I have very little space left on my phone.
mich8261
April 07, 2010 at 7:35am
seems ridiculous to have a 1GB+ file for a movie on a screen the size of the iPhone. It would be great if iTunes would automatically downsize video files to optimal format for iPhone.
giannid
April 06, 2010 at 4:07pm
I can't believe they didn't mention the time! I love this feature, and even sent multiple requests for it to Apple since I got my iPhone in 2009. BUT it took be about 10 hours for iTunes to completely sync. (Part of the problem was my phone kept ringing, stopping the sync...but not all of the problem.) Is this normal? Is this going to be every complete sync?
