iTunes 9 has been released and has a new feature: the ability to rearrange iPod touch and iPhone Home screen icons from inside of iTunes on a desktop computer. For me, having over 160 apps and 11 Home screen pages has been a pain to organize. It's amazing how much easier this is to do in iTunes rather than on the handheld. Here's how:

1. Download and install iTunes 9.
   
2. Connect iPod touch or iPhone.
3. Click the device's name under Devices.
   
4. Click Check for Update under the Summary tab. The iPod touch or iPhone must be updated to version 3.1 or later. (iPod touch users with versions earlier than 3.0 will have to pay $4.95 for the upgrade. Version 3.1 is not available for 1st generation iPod touch.)
   
5. Click the Applications tab.
   
6. Click and drag to arrange the icons on the page. Drag and drop an icon to move it to a different screen. Click and drag the screens to change the order.
   

I would still like to see automatic organization by category or alphabetically. Manually arranging icons, whether on the device or desktop, is time consuming, especially for classroom sets of iPod touches. As far as I can tell, you arrange the Home screens for each device individually.

Labels: iphone, ipodtouch