New Palm TX Forced Me to Address Mac Sync Options
Pages: 1, 2, 3
I Sync It's Gonna Be All Right
Missing Sync's feature list is enough to make anyone who's tried the previous two options start salivating. Photos straight from iPhoto? Songs from iTunes? Pick a folder on your Mac, and have it always synched to the Palm? Wow, sounds much nicer.
Despite an installer rather than drag-and-drop install (I always distrust the former, although I can't really say why) and an annoying reboot, I was ready to go with Missing Sync.
Thankfully there's plenty of help provided, including a lengthy user guide in PDF format. The Setup Assistant is a biggest help, especially if you've just been through a series of sync troubles. It helps you switch all of your Palm-related stuff to Missing Sync, and makes it easy to set up the transfer of iPhoto albums, iTunes playlists, and any folder(s) you specify on your Mac, which will subsequently be kept in sync with the Palm.
If you're running Tiger, that is. Under Tiger, Missing Sync is able to make use of the new Sync Services feature; with previous versions of OS X, it is still dependent on the iSync Palm Conduit.
And it simply does a better job of syncing data. More fields, in more apps, are supported by Missing Sync. It's faster, too.
Ultimately, Missing Sync provides a far more useful and user-friendly experience than any of the other available options. Because it takes the time to guide you through the setup process, there's none of the confusion involved with getting iSync Palm Conduit working, nor do you find yourself stuck in the old-school, workable but restricted environment of Palm Desktop.
Missing Sync, therefore, represents the best chance you've got of really getting your Mac and Palm to work together. Sure, it's going to cost you $40, but given the radical difference it makes to the experience I think that's good value for money.
Synchronicity
The Palm TX is great because it offers an excellent screen and dual wireless connectivity, at a fantastic price ($299 at the time of writing). The drawbacks are lack of a cradle, no voice recorder, but worst of all, the pitiful state of Palm synchronization.
Right now, it's a mess and has the potential to leave many people completely confused; let's hope both Palm and Apple are able to put some effort into improving the situation before too long. In the meantime, Missing Sync from Mark/Space offers a well-thought-out and incredibly useful alternative. If you don't mind paying extra on top of the price of your TX (or any other Palm, for that matter), buying Missing Sync will be money well spent for most people.
With that caveat in mind, I'd say a Palm remains a good choice for Mac users. All they need do is remember that unless they're prepared to pay that extra $40, their experience with data synchronization will be a troublesome one.
Giles Turnbull is a freelance writer and editor. He has been writing on and about the Internet since 1997. He has a web site at http://gilest.org.
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Showing messages 1 through 6 of 6.
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Disappointed by Palm & Apple
2005-12-11 10:15:16 coderanger [Reply | View]
I wanted to keep my mobile phone separate from my PDA and figured I could use the blue tooth link to dial from the PDA. I never got to try it becausee synchronozation was a featureless morass on incomaptibilities on top of Palm's obvious neglect of their desktop. Why doesn't Pamm instead jsut create more connectivity with Apple apps instead of maintaining that 'old school' app? Plam innovation is an oxymoron. I expected better synchronization 'out of the box'. That was unfortunate and unacceptable for me. I don't mean to denigrate Mark and Space--I hear their product is great and I didn't try it. But I expect fundamental things like iCal, Addressbook, and Mail synchronization with PDAs to be done by Apple and Palm. I don't like paying a tax (intiial purchase and upgrades in perpetuity) to third-parties (no offense to M & S is filling a market need) for capabilities Palm and Apple should provide and which are in reality necessary to receive full value for your purchase. I guess the PDA is not part of the Digital Hub vision until Apple decides they might make one. I returned mine and went back to paper for now.
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Apple Mail Conduit
2005-12-11 02:04:02 DBenegal [Reply | View]
Giles, Thank you for an article I have been longing to read!
I notice you have an Apple Mail conduit. Does this work? Does the synchronize setting work?
I set it to synchronise and it wiped out my mail in Mail.app after which I have set it as Macintosh overwrites handheld. I can only read mail and not really do much with it after.
I do miss the use of Categories in Palm Desktop which does work well if one is using GTD. I'm wondering if you have found a way around this?
In any case your article may make me look at getting the Mark/Space app. Regards. dev -
Apple Mail Conduit
2005-12-12 01:42:49 Giles Turnbull |
[Reply | View]
I didn't get it to work. But then it didn't wipe all my mail in Mail.app either. Since then, I've switched to Thunderbird and haven't tried the sync again.
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TX Experience
2005-12-10 05:37:28 matthewscott [Reply | View]
I also just bought a TX, and I generally agree with your points Giles. The only exceptions are that VersaMail has worked pretty well for me with our departmental IMAP server (on an XServe, no less). I used a much older version on a Tungsten C and it was far worse. In fact, Apple Mail crashes on me once a day at least, while VersaMail on my TX is more like once a week. I also like the new version of Documents to Go. Other than the aging Palm Desktop, the software package is pretty good.
Big gripe with Apple's Palm Sync in Tiger - it's a unified conduit. I use CorporateTime at work, but I only want the calendar. So I install CT conduits, then enable Palm iSync (which disables all of the CT conduits) then navigate to the conduit folder and manually drag the conduits back. Opening the Palm tab in iSync to change prefs will sometimes reset the conduits. It's definitely not well implemented.
Despite the issues, I really like the TX. Here's hoping Apple and Palm can resolve some of these issues.
btw the link for "Giant Mike's Palm Resource" page does not work. Any update.
Thanks,
Bob N