Tuesday, January 15, 2008, 07:15 pm

iTunes 7.6 update delivers iPhone manual music, video control

By Katie Marsal

While Apple's iPhone 1.1.3 update has brought features such as map positioning and a customizable home screen, the coinciding release of iTunes 7.6 brings a long-requested feature to the iPhone: drag-and-drop music and video control.

Although its close cousin the iPod touch and all traditional iPods have had the ability to load or delete songs and movie clips at will, the iPhone has until now been limited to automated sync features, such as playlists, most recent TV shows, and podcasts.

However, the iTunes 7.6 upgrade now puts the iPhone on a level playing field with Apple's other mobile devices. An owner of the handset can now see the individual songs and other media files loaded on the phone in iTunes and either drag files in the iTunes Library to the device or else delete them by hand to make space for new content.

One exception to the rule that AppleInsider has discovered is podcast support. Whether they're audio or video, podcasts must always be automatically synchronized with the phone by their viewing status or recentness.