Why does syncing with MacBook remove all iPhone apps?

[tuqqer]

When I sync my iPhone with my main Mac (a Mac Pro tower), any iPhone Apps that I've purchased get duplicated into my Mac Pro.

But when I sync with my MacBook, the syncing deletes (without asking me) every that I've installed on my iPhone. It also erases all my music and audiobooks.

Luckily, I can wait until I'm back at my Mac Pro and reload everything back on. But anyone know why it's doing that? I always thought "Sync" meant to match the two (the iPhone and Macbook), not delete stuff.

[Ken Sp.]

Officially you can only sync your iPhone/iPod to one computer. There are programs to get around this.

Although, you can connect your iPhone to any computer for photos, it is treated just like any digital camera.

[tuqqer]

Ken Sp. wrote:
Officially you can only sync your iPhone/iPod to one computer. There are programs to get around this.

Although, you can connect your iPhone to any computer for photos, it is treated just like any digital camera.

Holy moly, I had no idea:
http://lifehacker.com/5064933/sync-an-ip...-computers

I wonder why Apple did that.

[RAMd®d]

I wonder why Apple did that.

So people don't steal apps or music?

[thermarest]

Originally, to prevent the copying of music via ipod. Your mac is full of music, you put it on your ipod, take the ipod to your friends house, hook it up to his mac...

Same general idea with iPhone apps, movies & anything else. As mentioned above, there are plenty of programs to get around this. Look around at VersionTracker.

[tuqqer]

RAMd®d wrote:
I wonder why Apple did that.

So people don't steal apps or music?

I figured that, too, but I then thought that if music files can have copy protection, I would think that iPhone apps could have that as well.

Conversely, does this mean that you could hook your iPhone up to my main Mac, and download all my iPhone Apps without any problem ?

It's a moot point, because this is the way it is; I'm more just thinking how handy it would be to be able to backup and sync up to ones multiple Macs.

[tuqqer]

For those wanting a method for syncing their iPhone to multiple Macs, here'sa good thread, which I'll try out later today:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=546956

Still looking for some apps that do this.