Notes sync doesn't detect conflicting changes?

Question

Notes sync doesn't detect conflicting changes?

Though it is finally possible to sync notes between your iPhone and your Mac, it doesn't work as expected for me : if the same note is modified on the iPhone and the Mac, the next sync will silently erase the iPhone note with the note from the iMac, whereas I would have expected that an error would be raised because of conflicting updates.

Can anyone confirm this behaviour? If confirmed, I would consider this as a serious bug...

iMac alu 2.0 GHz 20" screen, Mac OS X (10.5.7), Original iPhone and OS 3.0

Posted on Jun 20, 2009 7:49 AM

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Answer 1

Jun 20, 2009 2:48 PM in response to Pascal_Sartoretti

I was surprised by this as well. I created additions to a "to do" list in notes on the iPhone and later synced via iTunes. All the additions on the iPhone were eliminated and not updated on the iMac mail notes. I didn't see a warning about a conflict but will have to do this again and pay more attention.

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Answer 2

Jun 20, 2009 2:54 PM in response to SantafeNM

{quote:title=SantafeNM wrote:}
I was surprised by this as well. I created additions to a "to do" list in notes on the iPhone and later synced via iTunes. All the additions on the iPhone were eliminated and not updated on the iMac mail notes.{quote}
I am not sure that we have the same behaviour: if I modify the note ONLY on the iPhone, the changes are copied back to the Mac. It is only if I modify a note on both that the iPhone changes get lost. What did you do exactly: modify the note on both the iPhone and the Mac?

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Answer 3

Jun 20, 2009 2:59 PM in response to Pascal_Sartoretti

This is very strange. After syncing and disconnecting from iTunes and then finding the problem described above about the lack of a conflict warning I searched here for an answer. Some 20 minutes later (after iTunes has been closed and the iPhone disconnected) the conflict error message with choices to resolve them popped up. So it is there but just was buggy for me.

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Answer 4

Jun 20, 2009 3:05 PM in response to SantafeNM

Did you really see a conflict message? What I got were informal messages about notes about to be added, modified or deleted. But I never saw any message about conflicts...

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Answer 5

Jun 20, 2009 3:11 PM in response to Pascal_Sartoretti

I just tried it again to pay more attention and the conflict warning is from MobileMe not iTunes however in iTunes I do get the option of choosing a "before and after" version of the note by looking in the Details tab. A bit awkward but we are just getting used to this new feature.

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Answer 6

Jun 20, 2009 3:13 PM in response to SantafeNM

If changes are made on both iPhone and Mail notes I am not sure how to merge them on both devices however.

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Answer 7

Jun 20, 2009 3:15 PM in response to SantafeNM

SantafeNM wrote:
If changes are made on both iPhone and Mail notes I am not sure how to merge them on both devices however.

There is nothing that an application could do in such a case, it must be manually solved after the display of an error message.

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Answer 8

Jun 20, 2009 3:16 PM in response to SantafeNM

SantafeNM wrote:
I just tried it again to pay more attention and the conflict warning is from MobileMe not iTunes

This explains the different behaviour, I don't use MobileMe.

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Answer 9

Jun 21, 2009 11:44 PM in response to Pascal_Sartoretti

Update: surprisingly, conflicting changes to notes are correctly detected when syncing an iPhone with a Windows PC running Outlook 2003. A nice comparison window is displayed, and allows to choose which modifications should be kept.

It is the first time that I see an iPhone/iPod feature that works better on a PC than a Mac 😟

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Answer 10

Jul 11, 2009 10:43 AM in response to Pascal_Sartoretti

I updated a note on my iPhone 3G, then when I synced with my iMac (OS 10.5) it erased the changes with no warning. Aargh!

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Answer 11

kdotten

Level 1

4 points

Aug 4, 2009 8:28 AM in response to Pascal_Sartoretti

*prays for wireless sync of notes

ugh

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Answer 12

Sep 15, 2009 9:25 AM in response to Pascal_Sartoretti

For info, this problem has been solved with the nee combination of Snow Leopard's Mail application + iTunes 9 (not sure which one actually does the sync magic).

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