On the preferences->devices tab, I have checked the prevent iPhones and iPods from syncing automatically. I do not want the sync kicking in every time I connect my iPhone to the computer. It stops the playback of whatever I am listening to and won’t go back and continue playing whatever I was playing before the sync kicked in. It is an annoyance. At least it should provide an option not to auto sync when I am playing something or running an application.
So, here is the problem. Whenever I connect my iPhone to the computer, iTunes does a short sync of sort even though I have disabled the auto sync. I don’t know what it is doing but it does reset whatever I was playing. All the podcasts I listened since the last sync are reset back to the state of the last sync.
I do have a workaround though. I close the iTunes before I connect the iPhone to the computer. Once I connect and the iPhone beeps/vibrates, I can open the iTunes. Now it won’t do that short sync. The problem is I keep forgetting to close the iTunes before I connect my iPhone to the computer. Most of the times I just scrub through the podcasts I already listened to get around this. When the number of podcasts I already listened are large, I have to listen a bit to figure out if I already listened them.
Update: This workaround doesn’t work! I just had one instance where it did sync and mess up my podcasts.
I have no guesses on what is the real purpose of this sync. If this problem does not appear on iPod Touch, my guess would be something pushed by AT&T through iTunes.
I also don’t know if the same issue occurs on the Mac version of iTunes.