Art Of Geek

Reason #1,687,592 why Apple ROCKS

March 14th, 2007 at 01:53pm madgunde

I have been on a quest for the ‘perfect’ mobile phone for several years now, buying a new one every 6-9 months, but never being quite satisfied with any of them. I think the quest started back in 2003 when I bought a Sony Ericsson T68i, my first BlueTooth equipped phone, and was able to synchronize it wirelessly with my Mac using iSync. Every phone I bought since then could sync contact names and phone numbers with Mac OS X’s Address Book, and appointments with iCal but I have been forever plagued by a desire for a phone that can sync full addresses and contact notes with the same simplicity. In other words, I wanted something that could finally allow me to ditch my Palm PDA in the garbage forever.

Back in November of last year, a friend of mine IM’d me and told me about this new smartphone he had purchased. I told him what I was looking for in a phone, and he told me his phone would do all that, and synchronize contact photos to boot. I was skeptical, because I was starting to give up hope that any device could live up to my high expectations, short of Apple making a phone of their own*. But I was curious to see what benevolent creation my friend possessed. That phone was a Nokia E61, and after a short demonstration and a bit of a test drive, I was convinced. The next day I bought an unlocked Nokia E61 from a local reseller, and kissed my Motorola RAZR V3i and Palm TX goodbye.

The latest version of Mac OS X’s iSync at the time didn’t directly support the Nokia E61, but a free plugin available off the Internet quickly solved that problem. I just had to drag the plugin into a specific location on my hard drive, and iSync suddenly recognized and worked with my phone, like they were designed for each other from the beginning.

So last night, the Mac OS X 10.4.9 update dropped via Software Update, and I quickly went about downloading and installing it. The installation went without issue as expected and I was quickly back up and running with no muss or fuss. But this morning, when I went to launch iSync to sync up my phones with my MacBook Pro, I was greeted with this message:

My first thought was, “where the heck did I install that plugin?” My second was, “oh no, I might not be able to sync my E61 until an updated plugin gets released!” Well, looks like Apple’s iSync developers read my mind because they seem to have anticipated my concerns and dealt with them ahead of time. I proceeded to click on the little arrow to the right of the plugin name in the dialog box, and was pleasantly surprised to see a Finder window pop open with the offending plugin highlighted. All I had to do was drag the file to my Desktop to disable it. Then I relaunched iSync, re-added the Nokia E61 to the list and it was instantly recognized. Seconds later, I was syncing it without issue. I no longer need to use a third party plug-in because iSync now has built-in support for the Nokia E61.

Once again, Apple has exceeded my expectations by obsessing over the little details so I don’t have to waste my time. After this positive experience, I couldn’t help but wonder what it would have been like had I gone through the same ordeal on Windows or Linux. Having used and supported the former for years, and dabbled a bit with the latter, I think I’ve got a pretty good idea what that would have been like.

*Of course, we all know Apple has decided to make their own smartphone, the iPhone, which is slated for release in the US in June. No firm release date has been given for Canada, although Rogers Wireless has apparently said they would be the exclusive carrier in the Great White North. For the record, as much as I do like my Nokia E61, I do plan on replacing it with an iPhone as soon as they arrive north of the border. A mobile phone that is as well thought out as Apple’s other products is, will be utter mobile nirvana.

Entry Filed under: Apple, Computing, Gadgets, Mac OS X, Macintosh, Software, Tips