iPhone in Sync

Following my disastrous MacBook Air hard drive crash (for gory details, parts one and two), the iPhone acted as a tenuous lifeline. Yesterday, I cut that lifeline.

As I've repeatedly confessed, the hard drive crash caught me without recent backup. Worse, I thought .Mac sync was set to automatic. It wasn't. The last sync was February, which meant I wouldn't be able to restore settings, calendars and contacts. That left iPhone as sole repository of calendars and contacts and functional e-mail device.

Even after setting up the replacement MacBook Air with document and e-mail files from December and manually setting up e-mail accounts, I continued to rely on iPhone as my primary e-mail and relationship device. But there would have to come a time of connecting iPhone to the new Mac.

I had never resynced an iPhone before. With iPod, the process is one way. Sync wipes the device. I also had experienced contact data merge problems on PCs when syncing Outlook with Windows Mobile devices. I didn't know what to expect, but worried that sync would destroy data on the phone; I was most concerned about losing new contacts added since December.

Had Apple's MobileMe been available, I could have synced the iPhone up to the server cloud. Problem solved. But that's not an option now. Having lost a bunch of data, I should have been wary of undertaking the process or doing so without checking Apple support documents first. But I've got a curious, hands-on personality, so I charged in ready for almost anything.

I also was hopeful that maybe, just maybe, the sync would work out. Simply put: Synchronization is today's killer application for the connected world. People use multiple devices, software products and IP/Web services. Information spreads out across these devices, requiring unnecessary rekeying and duplication. Synchronization would solve these problems and make content more useful across devices or services.

Apple delivers unusually good sync. The iPod succeeded for many reasons, but two stand out: Advertising and synchronization. Apple got sync right with iPod/iTunes, unlike Microsoft and its Windows Media device and service partners. Sync is also the killer user interface for the connected world and so far—and quite surprisingly—few other companies have got it right.

Research in Motion is an exception. What's Blackberry's secret recipe? Synchronization. Push e-mail is really another form of data sync, and RIM improved it beyond messaging to other data types. That always-on e-mail connected device wouldn't be much good if Blackberry, Exchange Server and desktop PC all had different messages.

Nokia has got half-good sync, with the experience being much better on Windows PCs than Macs. Whenever I come back from someplace, my Nokia N95 automatically connects over Bluetooth to the company's PC Suite software (on a Windows Vista laptop) and syncs up. The automatic process means photos or videos shot with the N95 just show up on the PC. But Nokia's Ovi service, while promising, isn't fully operational; so there isn't yet sync capabilities fully comparable to what Apple promises with MobileMe.

Circling back to iPhone, Apple saved my butt. I was able to sync without losing information on the iPhone, while also updating e-mail accounts. Because Apple took back the other MacBook Air, I started changing passwords on all my online accounts. I can't assume the data is unrecoverable. Presumably, the computer will be refurbished and resold. But what if the hard drive is fixable and refurbished?

So the sync process presented different data sets on the newer Air and the iPhone: Updated e-mail settings (new passwords) on one device and the newest contacts on the other. Data merged with nothing loss and no duplication.If Apple can do sync as well with MobileMe, watch out Microsoft.

Posted by Joe Wilcox on June 27, 2008 2:29 PM