Q: How to locally sync an iPhone with OS X Mavericks? iCloud is NOT an option.

sorry, OK

It is compatible, and I added a link to the basic information.

Some might say not necessality 100% compliant with OSX 10.9.1 unless you have Exchange 2013 installed in your enterprise.

I would not have thought this corporate tool is a solution for individual users?  I am prepared to be corrected...

peter_watt wrote:

 

Some might say not necessality 100% compliant with OSX 10.9.1 unless you have Exchange 2013 installed in your enterprise.

I have found exactly the opposite, provided that the Exchange Server is 2007 (SP1) or newer I have not found any incompatibilities at all.

iDevices support EX 2003 or newer, Macs support EX 2007 (SP1) or newer. I use (or have used) Exchange 2003/2007/2008SBS/2010 and 2013 on my Mac with no problems, (2003 requires Entourage)

But the Exchange Server must be correctly configured for all of them to work properly.

I would not have thought this corporate tool is a solution for individual users?  I am prepared to be corrected...

It seems that many here want the security and reliability of an Exchange system, but not many are prepared to pay for it.

Microsoft Defector wrote:

 

Armando,

 

Everything is done using vCards. You can pull all of your contacts off of your iDevice, and push some or all of your contacts to your iDevice over USB using iTunes File Sharing. I keep one consolidated contact database on my mac that I update and push to all of my iDevices, so this works great for me. But if you want to automatically exchange incremental changes to contacts on multiple iDevices at once, this won't do that. It's been my experience that nothing (including the former local sync or iCloud) does a good job at this. You often wind up with missed updates or duplicate contacts. I prefer having more control over the data, its privacy, and its security.

 

It only address contacts, not calendar. But I've seen on this thread that the developers are looking at expanding it to support calendar as well.

Thanks, MSd.

I have two iPads and an iPhone.  I sync them all to a main Macbook Pro with Retina display.  I have lots of contacts and calendar events dating back to my Newton days.  These contacts and events when through the Palm (shortly after Jobs cancelled the Newton) and then later the Blackberry (when the first Blackberry-based phone came out) and then back to the iPhone.  For the most part, things work as one would expect and worked well when it did.  Occasionally, usually when upgrading, restores would require my staging my calendar.  But, it works (still) reasonably well.  I also have back up Macs to which I export the calendar and contacts and simply copy them over to those Mac's.

Thanks for the response.

Yep, i know you have had no problems with Mavericks Mail and Exchange, and we have discussed it in the thread...

https://discussions.apple.com/message/24677772#24677772

Bear in mind the exchange expert on there agreed that half of the people he had worked with had all the correct Exchange setup and updates yet still were unable to get Mail to work properly after upgrading to Mavericks. Crucially he said 10.9.2 would solve it.

peter_watt wrote:

 

Yep, i know you have had no problems with Mavericks Mail and Exchange, and we have discussed it in the thread...

https://discussions.apple.com/message/24677772#24677772

Bear in mind the exchange expert on there agreed that half of the people he had worked with had all the correct Exchange setup and updates yet still were unable to get Mail to work properly after upgrading to Mavericks. Crucially he said 10.9.2 would solve it.

Doesn't change the fact that (assuming a correctly setup server) I have never had any issues.

10.9.2 has not been released and I never listen to information provided by users willing to break their NDA, by definition they are not to be trusted.

brollyjohn wrote:

 

This app also just came out claiming the ability to locally sync contacts without the cloud.

 

http://www.applgasm-apps.com/directsync.html

 

Anyone tried this out? Lack of info is a little... off-putting.

 

Exporting .vcf files doesn't replace local sync.

I just installed this app, and it couldn't have been easier.  I just bought an iPad and couldn't get my contacts over there.  After installing this, it took 30 seconds to export, transfer and import the data.

I haven't taken the time to play with changing individual items to see if they're duplicated or overwritten, but what it did at this point was well worth the $buck.

HaoleKai,

The app works fine for me too. But be advised that it does not attempt to consolidate contacts. If you "sync" a new set of contacts, they will be added to what's already there. If you want to overwrite what's there, use the "Purge" feature first to wipe everything before syncing a new contacts database.

Thanks MD!

I hadn't tried the purge.  I thought that was just the way to remove the file you'd just imported from the app itself.

It turns out not only will it purge the entire set of Contacts data, but it backs it up by placing a copy into the app where you can simply re-import it.  Very nicely done.

It's not perfect, but it's a really good interum process.  (I say interum in the hopes that Apple will fix this, but I'm not holding my breath.)

It'll be pretty easy for me to keep my MB pro as the system of record for this data.

Thanks for your help.

The Purge!

Thanks HaoleKai and Microsoft Defector!

It wouldn't accept .abbu files so I was stumped. By exporting the whole thing in a single .vcf, it was painless.

I lost my groups after the purge I think but it does what I hoped it would do.

A simple $1 solution.

brollyjohn wrote:

 

The Purge!

 

Thanks HaoleKai and Microsoft Defector!

 

It wouldn't accept .abbu files so I was stumped. By exporting the whole thing in a single .vcf, it was painless.

 

I lost my groups after the purge I think but it does what I hoped it would do.

 

A simple $1 solution.

Does it do Calenders as well? Or just contacts via .vcf card import?

Pete

Just the contacts via .vcf card import. It does an ok job at that anyway!

James

Another idea - I use Docs to Go (from Dataviz), for excel, word, powerpoint, pdf etc syncing from MacBook to iPhone and have used this since long before iPhones even existed. Now they do App versions and it is so seemless and simple I suggested to them they get into the area of local sync of calendar and contacts and create an App. Their reply:

"We have thought about the idea but were looking for enough customer requests before creating such an application. As I only do technical support I would recommend submitting your request to the customer service feedback section of our website using the link below:

http://www.dataviz.com/Customer_feedback.html

Our product development team checks our customer feedback regularly for new feature requests.

DataViz, Inc.

Follow us! @DataVizInc"

Its just an idea - but these people have run their sync apps from the days when nothing synced properly on Nokia and Ericsson (pre iPhone) smart phones and they've always done a really solid job.

Maybe some feedback from those on this forum to them might encourage a way more speedy solution than we are likely to get from Apple.

I've posted a request to them with a link to this thread.