Iphone Users - Questions

[bob4432]

i have been running windows mobile based phones for quite some time, probably ~5yrs+ or so. i am extremely happy w/ the outlook integration as between my wife and i we have somewhere around 600 contacts and they need to be kept up-to-date on the phones and pcs.

how does the iphone handle contacts and will it connect into outlook? i would like to keep the contacts up-to-date on both phones along w/ 2 pcs. this currently works w/ the windows mobile phones w/ activesync and outlook on 2 pcs and 2phones.

also, since i would have to buy a data plan w/ each iphone, can i use the iphone as a "cellular modem" of sorts - can i use the iphone's data capabilities through either bt or a usb cable to my computer? i currently have a cellular pcmcia card for browsing while on the go and need this.

pretty much anything else i can work around, these 2 items are plain and simple deal makers or breakers for me, as we need some new phones soon.

thx in advance,
bob

 

[Wonderful Pork]

you can only use 1 exchange account on the iPhone, so it is possible to sync your contacts with outlooks, I have mine synced with Google.

You can hack/jailbreak your phone to enable PAM for free, AT&T will allow it but charges an additional $30/month on top of "regular" data I think, so it would be $60/month. There is a soft cap at 5GB before your account is flagged also, I believe.

 

[Rottie]

hmmm 600 families? that is alot? sure iphone can hold up to 2000 contacts

 

[bob4432]

you can only use 1 exchange account on the iPhone, so it is possible to sync your contacts with outlooks, I have mine synced with Google.

You can hack/jailbreak your phone to enable PAM for free, AT&T will allow it but charges an additional $30/month on top of "regular" data I think, so it would be $60/month. There is a soft cap at 5GB before your account is flagged also, I believe.

thanks for the info.

 

[bob4432]

hmmm 600 families? that is alot? sure iphone can hold up to 2000 contacts

~600 contacts...

 

[Wonderful Pork]

thanks for the info.

No prob. Just to clarify, the extra $30/month is AT&Ts official plan which is as of yet unreleased I believe. If you jailbreak your phone and tether for "free" they could nab you of course, and charge their outrageous per-kb rates.

The 5GB "cap" is for either. Personally, I love the iPhone, but I think its a pretty terrible telephone. It makes up for it in other ways though, just not the talking part. Plus AT&Ts network leaves something to be desired as well.

 

[bob4432]

No prob. Just to clarify, the extra $30/month is AT&Ts official plan which is as of yet unreleased I believe. If you jailbreak your phone and tether for "free" they could nab you of course, and charge their outrageous per-kb rates.

The 5GB "cap" is for either. Personally, I love the iPhone, but I think its a pretty terrible telephone. It makes up for it in other ways though, just not the talking part. Plus AT&Ts network leaves something to be desired as well.

i have been w/ att for ~6-7yrs or so - i am lucky - in the areas i travel i get good coverage, but those fees do seem a bit extreme. for the data portion i would use less than 100MB/mo and wouldn't really want to be paying so much for it. guess i will wait for a decent mobile pc phone to come out - one i don't have to buy the extra data plan, or any data plan for that matter and keep the pcmicia card for the price

thx for the info nonetheless

 

[bassoprofundo]

I'm a long time WinMo user that also happens to own an Iphone. If your primary concern is contact sync w/outlook, the Iphone does fine. If you need to sync locally with Outlook (i.e.- no OTA MS Exchange) AND you use the calendaring function, I find the Iphone to be SERIOUSLY flawed. As you're aware, despite WinMo's flaws, the WinMo <-> Outlook sync is pretty much flawless. I've synced mine to my corporate laptop connected to MS Exchange for years now with no issues. My Iphone, on the other hand, has completely hosed my corporate calendar twice now. The issue has to do with the handling of recurring appointments, especially those with no end dates and those sent as meeting invitations by other people. Both times, a problem Iphone sync caused my recurring appointments to shift by a couple of hours within Outlook while still displaying correctly on the Iphone. The only way to resolve correctly is to manually pick through the calendar, isolate the wrong appointments, and either recreate them (if you are the originator) or have the other person resend the invitation.

This issue isn't isolated to a specific PC/OS/Outlook Version/Iphone firmware/etc., and I've seen it happen to multiple people where I work. If you don't use Exchange, don't use the calendar, etc., then you'll probably be fine. I love the Iphone interface, multimedia capabiliites, touchscreen, etc., but I've just found that I can't rely on the Iphone for my business calendaring. I tend to carry my WinMo phone during the week now and the Iphone on the weekends. As a workaround to the sync issues, I also use the Google Sync software for Outlook and have it to a one way sync to my gmail. I have the Iphone set up to use the Gmail account with their beta Activesync support, and it does a fair job keeping the calendar up to date. I still find that recurring appointments sent from others aren't reliably synced to the Gmail calendar, but it's good enough for my personal appts. Plus, I can always check my laptop/WinMo phone if needed.

I just wanted to highlight this as one WinMo user to another. With the exception of a Blackberry on BES, I haven't found a single other combo that doesn't present syncing issues with Exchange info. If your calendaring isn't critical, though, I think you'll find it liberating to use a user-friendly interface for once. I've used every interface out there for WinMo devices, and nothing touches the ease of use of the Iphone. I highly recommend jailbreaking if you want any sort of control over your phone, though. Years of flashing/hacking/customizing in WinMo spoiled me in that if you don't like the way something looks, works, etc., you can always change it. Not so on an un-jailbroken Iphone.

 

[pm]

My Iphone, on the other hand, has completely hosed my corporate calendar twice now. The issue has to do with the handling of recurring appointments, especially those with no end dates and those sent as meeting invitations by other people. Both times, a problem Iphone sync caused my recurring appointments to shift by a couple of hours within Outlook while still displaying correctly on the Iphone. The only way to resolve correctly is to manually pick through the calendar, isolate the wrong appointments, and either recreate them (if you are the originator) or have the other person resend the invitation.

This has happened twice to me too. It didn't timeshift all of my recurring appointments, only some of them. Some of my meetings were shifted by 2 hours on my corporate calendar but not on my iPhone. I found them one by one, fixed them and then it happened again two months later. Both of these were during July and then Sept. this year.

It hasn't happened in a while though.

 

[bob4432]

bthanks again for the info. for me, using outlook via activsync is paramount and actually the main use of the phone, mostly a personal organizer, so yes, most definiately the calender function is used a great deal from anything to recurring appts w/out end, important personal dates, friends/biz assos's birthdays & other important dates.

i don't use the phone really for anything other than the phone feature and the calender, - no web browsing or checking email on it or anything.

i appreciate the knowledge of this issue as i will look at another pair of winmo phones , my current ones are beat up pretty bad - stylus falling out, cases broken, etc. hopefully they will live till i can find a decent pair of new phones

 

[bassoprofundo]

This has happened twice to me too. It didn't timeshift all of my recurring appointments, only some of them. Some of my meetings were shifted by 2 hours on my corporate calendar but not on my iPhone. I found them one by one, fixed them and then it happened again two months later. Both of these were during July and then Sept. this year.

It hasn't happened in a while though.

Sounds exactly like what happened to me, although I did find one that had only shifted by an hour. I was thinking maybe something timezone-related, but my settings were correct in both places, and I never did isolate the issue... totally sucked though... was embarrassing to have to ask my business client to resend meeting notices

 

[bob4432]

back on this, was there a certain version of outlook that had issues? i am using office/outlook 2k7 if that helps...

 

[bassoprofundo]

I'm not sure that it was a particular version of outlook. Seemed to be more specific to folks that were on Exchange but syncing via USB rather than OTA. I'm on '07 as well though.

 

[bob4432]

thanks again, will be syncing either via bt or usb, not ota

 

[bob4432]

any new fix on this? still an issue w/ a usb or bt sync?

 

[pm]

I never saw a fix - or even an acknowledgement from Apple that it was an issue - with the USB sync'ing issues. Another co-worker complained to me recently about it too. I'm using Outlook 2007 - I have no idea what the servers are running but I would assume it's in the 2007 range as well.

Still, as of about a month ago, my company switched over to allow OTA sync'ing and that's been working great - although I noticed a decrease in my battery life. But the calendar has sync'd great OTA without any issues at all.