Mark/Space updates The Missing Sync: this is HUGE news!

Mark/Space has announced a completely rewritten, and substantially more powerful version of The Missing Sync for Palm OS - version 5:

Paraphrased from the feature list:

b Support for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger Sync Services

The Missing Sync includes three conduits: Mark/Space Contacts, Mark/Space Events and Mark/Space Tasks. These synchronize
i directly with
Mac OS X 10.4 Address Book and iCal applications.
i Neither the iSync application nor the iSync Palm Conduit are necessary for syncing your Palm OS device with Tiger.

b Syncronizes Address Book
i groups
b and iCal
i calendars
b with Palm
i categories

The Missing Sync includes three conduits: Mark/Space Contacts, Mark/Space Events and Mark/Space Tasks. These synchronize directly with Tiger's central database for Address Book and iCal.
i iSync is no longer required or used.
Additionally, as more developers take advantage of Sync Services, you'll be able to sync more applications with your Palm OS device.

b Support for multiple addresses and other Palm database fields

Unlike Apple's conduit for iSync, which only syncs a single address (the home address) for each contact, The Missing Sync is capable of synchronizing multiple addresses to and from newer Palm devices. The Birthday, IM and URL fields are also synchronized.

In addition, there is support for:

* contact photo synchronization
* iPhoto albums
* iTunes playlists
* selected folder synchronization

The application includes many interface enhancements and feature updates. If you synchronize a Palm device and don't own it now, you soon will!

Details are available here:
] http://www.markspace.com/missingsync_palmos.php

This really is HUGE news!

Posted on Nov 1, 2005 11:47 PM

36 replies

Nov 5, 2005 6:23 AM in response to elenting

elenting,
I'm not sure how to get the address book data of your iPod, unless you did a backup to it. As far as your troubles with Missing Sync, did you choose to have your Mac overwrite your handheld? I had some problems at first also but I just synced again and this time had the Mac overwrite and everything was perfect.

Nov 5, 2005 9:16 AM in response to Deny Bobula

I usually enter data onto my Palm Pilot on the go so I can't overwrite the Palm and there is no setting for the Palm to override the desktop. As I mentioned, my Address Book data was really messed up during the sync, but fortunately I had an intact copy on my iPod which I didn't sync. I was able to enalbe the disc drive on the iPod, copy the Contacts folder to the desktop, and then in Address book import the vcard file in that copied Contacts folder and this restored the information into my Address Book on my desktop. The categories did not sync, but at least I still have all the phone #'s and email addresses that were missing. Now I'll just have to manually re-categorize everything, but the Missing Sync 5 seems to be syncing Contacts/Address Book normally for now.
I still can't get data from Datebook on the Palm Pilot to sync to the desktop with Missing Sync 5 though. I'm not sure what is going on there. Anyone have any suggestions?
Thanks

Sijmons

Level 4

2,095 points

Nov 5, 2005 11:09 AM in response to Eric Lenting

Eric, I remember reading a similar problem in these forums long time ago. The main issue was that the time of the Mac was different from the time on the Palm. Especially when you are close to a date change at midnight, you may see the mixups starting. Happened to me once when I traveled through time-zones and suddenly all my appointments ended up in the middle of the night.
May have been solved in later versions though but you may as well just check it on your Palm.

Nov 5, 2005 12:25 PM in response to Eric Lenting

Eric,

What does the MissingSync history log report show. Does it have
any "message(s)" related to events.

bd

Nov 16, 2005 11:04 AM in response to Michael Lafferty

Michael - two issues regarding Missing Sync:

1) Unlike iSync, does Misssing Sync allow you to sync both WORK and HOME addresses with a Palm Tungsten E2 and Apple Addressbook?

2) There seems to be a disconnect between your positive experience with Missing Sync versus the reader responses on VersionTracker, which is so overwhelmingly negative. It's hard to believe that the same product in different hands could produce reactions so different. Do you have an perspective about how this has happened? Many thanks.

Nov 16, 2005 11:38 AM in response to Michael Lafferty

Dear Mark,

You seem to be the foutain of all knowledge when it comes to isync so please excuse me for diverting this thread. I had a perfect conection with my USB cable using isync 2.1 for my Motorola Razr. I had to reset the PRAM and the icon has disappeared from isync and it cant find the phone. However I can browse the phones files using bluetooth but not sync my calender. Any suggestions how I can get isync to recognise the phone?

Many thanks

Ratan

Nov 16, 2005 11:39 AM in response to Michael Lafferty

Nov 16, 2005 11:42 AM in response to Michael Lafferty

Sorry Michael for mistaking your name. Its late in the UK.

Nov 16, 2005 4:55 PM in response to Steve Reiner

Welcome to Apple Discussions.

I carefully read all of the posts regarding this release, and they seem to fall into two general categories: configurations where it simply works and users are almost blown away by the improvements over prior releases and over iSync, and those for whom it fails miserably. Those variations are likely best explained by the apparent disinterest on the part of users in following simple instructions. Really.

The Mark/Space website clearly states that this release is not compatible with Mac OS X Server. Yet, a user installed the application and it failed. His rant: Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server are identical. Okay, we can write that moron off.

Several others complained about record loss, but their posts pretty clearly indicated that they…

• failed to synchronize with iSync one last time
• failed to make backup copies of their iCal and Address Book data, and
• very clearly did not choose to overwrite the data on their handhelds with the data from their computer during the first synchronization with this package

Some of this is infered by their inability to restore data - few actually copped to having made any 'mistakes' of any sort, prefering to blame the installer or the program.

I honestly could not see any technical issue that did not appear to be caused by individual configuration issues, or by user error. I think my experience and that of most other users who pay attention to details - and perform the recommended file maintenance and backup procedures - is that the program installs and works flawlessly.

I was amazed how often users pointed out that the program literally removed or destroyed the HotSync Manager and iSync. Duh! If they were the least bit aware of what the application does, they would have realized that the Mark/Space installer removes the HotSync Manager, removes their device from iSync and disables the iSync Palm Conduit, and patches several of the Palm conduits like Backup and Install. And, they would know this simply if they had read the accompanying documentation.

If you would like to read the entire User Guide before downloading and installing the program, let me know and I will send it to you. I wouldn't be at all fearful of it based upon the reviews I read, because those with problems clearly did not either understand the issues they had created or were facing, did not understand synchronization technology in the Apple world generally, or had not followed the very specific directions provided by Mark/Space.

With regard to your earlier question, the Mark/Space Contacts conduit does support multiple addresses if your Palm device supports them - a Treo 650 does, a Treo 600 does not. In that sense, it's all about the limitations of the Palm OS contact application itself. It will synchronize IM and URL data subject to this limitation: only the first IM address and URL in an Address Book entry will be sent to the Palm - additional IM addresses and URLs are ignored. It will sync as many phone numbers and email addresses that the Palm OS support, a total of 7 combined phone numbers and email addresses at this time.

Nov 16, 2005 6:05 PM in response to Michael Lafferty

Missing Sync is far from perfect. There are numerous bugs, acknowledged by the developers. The blanket condemnation above blaming all errors on the user is unfortunate. Unless you are willing to run beta software, and install the beta offered on the markspace website, I'd suggest waiting a bit. Even the current 5.0.2 BETA 2 which fixes some of the issues in the current release, still has issues.

For example, if you have alarms set to go off prior to an event, after 2 syncs they will all be set to 0 minutes before, instead of what you had originally. This was suppossed to have been fixed in beta 2 but was not. Also, if you create an event on the palm to repeat on (example) the first wednesday of the month, it gets synced to the second wednesday in iCal.

Neither of these acknowledged issues have anything to do with making backups of data or the intitial overwrite of the palm by the desktop. Both of these issues the developer claims to have fixed for an upcoming beta, but that's not available yet, so we are stuck using a broken release and unable to sync as claimed by markspace. Even when the next beta comes, it will still be beta software, with the usual caveats.

Just read the beta release notes for a listing of ongoing issues.
http://www.markspace.com/testing/releasenotesmspalm.html

Also, this note from the developer:
The following areas have NOT been addressed in this beta:
-----------------------
- NSRangeException in contacts/tasks/events conduit (please contact us if you can duplicate this issue)
- New tasks not correctly being marked as complete
- Detached events causes duplicate on handheld
- If an event is edited on the Mac and deleted on the handheld, it is deleted on the Mac; it should not be deleted
- If a category exists on the handheld for tasks or calendar and doesn't exist on the desktop, the desktop calendar is not created
- Palm custom fields are not properly supported (including Garmin waypoints)
- Creating an untimed event on the handheld results in an NSRangeException when syncing
- Events with alarms have alarm set to Message on desktop instead of message + sound

Overall, no matter how good this product was in pre 5.0 versions, there are serious shortcomings on 5.0*.

Nov 16, 2005 8:26 PM in response to R Alexander

Here you've got me, because I really know little about mobile handsets, and almost nothing about Motorola units.

If the icon has disappeared from the iSync main window, then your device has effectively been removed. You need to add it again. If you are attempting to do so with USB, that should be pretty straight forward: used the Add Device… option under the Devices menu to add it. If you are attempting to use Bluetooth, you will have to break the existing pairing, re-pair your mobile handset with the computer and confirm this pairing from your Macintosh, then launch iSync and proceed with adding it again using Bluetooth in the same manner I described above.

You might be able to get more specific help if you did two things: posted your question as a topic in the iSync forum, or posted it as a topic in the Bluetooth forum.

Nov 17, 2005 1:04 PM in response to elenting

I had been working on trying to get calendar
categories to sync the very day I found the new
Missing Sync 5. Initially it seemed to work, but now
there seem to be random events (primarily birthdays
and holidays) that are moved a day later and many of
the alarms are reset.

Repeating events getting moved and alarms being reset are some of the problems with Missing Sync 5. Suppossedly, these two issues, at least, have been fixed in an upcoming beta. This beta has not yet been released, so those suffering from these issues of SOL for now.

Nov 18, 2005 9:54 AM in response to Michael Lafferty

1.) Yes, please send me a copy of the Missing Sync Users Guide.

2.) Your opinion welcome here: iSync has been a troubled applet for coming on 3 years now. Apple ID # 61874, acknowledging that "Home address is only address synced with Palm OS devices," was created on 1-30-03. This discussion board and others have pleaded with Apple to revise iSync. My experience with Apple is that it is (far) more responsive to its customers than other PC manufacturers. Why has Apple turned a sustained deaf ear to this issue? Other than submitting intermittent posting to the Apple wish list, what can one do to get Apple to fix iSync?

Nov 18, 2005 10:42 AM in response to Steve Reiner

Okay, but there is no address in your profile. Just send me a message and I will reply with a copy of the Missing Sync User's Guide.

I presume that your questions are rhetorical in nature, and expressed out of sheer frustration. I cannot answer them, but I certainly sympathize. I'm clearly on record as having referred to this technology release - iSync 2, the iSync Palm Conduit [now built in] and .Mac Sync - as poorly conceived and executed, very poorly documented and utterly unreliable. I have no idea why they could apparently care less about it, because - properly implimented - Sync Services is a robust, reliable, thoroughly dependable and really rather amazing technology.

The Zach

Level 2

434 points

Jan 5, 2006 2:59 PM in response to Michael Lafferty

I've had nothing but trouble since upgrading. While the new interface is much improved and a lot easier to use, I've had a slew of problems syncing with my Treo 600, which I did not have before upgrading.

Some examples of the issues I'm having:

-Information gets purged from Address Book after a sync (IM addresses, home mailing addresses, birthdates, e-mail addresses if there are more than two listed for that contact) and all info that is "home" switches to "work."

-Updating a memo on my Treo causes it to duplicate on my iBook after syncing--even if the memo was not changed on my iBook

-Big problems with syncing To Dos (so bad that I've disabled the conduit until Mark/Space releases an update). When I add or modify an entry on my
to do list, it appears differently on iCal. Here are the steps:

1. Added a To Do - Test, priority 2, due date 12/8/05, category
employee, not private. Attached a note that said "Test."
2. Sync'd
3. Test appears the same on my Treo, but is appears in iCal as Test,
no priority, no due date, and no calendar. The attached note is fine.

Also, sometimes to dos lose the due date even if I don't alter them.
For example, after my last sync, my to do "Plan vacation"
was stripped of its due date in iCal, but not on my Treo.

Finally, one task ("Grocery Shop") sync'd fine, only it appears on
my Treo with an open box in front of the text (the kind you get when
hitting the "enter" two spaces to the right of the space bar on an
Apple keyboard).

-I subscribe to several calendars on iCal that update automatically. When one of them updates, it duplicates the entry on my Treo.

-I had to do multiple hard resets shortly after installing the new Missing Sync--something I hadn't had to do in ages.

I had none of these problems before upgrading. If it wasn't for Mark/Space great customer service, I'd have dumped the program by now.

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

Mark/Space updates The Missing Sync: this is HUGE news!