All Articles Tagged sync

iPhone Dev-Team: iTunes 8.2 Updates Low-Level USB Protocol, Prevents Jailbreak, May Prevent Palm Pre Sync?

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Jeremy already passed along the warning from the iPhone Dev-Team on iTunes 8.2. In case you missed it, they told jailbreakers and potential jailbreakers NOT to install Apple’s just-released iTunes update.

According to their latest Dev-Team Blog post, the reason seems to be:

It breaks your ability to use QuickPwn, PwnageTool, and iPhone Tunneling Suite (ssh over usb). We don’t think this is a deliberate breakage of these tools. It’s just that Apple has updated a low-level USB protocol that normally only Apple cares about (but jailbreakers care about).

Is Dev-Team working on a fix? Youbetcha, but they don’t want to release anything further until iPhone OS 3.0 is final. This may annoy people who have the 3.0 beta, but legit developers probably have more pressing concerns than jailbreaking at the moment, and why would the Dev-Team waste their energy and tip their hand to Apple when the betas will likely keep changing every couple of weeks before release anyway?

Of course, the blogsphere now has another concern, since last week’s announcement that the Palm Pre syncs with iTunes, likely by faking Apple’s USB protocols to disguise itself as an iPod (see Daring Fireball’s take on this as well). There have been two pre-release versions of iTunes 8.2, going back over a month, but the obvious question still becomes: will the iTunes 8.2 final release also effect the Palm Pre sync?

Dev-Team thinks it’s possible:

It may actually break Palm Pre’s connection to the device (please give us feedback on this).

We think Palm’s Jon Rubinstein — who used to head the iPod division at Apple — may just have compromising pictures of the iPhone taken during it’s “bachelor” party the night before Macworld 2007 … We mean, it’s got to be something, right?



Ford Sync to Support iPhone Voice Interaction?

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Microsoft produces Windows, the operating system of choice for most iPhone users, and Exchange ActiveSync, the push data system Apple (and Google!) have licensed for business users. They also make Sync, the integration system found in Ford cars, which has just gotten an update.

TWICE (via CNET) lists all sorts of interesting info on the update, but the really interesting part is what’s revealed about future updates, including support for Pandora streaming internet radio, and… the iPhone:

“We’ll be able to link you to your Internet in the car. If you brought an iPhone into the vehicle, you could interact with that through voice. You could then read your email by voice,” said Joe Berry, Ford business and product development director for Sync, referring to a future version of Sync.

Good news for Ford owners… eventually.

(Thanks to the Reptile for the tip!)

From the Forums: Camera Flash? EDGE Only iPhone?, BlackBerry Storm, iTunes Gift Card, and Sync Time?

Lately the forums have been on fire and leading up to another iPhone release it is bound to be one wild ride. So now is a perfect time to get yourself registered and join in on the conversation.

Just yesterday Rene started a interesting thread, Are You Running Your iPhone 3G on EDGE and Why? While I understand why some of you may choose to EDGE over 3G, for me, I like to live dangerously, 3G or go home. How about you? Stop by and let Rene know what you think.

This next thread was started by Crackberry veteran forum moderator, Duvi. He simply wants to know, do you think the next iPhone will come with a flash for the camera? Feel free to speculate all you’d like on that one. I’m going with no, it will not have a flash.

Next up we have a thread that yours truly started, it’s simply about the latest iPhone rumors. Is there an EDGE only iPhone in the works? How about a CDMA version for China? And before all of you Verizon hopefuls start to get exited - no, a CDMA version from China would not work on the Verizon network. They use different frequencies. Thoughts?

Poor RIM, I can’t remember such a hyped phone that pretty much just flopped from the very beginning. Enter the BlackBerry Storm. It seems like the in thing to do these days is ditch your Storm for an iPhone 3G. Not a bad move in our opinion and we welcome forum member whsingleton to the good side!

You heard that the App Store is approaching 1 billion app downloads right? Well you could win a $10,000 iTunes gift card and Dizzy wants to know, what would you do with a $10,000 iTunes gift card?!

Our last thread for today comes to us from Ivoryplum. Ivoryplum wants to know what is the average sync time with iTunes? I honestly can’t complain with my syncing. How about you?

So there you have it folks, some really good threads for all of you to check out. Just remember to register first!

See you on the forums!

The Great iPhone Sync Debate: Desktop, Laptop, or Cloud?

For the last few months I’ve been conducting an experiment, trying to figure out whether it better suited my needs to sync my iPhone 3G to my desktop computer, to my laptop, or to embrace the (potential) future and try to sync only over-the-air with the cloud (online services and storage).

First, a little about the contenders.

  • My MacBook is purposefully kept light. Aside from whatever temporary I’m working on at the time, it has almost nothing on it, including no media unless I’m actively watching it. It’s speed on-the-go with limited capacity.
  • My iMac is heavy duty and also serves as my media machine. It’s connected on one end to a Drobo and serves an Apple TV in the living room on the other. It’s pure power and content, but absolutely no portability.
  • My cloud is, well, the cloud — everything I keep on my MobileMe, iDisk and Apple keeps ready for me on their massive iTunes servers.

A month with each of them (Round Robin interuptus notwithstanding) and what were my results? Which have I stuck with (for now)? Read on to find out!

Read the rest of this entry »


Apple Puts Some Snap Into MobileMe/Windows Outlook Sync

Good news, Windows PC users: Apple’s MobileMe News blog has just announced that they’ve finally put some shove into their Windows-side push:

We’ve recently improved the performance of MobileMe syncing with Microsoft Outlook on Windows. Contacts and calendars automatically sync whenever a change is made in Outlook, and likewise when a change is made on the web or from another device. To take advantage of this improvement make sure you’re using iTunes 8.0.2 and MobileMe Control Panel 1.3 and that you have “sync” set to occur “automatically” in the Control Panel.

Anyone out there tried it yet? How’s the performance?

Today on the Forums: Google Sync, iPhone 2G or iPhone 3G? MobileMe Renewal? iPhone Help Forums

The forum community here at TiPb keeps growing in numbers every day! With more and more great threads getting posted it’s been hard to try and keep up. Today on the forums, we have a few more good ones that you should definitely check out!

First thread up was started by Dizzy, Google Sync (Beta). For more information about Google Sync for iPhone be sure to check out Dieter’s post from the other day. I’m sure a lot of Gmail users are happy campers at this point.

Next thread comes to us from a new forum member, fallingsenses, he seems to think a lot of people have the iPhone 2G rather then the 3G. What do you usually see? More 3G’s than 2G’s or vice versa? Be sure to chime in!

This thread is pretty straight forward, Will you renew MobileMe? I know without hesitation I will be giving more money to Apple when the time comes. How about you?

Lastly, I’d like everyone to know about our iPhone Help forum. If you have any questions regarding the iPhone please head into this forum and post your issue or question. There are a so many knowledgeable forum members that are always willing to help you out.

In order to get in on the forum action you must register. It’s a quick painless process which can be done at this link right here.

See you on the forums!

Google Announces Google Sync for iPhone - Exchangify your Google Data

Here’s a welcome surprise for you: Google has now created Google Sync for iPhone so that you can sync up your Google Contacts and Google Calendar. They are doing it by making their data look like an Exchange server — meaning that if you’re not already using Exchange on your iPhone for work, you can point it at Google’s servers (see full instructions here) to get your contacts and calendars pushed out to you. Nice? Nice.

Of course, if you’re already using Exchange for work but still want to get your Google data on your iPhone, you’d going to need to get a solution to sync your Google data down to your desktop and then get it from your desktop to your iPhone either via USB tether or via MobileMe. You can learn more about how the two work together in Rene’s excellent article on that very subject.

Now, Google, just get Gmail to look like Exchange and we’ll be happy campers. Actually, you know what, just fix IMAP, that’ll be enough.

Quick Update: As I just noted over at WMExperts, Google licensed Exchange Active Sync (EAS) from Microsoft, which is a shot at RIM but also, maybe, a shot at Apple. Rene just pointed out to me that given all of Google’s recent moves with the CalDAV/iCal system, they might have kept on pushing to make the stuff that Mac uses the industry standard. Instead, Google and Microsoft are suddenly working together on using EAS.

iPhone Todo List Syncing Comes to iCal

Been looking for a way to sync todo’s with iCal? Well now you can with the recent beta from Appigo. Appigo Sync is their new tool to sync your Todo tasks with iCal via Wi-Fi on your local wireless network. The tool syncs calendars, but not your contexts, tags, etc. So you can’t add them in iCal, but they are still viewable on the iPhone app. 

This is really exciting news for anyone looking for this type of syncing. Personally, I have moved beyond Apple’s todo’s and use Toodledo for my task purposes and Appigo’s Todo just happens to do over-the-air syncing for free with that site; even on EDGE. However, if you still use iCal’s todo feature, this just might be your killer app!

If you are a Windows user, Appigo says they are working on a Windows/Outlook syncing tool as well.

(Via TUAW)

Google Calendar Announces iCal Support

Google has dropped the iCal bomb. That’s right. Buh-bye third party intermediaries, hello built-in Google Calendar support for Apple’s open source CalDAV standard:

The Google Calendar team is proud to announce the public release of our support for the CalDAV protocol. You can now use Apple iCal with your Google Calendar, so you can work even when you’re offline, sync almost instantly, respond to invitations from others and see the free/busy data of your friends and coworkers.

You can get both the setup program and the download from Google code source. (Now if we could only get some similar Google love for CardDAV as part of a Google Contacts revamp…)

If anyone has a chance to try it out, let us know how it works for getting your gCal into MobileMe or onto your iPhone (I’m — right now very sadly — transitioning to the HTC FUZE for the Round Robin, so let me live vicariously through you!)


Quick App: PocketMac Entourage, Lotus Notes, and Meeting Maker Sync for iPhone

I’m so boring. I don’t use Entourage, Lotus Notes, or Meeting Maker. However, for those of you Mac users who do, and are looking for some help syncing things over to your iPhone, PocketMac may be worth a look. As a bonus, it will also sync your SMS messages and call logs.

If you give it a try, let us know what you think!