Entourage 2008 sync to MobileMe and Iphone 3G

[asymson]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel
Email Client: Exchange

I'd liek to sync my entourage calendar and contacts to the iphone through mobile me. I discovered that if I use sync services and mobileme's ical sync, i end up with duplicates everywhere.

Will using sync services in Entourage alone actualy get my calendar on mobileme to be wirelessly synced with my IPhone 3G? When I try this, it syncs it erfectly to my ica, but not to the phone or the mobileme 'cloud.'

Any help would be greatly apreciated.

 

[CBDC]

I'd liek to sync my entourage calendar and contacts to the iphone through mobile me. I discovered that if I use sync services and mobileme's ical sync, i end up with duplicates everywhere.

If you set up sync services in MM, the only option is sync Entourage to iCal, Entourage, and .Mac. The sync happens through iCal and AB. It actually works fine locally on my computer; a minutes of so after I enter something in Entourage, the information appears in iCal or AB.

Will using sync services in Entourage alone actualy get my calendar on mobileme to be wirelessly synced with my IPhone 3G? When I try this, it syncs it erfectly to my ica, but not to the phone or the mobileme 'cloud.'

YUP - that's the challenge - with MM which I do not find reliable enough to use right now. I do manually sync (resetting sync data and replacing data on MM with that on my Mac) nightly. That's how I get data from my iMac to my MacBook Air. I sync my iPhone using the USB cable and iTunes.

I thought sync was working well a week ago, until sync announced it was about to delete 2875 calendar entries, and add none. At that point, I stopped automatic syncing and went to the very inefficient approach I detailed above.

Whatever you do - BACK UP nightly so you don't loose any valuable data.

 

[asymson]

Thanks. But isn't the whole point of mobileme that the iphone and mobile me can be syced automtically? I tried then once to synce entourage to cal and the use mm to iphone, and it worked for a while until it made dupliated of everything everywhere.

Any Mocrosoft people know if sync services will relace the .mac sync with one specific to MM?

 

[CBDC]

Thanks. But isn't the whole point of mobileme that the iphone and mobile me can be syced automtically?
YES it is. But if you look at the discussion forums on Apple for MM, a lot of people are having problems. There maybe something that MS has to address, but Apple has some big problems too.

I hope the two companies do work together on this one. Apple does not view Entourage as a 3rd party application it supports. (Odd isn't it as it is uniquely designed for a Mac platform - Apple does support Outlook.) In my view, Entourage is vastly superior to iCal, Address Book and Mail. So I won't give it up. I just wish the sync problems with MM didn't exist overall, so we could isolate when the problems with Entourage occur. Right now, there is too much that doesn't work reliably (IMO).

When MM had a feedback link, I posted a strong suggestion that Apple support Entourage. If/when they get the MM problems resolved, I'll start lobbying for that again. And all of you who are interested should do the same.

I tried then once to synce entourage to cal and the use mm to iphone, and it worked for a while until it made dupliated of everything everywhere.

 

[ikonoklast]

For what it's worth... I also noticed the problems of duplicate addresses when enabling sync in Entourage, so I shut down the service and relied on importing my entire address book from time to time on my two Macs.

Recently though, I inadvertently left the contact sync button checked, and lo and behold: no duplicates! So I guess something has silently been fixed along the road.

Unfortunately I have nothing to say about syncing an iPhone, it's just out in Belgium and (apart from being horridly expensive - US $800 equivalent), it's on backorder everywhere.