ceremorphosis

I mentioned Missing Sync for iPhone in a previous post and that it was “coming real soon now”. It is out and I have been using it for a few weeks. As with their other Missing Sync products, there is no demo available. I’ve used Missing Sync for Palm and Missing Sync for Windows Mobile in the past and was happy with those solutions, so it was an easy decision for me to buy the iPhone package. Since there is no demo, my thoughts and a few screenshots follow.

So far, everything has worked quite well. I sync my notes over to Yojimbo (Entourage and MarkSpace’s Notes app are also an option), back up my SMS messages, and log all of my calls through the software now.

Installing the package adds a preference pane for Missing Sync for iPhone into System Preferences. In Preferences, you can set what you want synced, to which app you wants notes synced, whether to show the menu bar, and whether to check for updates. That’s all there is to it – just plug in your iPhone and go.

Turning on the menu bar option gives you quick access to the Call Log, SMS Log, and your notes app.

The Call Log app is no more complex than it should be. It shows the caller (and photo if you have that set up in Address Book), number, date, and duration. You can also add notes to each call, which is a nice feature.

The SMS Log is likewise a simple app.

There is no sync back from Yojimbo to the iPhone which is an annoyance. I suspect this may be fixed once the SDK is released and developers have more access to the iPhone’s internals. Since there is no way to tag notes on the iPhone you must manually manage them within the notes manager of choice. These are iPhone limitations, though, and not a reflection of Missing Sync.

Bottom line – this works as advertised. The price may be hard to justify for some at US$39.95, especially with the SDK release next month surely to be followed by other apps that will do that same thing. For previous Missing Sync users, the US$24.95 upgrade price is a little more palatable. I found the ability to log my calls and SMS messages over to my Mac worth the latter. Notes is still not as solid as I would like to see, and I am still emailing myself most notes.