Plug and Play Content from iOS Devices in iTunes 10

Great discovery today on Lifehacker and 9to5Mac! You can plug in any device running iOS and play music stored on the hardware in iTunes 10. In previous releases of iTunes, you would need to sync your device with that computer in order to play music, so if I were at the office and tried to play music on my iPhone that was synced at home, I would have to wipe my library. After connecting the device to the computer, cancel the sync, and expand the contents of your device in the left navigation panel. Press play and voila!

In iTunes 10, and perhaps some up-to-date iTunes 9 versions, you can now plug in an iOS device, tell iTunes to Cancel the sync request (and check off “Don’t ask again”), and from there on out simply play music or movies off whatever device you have plugged in through that iconic white cable.

I haven’t tried playing video content because I don’t have any stored on my iPhone, but I would assume it would work as well. This is definitely a feature that should have been available a long time ago, but nonetheless, glad it’s finally implemented!