Mac mobile phone superguide
- Article 40 of 53
- iCreate, September 2005
Isn't it about time you started getting the most out of the computer in your back pocket? Rob Buckley guides you through the pitfalls of using a mobile phone with your Mac and offers advice on choosing the right mobile phone
Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 | All 4 Pages
What definitely won’t indicate Mac-compatibility is a salesperson in a mobile phone shop. Usually knowing less about Macs than someone at PC World – which is saying something – anything they say will almost certainly be guesswork and unless you return the phone with 14 days, plan on an extended bout of “Did I say that? I don’t think I did. Can’t refund you then,” until resignation, depression or a restraining order set in.
If you’re in any doubt about Mac compatibility, do a search on Google for your phone model before purchase and include useful terms like “OS X” or Mac to see if anyone else has had problems or success with your intended.
We’ve already mentioned Bluetooth and this is by the far the best and easiest method for connecting a mobile phone to a Mac. If you don’t have Bluetooth, what are you waiting for? Surely any piece of technology named after a Viking has to be worth buying?
All you need for Bluetooth heaven is a D-Link DBT-120 USB Bluetooth adapter (available from the Apple store for £35): plug it in to a USB port and you have Bluetooth. Just like that. We recommend the D-Link adaptor because it’s the only one Apple approves and is the only one that works with Apple’s Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.
Once you have Bluetooth on your Mac, turn on Bluetooth on your mobile (it’s usually turned off by default) and ‘pair’ the two together (see Walkthrough One for more details on how to do that) using your Mac’s Bluetooth Setup Assistant. This roves around the place a bit: in Jaguar and Panther, it’s in your Utilities folder; in Tiger, you can access it from System Preferences’s Bluetooth pane.
If you’re still on OS X 10.1 or earlier or your phone doesn’t have Bluetooth, you’ll need to look at some other way of connecting your phone. You’re going to be languishing in a bit of technological chasm, unfortunately, since iSync only works with Jaguar or better and the vast majority of USB phones don’t work with Macs very well. Some do: Motorola phones are noticeably more likely to work via USB than via Bluetooth, for instance. There are also some hacks available to get certain models working with Macs, since most mobile phones use the same chip manufacturer for their USB hardware. If you already have a USB phone and it doesn’t seem to work with your Mac, visit www.taniwha.org.uk, scroll down until you find “Generic USB Cable Driver” and follow the instructions; you might be in luck.
But most of the time you’re going to strike out. Even with success, you’re better off with Bluetooth since USB phone connections are more prone to giving OS X spasms than Bluetooth connections.
If even USB is a stretch too far, there’s always infra-red. It’s slow, prone to failure, doesn’t work with iSync and has a maximum, line-of-sight range of about five centimetres, but if that’s all your phone has, that’s all it has. Unless you have an old Mac with a built-in infra-red port (we’re talking circa 1997 here), you’ll need to buy an infra-red adaptor for your Mac to get it work with your phone, though, at which point, you might want to start thinking of a phone upgrade and a new Bluetooth adaptor instead. Your choice though.
So you’ve got everything connected. What next? First port of call, where possible, is iSync. As we’ve already mentioned, iSync can synchronise the data in your Address Book and iCal with your phone. But it can also do a lot more. For one thing, you’re not limited to just one device. iSync can synchronise as many devices as you have, all at the same time. So your Palm Pilot, Pocket PC, iPod, mobile phone, .Mac account and anything else that has an iSync conduit (some conduits you’ll have to get from third parties) can all have exactly the same contact and calendar details on them at the same time. Update one and the next time you iSync, everything else will get the changes. iSync does carry over plenty of information, so don’t think you’re going to be wandering around with only half your address book: most Series 60 phones will even get your Address Book pictures carried over so you can see exactly who’s calling you. And if you take a picture with your phone and add it to a phone’s contact card, that picture will get synched right back to Address Book.
How you add these devices to iSync’s synchronisation list varies according to the software you have. In Panther, you can use the Add devices menu within iSync to add any recognised devices to your syncing schedule. If you have later versions of iTunes installed, you can add iPod synching from within that; otherwise, iSync will do it. In Tiger, however, you control .Mac synching from within System Preferences. All in all, it’s probably best if you’re lost, which might well happen, to use Help or Spotlight to find out where you’re supposed to add devices from.
Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 | All 4 Pages