Calming your Mac’s reaction when plugging in your iPhone

By default, when connecting your iPhone, iPod or iPad to your Mac both iTunes and iPhoto will open. These two apps are pretty heavy-weight and bring my MacBook to a juddering halt while they load. I’m often plugging the phone in just to charge it or test an application, so I would rather avoid this pointless sing-and-dance.

It’s actually quite simple to disable this behaviour and stop the two applications opening. First, plug in the device and wait for iTunes and iPhoto to launch (for the last time!). Then:

	- **iTunes:** Select the device under the "Devices" heading on the sidebar. Under the "Summary" tab, un-check  "Open iTunes when this iPhone is connected" and click Apply.
	- **iPhoto:** Under iPhoto's preferences, go to the "General" tab. For "Connecting camera opens:", select "No application". Close the preferences window.

That’s all there is to it. Welcome to a more calm iPhone-connection experience.