Cool! It’s about time.

Good idea. As there was no predecessor in my case, there is no info.plist in ~/Library/Phones (if that’s where it would be) to use as a template. I’ll look around, though.

But not, evidently, the US Cellular version of the KRZR which I have.

And while it appears the current version of iSync does support the KRZR (gack–“KRZR”, reads like line noise!) it is helpful to know it is usually possible to twiddle iSync phone settings to accommodate new, as yet unsupported, phone models. The settings files are nothing more the XML plist files so often copying the entry for a predecessor phone and changing the id string will enable the newer revision.

For example my Nokia 6103 phone is unsupported by iSync, but other ‘old-style Nokia 40 series’ phones are. With 30 seconds edit and a downloaded N6103 icon (pretty!) I’ve had a year of flawless import & export service. Not something I’d ask most folks to do, but it is possible.

I’ll also point out that carrier-based synchronization is rolling out across the industry. My T-Mobile buddy tells me they’ll have it across their system within weeks. Yes, even though they’re a SIM card-based service the customers rarely understand how to use their SIMs, or don’t like the data-type limitations, or have multiple phones and don’t like having separate ‘islands’.

The goal is that when a customer walks in they can get a new phone & have it fully loaded with their old, or other, phone, address book automagically before they leave the shop. All phones are kept backed up & syncronized via the T-Mobile mothership within minutes, making replacement phones & multiple phones frictionless.

Now if T-Mobile just not lock down the Bluetooth access from the Java stack on their cheapest-with-Bluetooth model. I love using Bluetooth phones as a handy remote control but T-Mobile, on the 6103, intentionally disables this, the only carrier/model to do so.

The K1 and K1m are supported since 10.4.9: http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/isync/devices.html

That’s good news about Outlook 2007.

That’s the dirty big secret of the tech biz. Mostly they don’t.

Outlook 2007 can, that’s how I’m synching my Google calendar to it.

That’s a wonderful description.. What I can’t figure out is how people without technical backgrounds ever get their stuff working.

If your phone can talk to iSync. Mine can’t.

I hope so. We need to raise expectations.

It’s interesting to speculate on what “get it right” should mean, given the trio of: phone, computer, cloud. I’m thinking that the essential contact data should just automatically get backed up to the cloud, no questions asked. Your service plan should come with an URL from which you could securely restore that data if need be.

Synchronization of other data, between the phone and the computer, and between the computer and the cloud, is more complicated and more likely to require interactivity.

On a related note, am I right in thinking that Outlook and Entourage can’t subscribe to .ics calendars?