Apple’s iTunes may be fine for managing and playing music, but it isn’t exactly up to snuff as an application manager for the iPhone, iPod touch, and the recently released iPad. There are, however, a couple of tricks that make managing your App Store purchases just a little easier.

Bulk Selecting and Deselecting Apps
If you already own an iPhone or iPod touch and just purchased an iPad, there’s a good chance you already own a long list of apps. Unfortunately, all of your apps are automatically selected and are ready to load first time you connect your iPad to your computer — and deselecting apps one at a time is a real pain.

Command-click to deselect all apps

To deselect all of the apps in iTunes so you can pick the few you really want to add to your new iPad, do this:

• Make sure iTunes is running, and connect your iPad to your computer with a Dock to USB cable.
• Select your iPad in the iTunes Library column.
• Click the Apps tab.
• Command-click on any app in the Apps list.

Now you can click the check boxes for just the apps you want to install, and you won’t have to deal with single apps scattered across Home Screen pages — an annoying side effect of deselecting apps one at a time.

You can sort apps by name, date or category

If your app list iTunes is especially long, scrolling to find just what you want to install can be a slow process. Instead of scrolling, try typing the name of an app in the search field at the top of the app list. You can also sort apps alphabetically, by date, or by category from the Sort by Name pop-up menu. It’s at the top of the app list, too.

Organizing Apps on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad
Sorting and rearranging apps on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad is more of an exercise in patience because dragging apps between screens is a slow and clumsy process. While it isn’t elegant, rearranging apps in iTunes on your computer is at least less frustrating.

You’ll need to have your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad connected to your computer to see which Home Screens your apps are showing up on, and you need to remember to click Apply when you finish reordering your apps to see the changes on your mobile device.

Drag apps from the screen preview to the screen list to move them

Here’s how to organize apps in iTunes instead of on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad:

• Make sure iTunes is running, and connect your iPad to your computer with a Dock to USB cable.
• Select your iPad in the iTunes Library column.
• Click the Apps tab.
• Select the Home screen page preview that includes the app you want to move. The preview list is on the right side of the iTunes window.
• Once you select a Home screen app page, you’ll see a larger view where you can select individual apps and drag them to the page you want to put them on in the page preview list.

Be sure to click Sync when you finish organizing your apps to push the changes to your mobile device.

iTunes may not offer the most elegant system for managing your iPhone, iPod touch and iPad apps, but it’s usually easier than managing apps on the device.