Conflicts

If you use only one machine at a time, you'll never have conflicts. You'll never change your dentist appointment to 3:00 p.m. on the iPhone, but change it to 4:00 p.m. on your computer, between syncs. Or you'd never edit a phone number in Contacts simultaneously in two different ways on the two different machines. One machine would always be the "hot potato."

In the real world, though, conflicts occasionally happen. Fortunately, iTunes is pretty smart about handling them. If it discovers that, since the last sync, you've edited a single phone number or appointment in two different ways (one each on the iPhone and your computer), it lets you know with a message box.

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Note

If you edit two different phone numbers on a single person's card—like a cellphone number on the PC, and a fax number on the iPhone—that doesn't count as a conflict. Both machines will inherit both phone numbers.

iTunes considers it a conflict, and asks you to settle it, only when two changes were made to the same phone number.

You're offered two buttons:

  • Review Later. This button actually means, "the computer's version wins for now. I'll ask you again the next time you sync."

  • Review Now. You're shown the two changes, side-by-side, in a window. Click the one you think seems more authoritative; that's the one that will wind up prevailing on both machines. Then click Done.

Of course, the computer has to sync one more ...

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