Steve,
I've had many a restore crisis here in our dual world of PC and Mac (which I'm slowly being drawn to over the past year like a moth to the flame!). We have 4 iPhones, 3 iPods, 1 iPad, 2 Macs, and 2 PC's.

Here's what I can confirm during either a PC or Mac restore:
1) anything that is on your PC or Mac since your last restore will be put back onto your iPhone/iPod/iPad. If you've made any changes on the Apple device since that restore, you'll lose that data.
2) You NEVER have to repay for any apps you've purchased; the iTunes Store keeps that info in their records. In fact, if I purchase an app on my Macbook Pro, I can go upstairs to my wife's PC, download that app for free, and install it on her iPhone. If it doesn't show up in iTunes, you can redownload it and it won't charge you for it, as long as you're logged into iTunes with the same login info as when you purchased the app.

What I am trying to do is to put an MP4 file on my iPad WITHOUT using iTunes.

Any tips would be appreciated.

Try sending the file to your email. Never tried it with an mp4, but it has worked for other file types.

Peter

The solution is not to give up on iTunes, but to put it in a mode where it doesn't sync your files. I love my iPad and I use it with iTunes, but when I want a video file on the iPad, I have it set where i just drag and drop the video file into the iPad directory using iTunes. It works well, but you have to set it that way. It defaults to a mode that trys to sync things, and like you, I hate that way of working.

You missed the point - when I plug in the iPad, iTunes says that it can't read the device and it (the iPad) needs to be restored.

Since it's primarily my wife's iPad, she has nixed the horror of the restore. We have had a history of grief with out iPods when they, almost predictably, insist that they need to be "restored" in order to connect.

My wife plays games on it and has a lot of unread email. When the "restore" feature warns that "All data will be erased", she took her iPad back.

It may be cheaper and safer for me to buy a used iPad 1 on eBay for my purposes that I can risk the iTunes nonsense.

"1) anything that is on your PC or Mac since your last restore will be put back onto your iPhone/iPod/iPad."

CClub (Real Name: (hidden))

James, I think -
What concerns me is the warning from iTunes right next to the "Restore" button that says "All data will be erased". This is my wife's iPad and she does not want to risk all of her gaming history. Further, I've seen nothing that assures us that all of the apps we've purchased directly through the app store, not through iTunes, would not have to be purchased again.

"BTW, isn't iTunes the worst, unfreindliest, vaguest, unintuitivest, application you've ever used ?"

And Windows 8 will come with a Windows App Store.

Install Dropbox on the PC and the iPad and synchronise from there?

I have many iPod's museum videoguides projects and that's always what i do for testing purposes.

You can also use filesApp or files free applications from Apple App store to do that.

No direct USB connexion, only wifi solutions, sorry...

Hope this help,

Bastien

Thanks for the tip-
I have Dropbox on the ipad, but unlike your PC, there is no local dropbox folder - everything is in the cloud. I want to be able to load demo videos ON my iPad and play them anywhere. If the facility has WiFi, then it's just a nuisance to log onto their network. 3G is simply too slow to show video from the cloud.

Steve, There is a $3.99 app for the iPad called FileBrowser. It will allow you to browse files on any Windows PC or Mac on your network and copy them. This is probably the easiest way to transfer files to/from your iPad if you can't use iTunes.

BTW, I can assure you that anything you purchase from, the Apple AppStore can be downloaded again free of charge to your iPad once restored. It keeps track of everything you purchased on that account. I've done this on my iPad 2.

I also would not restore the iPad because you will lose any data that is not backed up so your wife was right in taking her iPad back.

iTunes is possibly the worst engineered software I have ever had the displeasure to have used. There is no end to it forgetting your device and wanting to wipe it out. I had this problem with my iPad. My son had this problem on his computer with his iPhone and it wiped out all his contacts. Apple really needs to fix this problem.

~jr