Mac & SmartPhone
I read on the Macworld site about syncing Windows Mobile devices with a Mac. So you can have a smart phone to go with your Mac, and keep the two in step with third party software, like Missing Sync for Windows Mobile, or PocketMac Pro. Of course, there is the whole question about why you’d want a windows device to go with your Mac at all, and Macworld points out the shortfalls and idiosyncrasies of the whole Windows Mobile thing.
For my own money, I much prefer Palm’s operating system to anything from Microsoft. I’m now on my fourth Palm device in eight years - a Treo 650. The interface has hardly changed at all in that time (the main differences are . . . colour and some more resolution on the screen), marking out what Macworld described:
“While we could argue that this indicates stagnation, it also shows that simplicity works.”
. . . and it’s simplicity working that I like so much about my Mac! Unlike Windows devices, Palm machines come ready and willing to sync. You can use either Palm’s own (somewhat dated) Desktop software, or better still set it up with iSync. Seeing as I use Marketcircle’s Daylite CRM suite, I use their conduit to keep my Treo in step.
One thing I have noticed is that the non-Palm conduits are somewhat slower than the original software. And via Bluetooth, it’s frankly glacial.
The main limitation seems to be around email - although my Treo came with the very capable Versamail client (supports POP, IMAP & MS Exchange) there doesn’t seem to be a solution to merge / sync / swap email between whatever you use on your Mac and the phone.
I get around this with my POP account by having messages downloaded to my Mac automatically removed from the server, while those to the phone are only removed if deleted. Oh, and to keep the data tariff down, I’ve added a filter to only get messages that the server hasn’t tagged as sp^m.
