[Brian]

Originally Posted by greybeard40

Also I have used a wide range of programmes on my palm treo that synced flawlessly with my windows pc: bonsai, list pro, phatnotes all offered successful no-brainer sync between handheld and desktop. Thats all I was asking about. Sorry if I have ruffled feathers!!

No ruffled feathers at all! I'm sure other folks have the same questions, so it's good that you're asking them.

With the Treo example, Palm wrote some software that handles the basics of syncing data between the handheld and the desktop; every software vendor writes a plugin that handles the specifics for their application.

With the palm, you buy the Treo, and you get the sync software; you buy the application, and you get the sync plugin. Apple's gone a different route. You buy the phone and have the option of buying MobileMe, but it's not required.

(Of course, Apple's got a subscription model, whereas with palm, it's a one-time purchase. Would it be nice if iPhones came with a free year of MobileMe? Yep, but that's not our decision to make.)

The macworld article Dennis linked to does a good job describing how the iPhone setup is different, which is one of the reasons we're going a different route in moving data back and forth.

On the upside, our method has some advantages, in that the Palm generally syncs with a single desktop machine. With our setup, an iPhone, a work machine, and a home machine could all be synchronized. It doesn't sound like that's applicable to you specifically, but it's still a win for the larger population of users. :-)

Now, if your goal is to have everything 'just work' on day one, MobileMe is probably the way to go. From my quick froogle search, it doesn't look like there's a huge cost difference between iPhone + 1 year of MobileMe vs. a Treo, even at the higher price for the first generation iPhone. You're paying about the same amount for about the same services in both cases; you're just doing it a little differently.

If your goal is to spend as little cash as possible, then you may want to hold off for a bit. I have no doubt that we or some other motivated person out there on the internet will make setting up WebDAV on a local machine easier than it currently is, but I can't predict exactly when it'll happen. The odds that it'll be done before a 1-year subscription to MobileMe is up are pretty good in my opinion.

As it is, we're making an app for a device we've never worked with before, with a UI totally unlike all the other ones we've designed before, and we're doing so much faster than we've ever done so before, as well. Remember: before February, we didn't have any of the resources it takes to write an app for the iPhone. We ship sometime in July. What are we, insane?

There's an engineering saying that gets tossed around from time to time - "Faster, better, cheaper: pick two." In this case, it's more like "Faster, with a side order of better or cheaper - you pick."

[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by Brian

There's an engineering saying that gets tossed around from time to time - "Faster, better, cheaper: pick two." In this case, it's more like "Faster, with a side order of better or cheaper - you pick."

The version popular in my circles was "fast, cheap, correct, pick any two" :-)

[karlsf]

A parallel question: I can't use an iPhone at work. Can I use OF iPhone with an iTouch? I would prefer hard wire synch, but could live with wi-fi if that was all that is available. Possible? Thx.

[Brian]

Yep, should work fine on the iPod Touch, assuming you have WiFi access to whatever server you're synching to. See the article that Toadling linked to on the previous page for more details.

[acollins]

Sorry to bring back a (slightly) old thread, but I have a question about wireless syncing and security. I can't use MobileMe or another web hosting option (as much as I would like to) because work data needs to be in one of two places, either on the work laptop or on the work server. Having task and calendar information anywhere else is not an option.

I don't really understand what WebDAV is or how it works, but I've been around Macs and Omni long enough to know that someone will eventually make a system for non-technically savvy people (such as myself) to use. Here's the question: how does WebDAV work generally? Where does the data reside and how does it go from point A (the computer) to point B (the iPhone) and back? If I have my OmniFocus data on the laptop, can I have that sent to the iPhone without going through the work server?

Thanks!

[Toadling]

WebDAV is a protocol that essentially allows read and write access to web-based (HTTP) resources. Typically, WebDAV is used to interact with a web server or a service like .Mac on the Internet.

However, Mac OS X has an industrial-strength, built-in web server that has full WebDAV support. I don't mean Mac OS X Server (although that also has Apache, among other things). I mean the client version of Mac OS X running on everybody's home computer.

The web server and WebDAV support is off by default on the client version of Mac OS X, but presumably OmniFocus would make it easy to enable the WebDAV service and allow you to wirelessly sync your data with your local machine, without going through .Mac, MobileMe, or any other third-party server.

Of course, the advantage of syncing through a remote server, instead of just keeping it all local, is that you can sync from anywhere that you have an Internet connection. And your iPhone can send and retrieve data over a cell network when you're on the road.

But you're right about privacy risks with data stored on a remote machine. Anything on .Mac or MobileMe can potentially be seen by an unscrupulous Apple employee or contractor. Syncing only to your local Mac over its built-in web server largely protects you from that - unless a bad guy has physical access to your local machine or your network. And even if the bad guy has access to your network, risks could be largely mitigated by transferring data over HTTPS (encrypted connection), but I don't know if OmniFocus will support that (and it may very well be overkill).

-Dennis

[acollins]

Originally Posted by Toadling

WebDAV is a protocol that essentially . . .

Thanks for the informative response, Dennis. It was much appreciated.

So, basically, the only situations in which a cable syncing solution is more effective than a locally hosted WebDAV syncing solution is where the computer and iPhone are not on the same wireless network or where no wireless network is available. Otherwise, whether by cable or WebDAV, the iPhone and computer have to be close enough to each other to either (a) plug the iPhone to the computer or (b) share the same wireless network. And, with the WebDAV solution, no wires are required. That seems like an eminently reasonable compromise to me.

Thanks again!

[Toadling]

Actually, it's slightly better than that. If your computer has a publicly accessible IP address (it's not behind a router or proxy server), I'd guess you could probably sync to it as well. So you wouldn't necessarily have to be on the same wireless network. You could leave an iMac running at home with it's web server and WebDAV service enables, and then connect to it remotely via some other WiFi hotspot on the other side of town or just use the cell network. OTOH, most people don't have static IP addresses at home, so this might be a little dicey over time. But there are lots of ways to work around that.

Of course, I'm only guessing here, as I don't have access to OmniFocus 1.1 yet. :)

Come to think of it, I wonder if you even need a separate wireless network when the Mac and iPhone are within close range of each other. They might be able to connect directly using Bonjour like two Macs can. But again, this is just conjecture. We'll probably know more in the coming weeks.

All in all, it really exciting stuff.

-Dennis

[Brian]

How can I both clarify the issue and be sure I'm not violating the NDA that we're under? :-/

I'll try this: the article that Dennis linked to on the previous page makes the argument that only iTunes can synch data via the wired connection. If the article is correct, then third party applications have no option but to use a wireless connection if they want to move data off the phone.

Third party developers aren't substituting WebDAV for a wired synch because they want to: they're doing so because wired synch is simply not possible at this time.

In your specific setup, what you want to do is move the data between the phone and your work laptop via a Wi-Fi connection. Whether that's on an existing wi-fi network or just an ad-hoc network you set up between the two devices is up to what your network administrator will let you do.

One thing to keep in mind is that you'll likely want to disable WebDAV access to the laptop when you're not actively using it. If the information is sensitive, you wouldn't want to have the WebDAV server accessible unless you're in a secure environment.

[Toadling]

I don't mean to pressure you for more info, Brian. I know it's difficult to discuss this openly right now. I'll just think out loud a bit:

I'm not familiar enough with Apache configuration (and don't have the time to research it at the moment), but maybe it would be possible to limit access to the WebDAV service to a particular MAC address? That could be spoofed, but it would at least provide some rudimentary security and allow you to leave the WebDAV service on all the time. Maybe couple that with basic HTTP authentication too so the client would get prompted for a password - also not very secure, but better than nothing.

I wonder if .Mac/MobileMe requires any kind of authentication when a client connects and attempts to sync data? I would imagine that your .Mac password would be required, but Mac OS X currently does a pretty good job of making this seamless, so it's not really clear what's going on behind the scene.

Anyway, I'm quite confident the Omni folks are aware of all the options here and are plotting a sound course. I'm just really excited about all the new possibilities: third-party iPhone apps, OmniFocus "in my pocket", location services, wireless syncing, no need to connect with that annoying USB cable anymore, etc. It almost feels too good to be true. :D

-Dennis