[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by frankmcma

Turning off auto sync would pretty much negate the whole setup of Mac - iPhone - Mobile Me sync. I need to have everything in sync, so that is why I have it on, and why I purchased the programs.

No, it doesn't do anything of the sort. It allows you to do the sync at a time which is more convenient for you, so that the app can start up as fast as possible. If you leave the app running after making your change and force a sync, as I suggest, it does the sync and you're all set for the next time. If you think that there's some possibility that the iPhone hasn't received some vital update from the desktop, you can always do a sync on the spot.

I have my desktop version up pretty often and sync it from there..I never am updating both at the same time. If I am on my phone I am not usually near my desktop.

It sounds like you maybe don't need to sync at all except when you switch between devices. Do a bunch of work on the desktop, decide to run some errands, pull the iPhone out of your pocket and start a sync as you grab your car keys. Now the iPhone has all the data, and you don't need to worry about syncing until you return and want to get the desktop up to date. Remember, if you've done something on the iPhone while you are out, you're going to have to sync the desktop before it becomes aware of those changes, unless enough time passes that it happens to do one of its hourly syncs after the iPhone has synced all the changes back to the server. If you are making use of the feature where mail messages can be delivered into OmniFocus, then you might want to sync now and then if you thought something urgent might come via that route.

How long SHOULD it take? Whenever I boot up Omnifocus on my phone it starts to sync and it takes at least 60 seconds to complete. Then if I add stuff I need to sync again. Similar apps such as Pocket Informant sync to google calendar in seconds, the native calendar on my phone syncs via mobile me in seconds. I actually have more content on my calendars. Basically ever app that syncs to a source on my iphone happens very quickly, except Omnifocus.

OmniFocus is sending around more information than meets the eye. Syncing items such as calendar entries is an easier problem than syncing formatted outlines with attachments. MobileMe's calendar sync is pretty pokey in my experience. I told it to sync over more than the 1 month of past history, and my iPod went to sleep before it finished. OF took 7 seconds to sync my database of 544 projects, 4540 actions, 43 zip files, 4.2 MB on MobileMe. I reset the database on my iPod and told it to re-fetch the whole thing (via WiFi), and it did so in 16 seconds. Added a bunch of actions to the Inbox, and synced in 10 seconds. Sometimes a sync can take a long time if the sync database is ready for compaction, especially if you are doing it over a slow uplink. Also, iPhones vary quite a bit in computational power -- which model do you have? I would expect a 1st generation unit with a marginal Edge connection to be pretty grim, and a 3GS with a good 3G connection to be pretty snappy, though not as snappy as it would be with a reasonable WiFi connection.

I still think you should have the support ninjas check this out with you, to make sure that the sync performance you are seeing is reasonable for your device, database, and connectivity. If your performance can't be improved, then you ought to give more consideration to my suggestions about syncing when it is convenient to possibly encounter a delay.