Sharing your iTunes library with your new iPad

You may wonder what you’ll have to do with your Mac’s (or Window’s) library of music and video in iTunes.  You don’t have the luxury of stuffing them all into the new iPad’s limited storage capacity. You can’t hook up an external drive through the 30-pin port on the iPad and a USB adaptor. What do you do?

If you just want to play the music and videos in iTunes, then you use Home Sharing.  Start iTunes on your Mac and make sure you’ve set up Home Sharing. Go under the Advanced menu and click on “Turn on Home Sharing” You’ll need to enter your Apple ID, which you set up when you set up this Mac, and your password, which you also set up when you set up this Mac. Click on “Create Home Share” and you’re on your way. (Figure 1)

Now go to the Music app on your iPad and select “More”. (Figure 2) You want “Shared” Go there and you’ll see the music libraries you can tap into. As you see from Figure 3, I have two iTunes libraries worth of music. One from my Mac and one from my Wintel 7 machine. This solution works with protected music and videos with DRM.

For you advanced users; no, I could not get the Linux app forked-daapd to serve up music for the iPad Music application. I don’t know why. So for the time being, use a Mac or a Windows machine with iTunes to serve up tunes to your new iPad.

Now what about videos? If you downloaded a movie from iTunes to your Mac or Windows , how can you show it on your iPad? You don’t have to rip it, you just set up iTunes and Home Sharing. Now use the Videos app on your iPad. Go to More to select the Mac’s or Windows iTunes library. You’ll see your iTunes videos library divided into movies, TV shows, and music videos. (Figure 4)

One final tip: Sometimes your iPad won’t recognize the shared library. Relax, take a breath, and go back to your Mac or Windows machine.

Turn off Home Sharing, count to 10, and then restart it.

 Enter your Apple ID and password.  It’s the classic computer solution. If something doesn’t work, restart it.