Where is option to have side bar in iTunes 12 ?

I had the same problem with my ipad and it took some time to understand it. Your device icon "should" appear in top menu bar to the right of the 3 dots. But if you have 'Find My Phone' enabled on your device, you apparently need to disable it, so that your device can communicate with your computer. Hope this helps.

Some sidebar issues that are affecting me - my iPhone is not showing up in the sidebar, even when I click on playlists as suggested. Nor can I sync with it, either through the sidebar or through the devices drop down menu.

On another thread in this discussion... going back to version 11 just seems too complicated and also as previous contributors have said, this will just mean that in the long run some options become unavailable.

Kibuyu wrote:

I had the same problem with my ipad and it took some time to understand it. Your device icon "should" appear in top menu bar to the right of the 3 dots. But if you have 'Find My Phone' enabled on your device, you apparently need to disable it, so that your device can communicate with your computer. Hope this helps.

FWIW, I do have Find My iPhone enabled on my iPhone 5S & it does appear to the right of the ••• icon in the toolbar, usually after a short delay after launching iTunes 12. Occasionally, for reasons I don't understand, if I do not have the iPhone connected to my Mac via a USB cable & I'm trying to connect to it over WiFi, I have to wake the phone for it to appear, but usually that isn't necessary.

If it is connected via the USB cable, it always appears, whether awake or asleep.

Simanowitz wrote:

Some sidebar issues that are affecting me - my iPhone is not showing up in the sidebar, even when I click on playlists as suggested. Nor can I sync with it, either through the sidebar or through the devices drop down menu.

When detected, your iPhone should show up as a small icon to the right of the ••• icon, like this:

It should appear there regardless of what view or media type you select. (If you have an iPad or an iPad & an iPhone the icon will look slightly different, but still appear in that location.)

If it isn't appearing, first try connecting it to your computer with a USB cable. Make sure your iPhone is not turned off (sleeping is OK.) It should appear there, possibly after a short delay of a few seconds. If not, there is something wrong with either the iPhone or the copy of iTunes installed on your computer.

But assuming it does appear, click on that icon. (It doesn't matter what view or media type you are using.) What should happen is the sidebar should appear automatically, with the iPhone listed at the top of the sidebar. Below that a "Settings" section should appear with the "Summary" item initially selected, something like this:

At the bottom of the summary section in the main section of the iTunes window, there should be a checkbox in the "Options" section that says, "Sync with this iPhone over WiFi." If you want to be able to sync with the iPhone wirelessly, this option must be checked.

Thanks to r C-R and Kibuyu - appreciate you both trying to assist. I have disabled find my phone and my iPhone 5S is connected by a USB. The icon is still not appearing. I suppose it is possible that there is something wrong with my machine but the odd thing is that iPhoto immediately recognises my phone. Do either of you, or anyone else in this fabulous apple support community that I am just discovering, have any other suggestions?

By the way, none of the other items that should be in the sidebar summary are appearing either. All I can see are playlists and music library.

NA

Apple should just sell out to Microsoft, their software looks the same and just as lame... I really don't want Apple determining the how I use iTunes, taking away functionality is not a good way to keep happy customers and win new customers. They have failed big time, not only with iTunes but Yosemite as well, flat no innovation and no distinction between MS and Apple at this point. Seems more energy was placed into CLOUD services than anything else, it is easier to provide HIGH dollar access to our data if stored it in the clouds...

Now to make this even better, when I connect my iPod ( I use as a music player in my car) I am informed I must restore, when i try to restore it fails. Nothing like releasing ALPA code to the public.

Steve Jobs took any innovation and simplicity of design and ease of enduser usage with him.. Mr Cook and new engineering staff have no clue.

Simanowitz wrote:

I suppose it is possible that there is something wrong with my machine but the odd thing is that iPhoto immediately recognises my phone. Do either of you, or anyone else in this fabulous apple support community that I am just discovering, have any other suggestions?

If iPhoto recognizes the phone then we can assume the cable, interface, & such are OK. The only easy thing I can think of to check is if in iTunes > Preferences > Devices the "Prevent iPods, iPhones, and iPads from syncing automatically" item is checked. I don't know if that would prevent the iPhone from showing up, but if it is checked you might try unchecking it to see if that makes any difference.

Bob_H wrote:

Apple should just sell out to Microsoft...

Hmmm. AAPL's current market cap is about $480B. MSFT's is about $408B. (They are respectively the first & second most valuable corporations in the world.)

There is no way either one could buy out the other.

You may have a point.

I had to edit the host file and comment out the line "gs.apple.com"

Error 3194, Error 17, or "This device isn't eligible for the requested build" - Apple Support

Even doing that I still had to restore the iPod and reload all the music... makes no sense.

back up and limping, the missing side bar is a reckless change, and should be rectified as soon as possible. I did leave feedback comment, if enough people left feedback Apple may restore past functionality.

However I will remain annoyed that MS and Apple look the same these days... Flat, lifeless and locked down, to prevent users from actually using the devices they purchased. May be a great time to evaluate other alternatives... When one door closes another surprisingly opens.

"... However I will remain annoyed that MS and Apple look the same these days... Flat, lifeless and locked down, to prevent users from actually using the devices they purchased. May be a great time to evaluate other alternatives... When one door closes another surprisingly opens..."

Not to digress too much, but we have a disabled family member who uses a $12,000 eye-controlled ACC computer. We got him an iPad which works for him pretty well in Accessibility Mode and is about 5% of the cost.

Only problem is that Apple, for reasons which totally escape me, make it impossible to use a mouse on the iPad. The family doesn't want to jailbreak the iPad which leaves him reliant on the expensive and clunky ACC machine. Feedback to Apple remains unanswered.

All this to say that maybe Apple should take the team that ***** around with iTunes functionality and put them to work allowing a mouse on iPads.

iTunes 12 is total garbage. It is simply unbelievable that with each release, the experience gets worse on each Apple device. I guess it was Jobs who had the pragmatism to realize what works and doesn't mainly that simplicity should be the key component of each design. Now it is just a muddled, that adds 4-6 steps when 1-2 would suffice. Just awful.

Since the 'upgrade' to v12 my imac will not sync wirelessly with either my iphone or ipad. It used to like a dream, like most things in v11 it was straight forward and uncomplicated.

V12 is dreadful. Feedback left for apple, i'm sure it was trashed before it hit their inbox. Judging by the thousands of posts on the forums about all the pointless and time-consuming 'improvements' in v12 we are all wrong and apple is right, so why read our feedback or take a step back to a version that actually did what we, the consumer wants.

I dunno. I'm growing fond of the new Apple interface philosophy exposed out by another user here. That of the "Point and Wait" method of interface exploration, it's a take on the Where's Waldo theme. Point and wait, and see what new joy-joy icon feature description pops up. Attach your phone then point and wait on an icon and see happens. It's enormously inefficient, but who cares. It's the latest and greatest from Apple in 2014.

:rolleyes:

lol