Music Storage on iOS (Bug)

[jbruno]

Currently it appears that the music that is cached on iOS devices is stored somewhere in the phones app directories.

This is a poor design and makes backing up your iOS device super difficult.

I have about 15gb of music cached on my iphone and every time I back it up it copies that 15gb of music into the phones backup. I have to manually go in and delete old backups of my phone so my computer doesn't run out of space. It doesn't take more then a week or two before my mobile phone backups are in the 100 gb range.

The music should be stored in an alternate location that doesn't get backed up by iTunes.

[dcuellar]

Are you talking about iSub or Z-Subsonic?

[einsteinx2]

Currently it appears that the music that is cached on iOS devices is stored somewhere in the phones app directories.

This is a poor design and makes backing up your iOS device super difficult.

I have about 15gb of music cached on my iphone and every time I back it up it copies that 15gb of music into the phones backup. I have to manually go in and delete old backups of my phone so my computer doesn't run out of space. It doesn't take more then a week or two before my mobile phone backups are in the 100 gb range.

The music should be stored in an alternate location that doesn't get backed up by iTunes.

Unfortunately this is a design decision that Apple has made. iOS apps run in what's called a sandbox. They only have access to write to a special documents directory (there's one for each app). iTunes backs up all apps' documents directories.

While there is a special cache directory for each app that is not backed up by iTunes, it is not saved between app updates. So if I were to use that directory, every time you updated the app, you would lose your cache.

So the only options are: 1. keep cache between updates but also back it up, or 2. don't keep cache between updates but don't back it up. Unfortunately, neither of these are what we want.

(Assuming you're using iSub) If you're interested in having me create a setting that allows you to choose where to put your cache files, I can do that. Just keep in mind that you may lose your cache during each app update.

Also, there may be another option for you. Apple is about to fully launch iCloud with the new iOS 5 update. This will allow you to sync your iPhone with the cloud instead of with iTunes. You are able to disable specific apps from being backed up. So, if you start using iCloud to do your syncs, you can simply disable iSub from being backed up.

Files Saved During Application Updates
When a user downloads an application update, iTunes installs the update in a new application directory. It then moves the user’s data files from the old installation over to the new application directory before deleting the old installation. Files in the following directories are guaranteed to be preserved during the update process:

<Application_Home>/Documents
<Application_Home>/Library

Although files in other user directories may also be moved over, you should not rely on them being present after an update.