Windows Mobile Meets Apple OS X

Due in part to the market's tepid response to Microsoft Vista and Apple's phenomenal success with their iPod and iPhone products, Apple's Mac computer line is becoming more visible among the technical and executive ranks. However, many of the same users are reluctant to trade in their Windows Mobile smartphone for an iPhone because of the latter's limited data synchronization capabilities and limited third-party software offerings. This becomes a problem for these users because Apple's OS X does not provide built-in support for synchronizing Address Book and iCal calendaring/scheduling data with Outlook on Windows Mobile devices. Fortunately, several commercial solutions exist that not only help solve these issues but also enhance the experience beyond basic syncing needs.

Fig. 1: SyncMate Expert Edition ($39.95) adds iTunes and iPhoto synchronization and other features.

SyncMate

SyncMate (eltima.com) is available in two versions. The Free Edition allows you to sync documents, text messages, Contacts, and Calendar entries between your Windows Mobile touch screen device and a Mac OS X computer. The Expert Edition adds iTunes and iPhoto synchronization and other features (see Fig. 1). Priced at $39.95, the Expert Edition is similar in price (and features) to its strongest competitor, Missing Sync.

SyncMate installation was straightforward and ran well on an older G4-based Apple computer, but it failed to recognize my Windows Mobile device when I installed the program on an Intel-based MacPro. It recognized the USB port but failed to activate its synchronization routine when I plugged either my iPAQ 6315 or HTC Advantage into the computer. Alas, this could be related to its 1.0 entry, as this is the youngest product in this category. It's possible that the MacPro I tested SyncMate on had issues of its own, since SyncMate was not the only program in this article that had problems running on it.

The safest bet is to download and install the Free Edition first to make sure its basic synchronization features work with your Mac and Windows Mobile device. SyncMate is spec'd to work with Mac OS X 10.4 and higher and sync with both touch and non-touch screen devices running Windows Mobile 5 or a later version of the OS.

Fig. 2: PocketMac's Device Selection asks for the size, not the model, of a user's WM device.

PocketMac

PocketMac for Windows Mobile 5/6 (pocketmac.net) also helps solve the Windows Mobile to OS X data synchronization problem. Priced at $29.95, PocketMac offers most of the features found in competing programs and has some not found anywhere else. For example, it includes Excel Mobile and Word Mobile viewers that are useful for those Mac users who do not have Microsoft Office installed on their computers but need a way to view Excel and Word documents that were created on their Windows Mobile devices.

The most recent version of PocketMac supports Windows Mobile 5 or higher devices. Users of older Pocket PCs will have to get the Windows Mobile 2002/2003 edition, and multiple device owners like me, with older and newer devices, will have to shell out $60 for both versions of the product. I haven't tried installing both versions on the same Mac, but I'm concerned that there might be conflicts between the two since PocketMac's online knowledgebase indicates a problem (as well as a solution) regarding the existence of multiple PocketMac Ports that can block the devices' visibility to the program.