Nolia 6230 support in iSync coming?
 

Hi All,

Does anyone know where to look to see the status of Nokia 6230 (their new small GSM bluetooth phone) development under iSync? Apparently it's a "Series 60" smartphone, and currently iSync only works on older series. I've had the phone for almost 6 months now, and am dumbfounded that iSync still doesn't support it. The only way I have to get the phone syncced is to sync iSync with my Palm, sync the Palm with Outlook on a friend's PC, and then sync Outlook with the phone. I don't even want to use the Palm anymore... between the PowerBook and the Phone (if I can get it syncced) I don't need a stinking Palm anymore, and I certainly don't want to be using Outlook anymore. If anyone from Apple is reading this, you should be embarrassed!!!

Can I expect 10.4 to remedy this? Is anyone making third party iSync conduits that might work?

Thanks in advance,

David

Yes, Apple, get your act together!!
 

I'm sorry I can't be more helpful - but I can be completely sympathetic. Nokia's best phone - and I've had mine for months now too - and you can get os x to tranfer files via bluetooth, but not the messages / contact, let alone using isync. Bah! Utterly crap. :mad:

Thats my view.

Good phone tho.

DJ

There's this ...
 

It turns out (after searching for about 3 seconds on macoshints.com) that there has been a sync utility all along which is called phonedirector and it's available for $29.99 here:

http://www.macmedia.sk/pd.htm

DJB
:)

That's certainly an interesting piece of software, but it sounds like it's just sort of a desktop for the phone, ala the palm desktop or something like that. I've already got my whole life enterred into iCal and addressbook, and I've got it synccing with my Palm, iPod, and .mac account via isync, I just want the phone to sync as well. You can already send vcards to the phone from the addressbook, and visa-versa, so I don't think this program adds that much functionality really.

I did send them an email asking if they have a way of synccing with iSync.

Thanks for the link, for some reason I've not found much of anything searching for support on the phone with the mac. What did you search on?

Caveat Emptor.
 

Well, I just binned the 6230 and I did have the Phone Director.

In short it did not work. I had several emails with Peter Koren but all to no avail. I just don't want to work that hard when something is supposed to just work and do a simple job.

My issues were that every time I tried to write all my contacts to the SIM (and move them to another phone that way), only 25% of whatever selection I tried to copy would actually make it to the SIM card. That's a high failure rate.

In our last (before I sold the phone in sheer frustration) email exchange, Peter suggested that my SIM card may be limited to 14 characters. If that is the case (I didn't bother checking, I had run out of patience by then) I must have a consistent 75% of my contacts with 14-plus character names???

Just be aware... Wanna buy my copy?
:-) :(

The program didn't look that useful anyway. With all the integrated applications on OSX, who want to maintain another completely isolated copy of your contacts and calendar items?!?

I'm about to bin mine as well. Between Cingular's horrible gsm network, Nokia's reliability (I've been averaging around 6 months between repairs for the last several years), and Apple's lack of support for this phone, it makes me wonder why I put up with it. It's got to be worth some decent money on ebay.

I did a bunch of testing, and found that Ericsson phones seemed to have the best/smoothest Mac sync and Bluetooth implementation. Motorola is horrible, and can't BT sync. Their BT is broken in MANY ways, just horrible all around, even with just a headset. Nokia was so-so, but the sync was a pain due to the way they structure the phonebook in the phone.

I'm with T-Mobile. Generally their GSM coverage is far stronger than Cingular/AT&T. The only time I have problems is on my frequent trips to LA, where I'm roaming on Cingular.

Carlos,

So with the Ericsson you just discover the phone in bluetooth, it adds it to iSync, you sync, and you've got all your phone numbers from AddressBook on your phone? No middleware, no crap, it just works? And it keeps it syncced up?

Yup, just works. I didn't do extensive testing, so no long-term report, but initial setup and sync was very easy and trouble-free. The Ericsson phonebooks are multi-slot so you can store work/home/mobile for the same contact. The headset properly disconnects/reconnects so you can use BT for other things like dialup and sync (the Moto phones hold the BT open for the headset, you have to manually go down a few layers in menus to manually disconnect it and allow other uses).

I tried two models, an ancient T68i and a newer one whose model number I can't remember. It was a fairly low end phone, under $200.

Sony Ericsson works with Apple for bluetooth compatibility and syncing I seem to remember reading somewhere.

I have so far used a T610, T630, Z600 and with the help of Jonas Salling I got iSync to sync my S700i.

I had the Ericcson T610 and it did indeed sync like a dream. No setup required.

That is not all there is to a handheld blower though....the menus were total garbage. My daughter got an early birthday gift after I lost my rag with it - that too about 10 days. I could not imagine what the menu-designer was at when he came up with that system. Bizarre is an understatement.

I now have my old XDA II using the Missing Sync (PocketMac was VERY problematic) and it worlds a treat. An unhandy design but when you want a phone to be a pda, there has to be a trade-off somewhere I suppose.
Cheers
Gav.

The Nokia 6230 is a "Series 40" Phone
 

Unfortunately, the Nokia 6230 is a "Series 40" phone, which means it isn't and probably won't be supported by Apple. The "Series 60" phones are quite different, and based on the Symbian OS. They have a few extra keys, larger (176x208 pixel) displays, and completely different guts (support for real e-mail and the infrastructure this requires, H.263 video, multiple simultaneous applications). Because there are few similarities between the Series 40 and Series 60 phones, I suspect it would be take some effort for Apple to add support for the 6230 in iSync.

I sympathize, since I recently bought a Nokia 6230. The lack of iSync support on this phone may force me to use a WinXP laptop. <*Shiver*>

Thanks asmendel. Not good news, but certainly makes sense I suppose. I'll switch phones before I switch computers though... newer Nokias are slower and clunkier than the old ones which I liked so much anyway.

Crap, so everyone recommends Sony/Ericsson for their ease of sync. I figured as long as I'm switching phones, I'll switch to the network with the best coverage around here (Cingular is the only GSM, and their coverage blows) and keep the 6230 for worldwide use. Now I see that Verizon doesn't offer any Sony or Ericsson phones. Anybody got a recommendation for use on Verizon's network? I'll start a new thread if nobody reading this thread knows. Are GSM phones generally better at synccing?

GSM is the world standard, and as such, there are many more phones available. It is an open standard, so all GSM phones meet certain specifications, and work uniformly across all GSM carriers. Verizon uses CDMA but only allows their own phones on the network, same with Alltel. Nextel is proprietary. T-Mobile is GSM-based, and has good coverage in most of the country (been using them for six years, and I travel a lot).

Verizon also cripples their phones so customers CAN'T sync without paying them for sync services. Great way to be fair to your customers, eh? They are also the highest-priced for data, though they do have the highest speeds.

Verizon has a great network. Their anti-customer attitude is just horrendous though. In most major metro areas, Verizon coverage is no better than T-Mobile. Where they have the advantage is strong rural coverage.

My understanding is that there are different flavors of GSM. "American" GSM phones use one different frequency than "World" GSM phones. That's why you sometimes see two different models of phones with almost the same features. The major difference is use of the 850 or 900 MHz band. The other two bands used are the same at 1800 and 1900 MHz.

Some phones only have a couple of bands, but most work at least in North America and Europe. Or I should say, North American phones work here and in Europe. European-market phones may be Europe/Asia-only. I don't know of any single-band phones. The rest of the GSM system is universal.

North America uses predominantly 1900, but there is a new allocation at 850 in the US also. All of the 850 systems also do 1900, so 850 is not a huge benefit right now. 1800 is in use in Europe, and is NOT the same as 1900. There is some 900 in Europe and lots in Asia. Canada and Mexico use 1900, and I don't know if there is any plan for 850 there.

Most new phones are at least tri-band, with quad-band becoming quite normal.

If you buy a phone in the US, you know it will work throughout North America and most of Europe.

They may be becoming more popular, but you still need to check that it's tri-mode or better. My local Cingular store is still chock full of GSM phones that are US only.

So I know that GSM phones can be SIM-locked to a particular provider. So you're saying that they can do the same thing with TDMA phones, and that Verizon will only activate a TDMA phone that's locked to their network? I've been able to switch phones with them fairly easily when my wife's phones have had problems... you just call in the 800 number and give them your new ESN. So they don't offer a phone with iSync support, and if I find a TDMA phone that will work with iSync and call in with the ESN they'll somehow know it's not their phone and refuse to activate it?!?

It's rural coverage I'm after... everybody works in the cities now.

Dual frequency would be sufficient, with the right two frequencies. You could be right about Cingular, I often forget how far behind the industry they are. They still would be compatible with Mexico and Canada.

Verizon is CDMA. A SIM lock can be removed, so you can change carriers. Verizon doesn't specifically do that--there is no "SIM lock" on a CDMA phone since there is no SIM--but will only accept a phone that was made for them. I've tried three times to get them to activate a generic CDMA phone, they said no.

Yup. Plus a TDMA phone would be incompatible anyway, but they won't activate a foreign CDMA phone or data card.

Depends on where you go in Mexico... Cozumel was still AMPS only when I was there 2-3 years ago. I was proud of my shiny 8890 world phone, which never got a signal, while my Wife's junky old TDMA/AMPS phone worked like a champ. Oh well.

Thanks for all the comments Carlos... you seem to know a lot about cellular. Did you get a chance to read my other post about Verizon? I only know a few things about cellular from a customer point-of-view and want to make sure I understand the limitations correctly. If there's absolutely no way to switch to Verizon and get iSync going, I guess I'll stay with Cingular and just look for a good deal on a used Sony.

Messages crossed, I posted on the Verizon question. They've told me no, and I've asked three times. I'd love to be proven wrong. Verizon has a very strong control attitude, and their crippling of BT phones shows just how anti-customer they are.

If they don't have an iSync compatible phone in their lineup, then I think you should stay with Cingular. Or look at T-Mobile; they generally have better coverage than Cingular, cost less, and have JD Powers' number 1 rating for customer service (Verizon fell just behind them this year).

Yeah, I saw that the posts crossed. Thanks for taking the time to post all that
.. sorry I kept getting TDMA/CDMA confused but now I know. I would have no problem going with T-mobile -- except I don't think it would help me. With Cingular my phone goes between 0 and 1 bar of signal when I'm at home... enough to ring the phone sometimes, but not enough to carry on conversation unless I walk out to the road. If there were a T-mobile tower near enough to work at home, wouldn't my phone roam over onto it when Cingular's signal drops down? Any way to check and see from the phone? If T-mobile were strong in my area, wouldn't I see my phone roam over onto them when Cingular drops out occasionally? I've never seen it do that...

Cingular's customer service people are really, really stupid. I've called the national 1-800 number multiple times, and visited both big Cingular company stores in my town (as well as a half-dozen of those fly-by-night phone stores), and between all of them I still haven't found anyone who knows how to help me set GPRS up on my 6230. Oh well, I guess I don't really need it.

Thanks again Carlos...

No, there may not be a roaming agreement between T-Mobile and Cingular in your area. Also, the phones have a very strong preference for the home carrier, so *any* signal may be enough to keep it from roaming.

You can see if there is T-Mobile coverage, but won't be able to check signal level unless you know how to get to the engineering menu in your handset. To see general coverage go into the networks menu, select the manual network selection option, and it will show all visible networks.

Customer service...Cingular was too small to be rated, but AT&T, which Cingular bought out, has a "D" rating by JD Power.

T-Mobile has a 15 day return policy on phones if they don't cover you where need them to.

Nokia, Sony phones with iSync
 

I"m on ATT Wireless/Cingular as well. I just swapped my Nokia 6620 phone for an unlocked Sony K700i. I was getting tired of the bare minimum Mac support that the Nokia had. With the 6620 I could transfer files and vCards to the phone via Bluetooth, but could not use iSync. The Sony K700i showed up in iSync right away, and has worked well since then. It's only been one day but so far I'm very happy with the switch.