Tag: sync

Are iOS and OS X converging?

>Ive — and Apple as a whole — is fond of saying that design is about more than the way something looks, it’s the way something works. OS X Mavericks might be the most iOS-looking version of OS X to date, but it’s a fundamentally different operating system built for a different type of input. It doesn’t matter how many notifications roll across your Mac’s display or how much Calendar, iBooks, and Maps look like their iOS counterparts — OS X is built around point-and-click, iOS is built around tap-and-swipe. That’s a wide gap to bridge. Nathaniel Mott

I like having apps like Byword and Pages and Keynote etc. that have iOS and OS X versions that sync data across iCloud. I like being able to use some gestures on OS X with the MagicPad. I like that OS X will get notifications.

Apple and Google; Design and Web Services

Apple and Google; Design and Web Services:

Outside of sync services, Apple has other web problems. Here are a few examples:

  • Apple can’t update its online store without taking it offline first.
  • A popular Game Center game was able to bring down the entire network.
  • Apple requires you to re-friend everyone on Game Center, Find my Friends, and Shared Photostreams.
  • Notes requires an email account to sync.
  • The iTunes and App Stores are still powered by WebObjects, a mostly dead framework written almost 20 years ago.
  • iMessage for Mac lives in an alternate dimension in which time has no ordered sequence.
  • Ping.

(Via Daring Fireball)

I agree that Apple has a problem in this area. Google's web services are solid. However, I don't believe buying Twitter is the answer.

iCloud and Snow Leopard and Google Sync

So … I’m not sure what’s going on but a few weeks after Google integrated Circles into Gmail my Google Contacts are all screwed up. dd in how badly Google Contacts and Calendar sync to my iOS devices and my Mac and one begins to wonder if there might be a better way. My wife has started screaming at me that this “cloud stuff sucks”. She is very rightly frustrated that contacts she adds to her iPhone (using her Google account) don’t show up when she uses her Gmail account on her Mac and vice versa.

After watching a live conversion of a MobileMe account to iCloud — a recent Princeton MUG presentation — I took a leap of faith and removed Google Contact sync from my iOS devices and Mac and switched to using iCloud to sync my contacts. I’m an instant convert. No only did all my contacts sync immediately to my devices — something I’ve never got Google Contact sync to do — but ALL of my devices (iMac, iPad, iPhone) have the same information. And when I update any contact on my iPhone within seconds I see the information update on my Mac and my iPad. Right before my eyes. It just works!

So, now that I am hooked, I want all my Macs to sync to iCloud. Problem is … not all my Macs can run Lion. My 2006 MacBook is running Snow Leopard — the Core Duo CPU is not supported — and it appears that iCloud is a Lion only service. Does anyone know a way around this?