S60 and Mac - from first principles - part 1

[slitchfield]

In the first of a new series, I look at connecting up a S60 smartphone to an Apple Mac, from the point of view of a new user to Leopard (OS X). What can be done 'out of the box' and what else is needed? All will be revealed, part by part, as I get my Nokia N95 8GB cosy and comfortable with a MacBook.

Read on in the full article.

[Ratkat]

I think the problem with the Nokia website is a problem with Nokia's CSS code not a fault with Apple's Safari, it used to display fine until the last updates change of style on Nokia's site.

As a test visit the same page using your (safari based) S60 web browser, you will find it has the same display issues, Nokia don't even test their sites in the browser on their phones, very poor on Nokia's part.

[Ratkat]

If you tether your phone via bluetooth, you are given the option to add an icon in the menu bar at the top of the screen.
This icon then allows you to connect/disconnect to the internet via bluetooth using your phone as you see fit.

nokia also has a multimedia application for connecting os x and s60 phones. its found at the same site where you found the isync plugins. otherwise you can always purchase missing sync for symbian from mark/space to sync notes and even call logs

[tawalker]

Thanks for this article, Steve. As an N95 user who also got their first Mac a few months ago, I feel your approach thus far in this series has been fair and refreshingly free of 'fanboyism' (from any direction) - quite a novelty where 'Mac vs Windows' comparisons are even slightly likely!

Just thought I'd pick up on your intention to see how the Mac can handle editing the video files from your N95 8Gb. I've been using iMovie (the Mac's own video editing suite) for this purpose since we got our iMac. iMovie imports N95 video files with no problems whatsoever (that I have seen), and I found the suite intuitive and easy to use, as long as you have a reasonable idea of the 'layout' of your intended movie (as with any video editor).

If you're interested, here is an example of a video I produced in iMovie, of a Korean festival in London. Most of the video and stills were taken on the N95, with the exception of the 'to camera' pieces at each end (the iMac's own camera) and the lower-quality video of me being interviewed by the Korean camera crew (our old digicam). I'm not properly trained in video-editing or production, but I hope this clip shows that iMovie is well worth considering for editing footage from the N95 and its siblings.

Thanks again, and I look forward to the next instalment(s)!

Just tried downloading the N95 iSync plugin from Nokia.co.uk and it is not working properly with Safari OR Firefox - when you select your phone type and click on the download link a popup offers you the licence terms but there are no buttons available to Accept or Decline the terms. Firtunately I had access to IE7 in which the popup window displays the options correctly. Not very useful for the Nokia Mac site if you've only got access to Mac browsers......

[davidmaxwaterma]

What happened to your screen shots? They make the mac (esp fonts) look aweful. I'm sure they don't look that bad...

[Ratkat]

and when you do master iMovie

Get VisualHub from http://www.techspansion.com/visualhub/ to convert your movie into whatever format you require, it's simply the best converter I've ever used, very fast, simple and a reasonable price (approx £12)

Can you sync all day events properly?? I have been trying but they always sync as a timed event from 0:00 to 23:59! Any idea how I can manage to sync them so they are saved on the phone as an all-day event??
Thanks,

[slitchfield]

I had no problems grabbing iSync or Nokia Multimedia Transfer from Nokia's web site ON Safari ON the MacBook.

And the screens are grabbed on the MacBook, cropped on the MacBook, uploaded on the MacBook (using Yummy FTP) and inserted on the MacBook (in Safari etc) - the screens look fine to me, but if you think they're missing something then blame the Mac itself 8-)

If only Nokia realised that some PC users only want a basic app like isync instead of the large (and growing out of control) beast called PC Suite. This simplicity would make me switch to OSX! Great review, its good to see what goes on outside the world of windows.

[Ratkat]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Can you sync all day events properly?? I have been trying but they always sync as a timed event from 0:00 to 23:59! Any idea how I can manage to sync them so they are saved on the phone as an all-day event??
Thanks,

I have modified Nokia's iSync plugin to do this, it's not too complicated, PM me and I'll send you instructions.

[abruenin]

As beeing a long time Mac user and a S60 newbie, I am highly interested in this thread.

I also use the Nokia Multimedia sync for Mac, but until now, I only got it working via Bluetooth, not via USB.

Second, I already bought licenses for FoneLink and Missing Sync. I could post a comparision, as soon as my new E71 will be delivered and I am back from my holiday travel.

I would really like to get into discussion about Mac & Symbian. If there is enough interest, maybe we could get an own forum board in the AAS forums?

@Steve: You definitely should get VisualHub. The quality and speed is by far better than QuickTime Pro.

It's not only Nokia that don't have perfect web pages. I registered with the Apple Developer site to get the SDK and guess what? They require your phone number but will only accept a three digit area code, great for UK users where 5 digit is normal.

[BDSawicki]

Hi there,

I am also new to Mac and was looking for a good calendar/contacts synch solution for a Mac.

iSync did not suite me because it forced deletion of older entries from my S60 Nokia e90 (you cannot switch off the option "do not synch events older than"; you can only set up a time interval, the longest being one month, which is not enough for me as I like storing older events on my S60 calendar). Besides, there were not to many options to set up...

Now I use the Missing Sync (http://www.markspace.com/; thanks to AAS where I first read about the soft) and I find it by far excelling the iSync - there are more options to configure synching and, most importantly, you can synch all events without a time limit (if you want).

One think I do not like is that for Apple/Mac the data on the mobile device (S60) is rather worthless - in Nokia PC Suite you have an option to choose which entry should prevail in case of conflict (in the mobile device or in the PC); Mac will briliantly warn you that even a few entries may be changed on it during synching, but it will show no sign/warning even if synching will result in the deletion of all events on the mobile device. For me this is very disappointing, because I treat my S60 mobile device as the primary PIM...

All the best
Borys