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

The problem is that, we've explored this issue enough for this forum. Offered the solutions we can. Yet it goes on.

Again see my post above for the solutions.

If you want to complain/rant/give feedback please use

apple.com/feedback

If you don't want to do it there, then please find another forum to do so on. Apple does not read this forum.

jonfromdaleville

Thanks for the clarifications and I have learned my lesson. I thought it was only Microsoft who screwed up its updates (and its users) in the past....Now Apple seems to have joined the queue....I had no real issues for all the years I have been an Apple user, but all good seems to come to an end (sorry for being off-topic here for the last time).

I take your point about this not turning into a whining forum, but most of us do not possess the technical expertise to setup local servers or restoration of OS X from back-up. We have fears of data loss, crashes and all manner of things that could go wrong. Things that may not only be a personal inconvenience but a business disaster.

The simple facts are that Apple has by stealth, removed a personal freedom. We want to be able to manage our contacts, calendars, notes and reminders as we always used to. To be able to make the choice iCloud or local sync.

Nowhere in this forum have we had anyone from Apple holding their hand up as saying, "sorry, we messed up, we'll fix it".

When your back is up against the wall you got to start shouting anywhere you can find someone to listen.

Arnorf wrote:

Nowhere in this forum have we had anyone from Apple holding their hand up as saying, "sorry, we messed up, we'll fix it".

And that is never going to happen. This is a user forum. Apple does not participate here. They will not answer you here. If you want a response from Apple, then contact Apple.

I agree fully. I’m  a lot on business travel, where I have no access to the web.

Now I imagine the following situation. There are some new calendar events and contacts I entered into my MacBook Pro. I want to sync them to the iPhone. Internet is not available. The easiest way syncing is connecting the phone to the Mac by USB cable (maybe already done for loading the battery) and press a sync button.

But with Mavericks I’m not able to do this. I have to launch a server on my Mac Book Pro, try to connect phone and Mac Book Pro by their internal WiFi (requiering some configuration and clicks) and then sync the new data.

The guy with his cheap windows machine plugs in his phone and presses the sync button and all is done. He laughs at me, because my expensive Apple computer doesn’t have such a basic function. This turns all upside down. Apple mentions the best user experience for his products, but makes it impossible to make an easy and quick sync of some data. But the Windows guy only has to press a button. I’m very disappointed.

If anyone can tell me a solution for plug the phone in and sync, I’m very interested in. Also a possible solution via Bluetooth is welcome.

Next year I have to buy a new mobile Computer and at the moment I’m afraid that this will not be an Apple device, due to the absence of functions I need for my business (no offline sync, no Ethernet, no possibility to upgrade HDD and RAM, no CD/DVD drive etc.). And the Apple devices are anything other than budget-priced. I’m in the unlucky situation that Apple doesn’t anymore provide a device that meets my demands. I’m frustrated, because after 30 years of Mac only usage I’ll have to look to „the other side“

Matthias Allgayer wrote:

 

If anyone can tell me a solution for plug the phone in and sync, I’m very interested in.

Downgrade from Mavericks to an older version of OS X. There's your solution.

People jumped on upgrading the minute Mavericks became available. That's their own fault.

Jonfrodaleville said...

If you want to locally sync you have three options.

1. Setup a private local server and sync through that at your own expense.

2. Restore back to a previous version of Mac OS X using a Time Machine Backup.

3. Find a company's product that offers you what you want.

End of what he said:

If you buy a new Mac (I really want a new iMac) option 1 is all there is as I have not seen another product to do local/USB sync.

When all this settles down I will buy a new iMac, I really don't want to implement the server solution unless I have to.

I hope some easy (like it was in 10.8 and previous) shows up fo Mavericks. This would make my purchase decision much easier, BTW: This is also the year I was going to replace mine and my wife's iPhone 3GS and 1st gen iPads. I really don't want to do it until I am sure of a better solution.

Andy

Hi Boglott,

          I still haven't decided which way to go with this but I've been doing some experimenting and thought I would share the results.

Background: I had to use iCloud to quickly sync my diary the other day before I went out but I didn't want to leave it set like that. The data is of little use to anyone else so I wasn't too worried about it being in the cloud.

Disclaimer: I don't recommend anyone doing this that isn't familiar with Unix, etc...... be warned.

So I went to turn off iCloud Calendar sync on my macbook and was told that the data would be removed from the macbook. Not good. I cancelled the operation. Interestingly, doing the same thing on the iphone one is given the choice of deleting or retaining the data. I love consistency.

Next I found the Calendar directory (/Users/username/Library/Calendars) and copied it to /Users/username/Library/Calendars.bak.

cd /Users/username/Library/

cp -r Calendars ./Calendars.bak

I then turned off iCloud sync for the Calendar. Sure enough, when I opened my calendar it was empty.

Next I deleted the Calendars directory and copied the backup back.

rm -rf Calendars

cp -r Calendars.bak ./Calendars

Now opening calendar the data is back.

Finally I turned off icloud sync on my iPhone, choosing to retain the data.

I now am back to the data on both devices with iCloud sync turned off.

I don't know how useful this is, it worked for what I wanted to do.

Chris.

You keep saying that the purpose of this forum is for technical answers.

But does repeating "Just use icloud" or "downgrade from Mavericks" qualify as technical answers in the mac user forum world?

You are suspending your own logic in defence of the apple brand in a very non-technical manner and helping no-one in the process.

90% of the people who come here seeking a solution come away looking at a non apple solution.

Good luck with the brand damage control this mega blunder is far worse than the save as or not fiasco.

brollyjohn wrote:

 

You keep saying that the purpose of this forum is for technical answers.

 

But does repeating "Just use icloud" or "downgrade from Mavericks" qualify as technical answers in the mac user forum world?

Yes. The ability to sync the information via USB does not exist in Mavericks. Therefore, your options are:

A) Use a cloud service.

B) Don't use Mavericks.

or

C) Set up a server or find a 3rd party product to do what you want.

Continuing to whine about it will NOT alter reality.

What part of that do you not understand?

I have been going crazy from day one when I found out I couldn't sync any more my devices with the new OS X.

Have spoken face to face with various "geniuses" (most of whom didn't even know that the sync info tab disappeared from iTunes!) and sent several notices to Apple complaining about the disservice they are creating (see one of my email below); suggest you please write your complaint at "apple.com/feedback" (who knows if they get sane again if we create a critical mass of notices!).

In any event, I am writing here to offer some hope, and a technical (very simple and easy) short cut to (partially, I admit) solve the issue of syncing your Contacts and Calendar data from your Mac or Macbook to your iPhone.

Even if this is not at all a syncronization of the data, it will allow you to ADD or REPLACE old (out of sync) Contact cards or Calendar events.

CALENDARS

- On Mac, select a single entry event, or a whole Calendar you wish to copy (I have a Calendar with events since 2001 and it worked fine!) and choose "File" / "Export" / "Export as Calendar". This will create an .ICS file (with a sigle entry or the whole Calendar you have selected).

- From your Mac, send an email to yourself that you can receive and open on your iPhone attaching to it the Calendar.ICS file.

- On your iPhone, open the email and click on the Calendar.ICS file to download it (if the file is large it takes some time).

- A list of all the dowloaded calendar evens will show up (which you could scroll to check if you wish). If you click on the upper right corner of the screen the link in blue "Add (xxx)" you will be shown the option to either those Events to an existing Calendar on your iPhone, or to load them all on a new Calendar (recommended). If you wish to load the Event on a new Calendar click "New Calendar..." and give it a name (and color) (e.g. "Mobile" in red), then press "Done" (upper right corner link).

- At this point (it make take again some time if the calendar is large) you are set and have on your iPhone and exact copy of the Calendar you hold on your Mac.

- If you wish, you can delete any old calendar on the iPhone as per usual istructions.

CONTACTS

For the Contacts the process is more or less similar, you have to select all the Contact cards you wish to export and then save them all by selecting "Export vCard" in a .VCF file, that you can send by email to your iPhone.

A word of caution here: since on your iPhone unfortunately you cannot select and delete multiple contacts in one go, you may wish and prefer to delete and copy as necessary each single Contact card, to avoid having a large number of duplicated entries on your iPhone.

******

Hope this is kind of helpful to some, and I am sure a more savy tech guy here on the blog could offer some improved instruction or advice.

In the meanwhile .....  HOLD ON !!

<<<

New OS X has eliminated without warning to customers the possibility to sync locally personal data on Contacts and Calendar between various Apple devices including iPhones and iPads. The only option now available is to use iCloud.

This is unacceptable, and is not an option. I have moved to the Apple's products environment years ago mainly because of the need of sharing data among devices locally (without internet connection and without transferring data to third parties).

With this software change, Apple is changing the function of the hardware I have already purchased and now cannot use anymore as intended originally at time of purchase. This is a serious fault and wrong business conduct.

Unless a solution is rapidly offered I will be one of the hundreds unhappy customers who from now on will steer away from Apple products.

>>>

ChrisW£ wrote:

I don't know how useful this is, it worked for what I wanted to do.

Chris - actually, this is quite cool. There's a complete work-around to iCloud - using iCloud - embedded here.

Use iCloud to sync & then delete the iCloud stored data. It leverages the nasty new Mavericks sync system but then removes all of the personal data stored on Apple's internet connected disks.

I need to think about this a bit & experiment. It may seem a little odd at first but it's certainly less of a time sink than setting up & maintaining a local server. Plus, it's free.

This method will also help my iPhone's performance a whole heck of a lot. When iCloud makes it's unilateral decision that it's going to sync stuff, the iPhone slows to a crawl and sometimes freezes up. Trying to dial a phone number takes minutes. Being free from iCloud's weight would help a great deal.

Smart manuever, very clever, Chris! Thanks.

A bit of an update … not much of good news but here is what we have done … keep in mind we need untethered mobility with no Internet nor LAN strings attached.

First … our desire was to keep running OSX 10.9 and find a workaround that is as utilitarian and reliable as missing USB sync until the original functionality either returns or some third party provides a replacement.

Meantime, we tried the OSX Server route … which is a significant overhead for a personal computer, and cumbersome for an average user, and it does NOT work. I gave up before trying calendar sync since I could not overcome the problems with (simpler) contact syncing.

The import of existing contact data (archive) to server just does not work. You can maintain existing set in your Mac set, and start a new set on the server, and manage both from your Calendar app. Other option is to import/copy individual cards one by one (thousands in our case) to the server set … not something we were willing to do on every computer that is used in the field.

The fallback position we took is to roll back to OSX 10.8.5 … the restore using Time Machine was easy and error free (thanks for the feedback on this). It took a bit of prep and backup of updated data before, and restore time after … but we are back in business and HAPPY despite the fact that this is a dead end for Apple in our business if the local sync is not available in near future.

We estimate that we put into this project collectively 120 real hours, and lost some productivity across the business during the week we were running OSX 10.9 on three test computers. All because Apple decided to omit/conceal the info about missing functionality in the release notes.

Signing off ... wasted enoug time already ...

Thanks for your in dept investigation SMdC

I think you found some reasons why the "transfer to server" never ended, like dups.

I meanwhile restored from Backup withoout loosing too much data and do my sync manually at the moment.

For your all info:

http://www.tenorshare.com - a software to extract data from your mobile devices or backup did not really work. It found only half of my iCal entries and I would have to restore it entry by entry - as far as I understood (support reply pending). I would not like to do 25.000 clicks and skip the other 25.000.

Cheers

Brendt

Hi all, I just got an important answer from BusyCal:

With 51,000 entries I could see iCloud having issues (it only supports 25K).

If this is true …

Maybe they found the reason why I lost my largest calendar with entries since 2000.