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Nokia + Mac = Love?

By The Guru on August 16, 2008

Closely following the Missing Sync update for Macs, Steve Litchfield over at AllAboutSymbian has kicked off a month-long look at the life of a Nokia lover who uses Macs. In part 1, Steve gave a quick walkthrough over pairing your Nokia device via Bluetooth, and using iSync to synchronize your PIM information, such as calendar, contacts, and the like. While there were a few hiccups, it seems as though things worked out well in the end.

Part 2 ventures forth into the multimedia side of things. Quite frankly, despite being a Windows user myself, I’ve always thought that OSX was better suited to the multimedia capabilities and lifestyle that the Nseries devices offer. Armed with the venerable Nokia Multimedia Transfer application, Steve is able to rather easily synchronize his N95 8GB with iPhoto, iTunes, and even his Safari bookmarks, which sounds really similar to the capabilities in Nokia’s Ovi Suite, which I’m loving, btw.

On a related note, our own Dotsisx has crossed the shiny line into MacWonderland, and I’ve no doubts she’ll be sharing her thoughts and experiences with using her N82 with her new Macbook. Are you a Mac user? What things drive you nuts, and what do you think is pretty simple? Do you think Nokia deserves all the flack that Mac users typically pass on?

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The Guru

The Guru, aka Ricky Cadden, started Symbian-Guru.com in November 2006, out of his excitement for the S60 3rd Edition version of Symella. The Guru has used Symbian devices since the Nokia 6620, and is known for his perspective as a power user. You can follow The Guru on Twitter at @Rcadden

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  • http://www.nokiacreative.com/ James Burland

    As a Mac user I’m am disappointed by Nokia’s lack of commitment to the Mac platform, fortunately as Steve’s excellent series of articles shows, there are many work-arounds for us Mac users.

    Picking up your comment about the Nseries and MacOS – I totally agree! It has always seemed to me to be a perfect union. Yes, I know there is the whole Apple vs. Nokia thing going on right now (which is completely boring by-the-way), but hey, in terms of sales figures (esp. NAM) Microsoft are much more of a rival to Nokia. I would have thought that any true Nokia fan would have boycotted Microsoft products long ago! (^_-)

  • http://www.nokiacreative.com James Burland

    As a Mac user I’m am disappointed by Nokia’s lack of commitment to the Mac platform, fortunately as Steve’s excellent series of articles shows, there are many work-arounds for us Mac users.

    Picking up your comment about the Nseries and MacOS – I totally agree! It has always seemed to me to be a perfect union. Yes, I know there is the whole Apple vs. Nokia thing going on right now (which is completely boring by-the-way), but hey, in terms of sales figures (esp. NAM) Microsoft are much more of a rival to Nokia. I would have thought that any true Nokia fan would have boycotted Microsoft products long ago! (^_-)

  • ashu

    hi ricky. I have been an active member of comments on steve’s articles on mac! I have been following it rather closely as i also ‘intend’ to own a mac but then again, i had people there to convince me that it will work. However, i will wait for part 3 and 4 of steve’s and then rita’s also. I own n 82 so hope she will cover most of what i want covered.

  • ashu

    hi ricky. I have been an active member of comments on steve’s articles on mac! I have been following it rather closely as i also ‘intend’ to own a mac but then again, i had people there to convince me that it will work. However, i will wait for part 3 and 4 of steve’s and then rita’s also. I own n 82 so hope she will cover most of what i want covered.

  • http://www.symbian-guru.com/ The Guru

    ‘Any true Nokia fan would have boycotted Microsoft products…’ Why Mr. Burland, is that directed to me? HA!

  • http://www.symbian-guru.com The Guru

    ‘Any true Nokia fan would have boycotted Microsoft products…’ Why Mr. Burland, is that directed to me? HA!

  • http://acurrie.wordpress.com/ AC

    I think Nokia plays great with Mac! I’ve been a Mac user for at least 15 years and have synced my PIM data to Treos, BlackBerries and Windows Mobiles, and Nokia’s iSync plug-ins work exactly as advertised.

    With the possible exception of video conversion I’ve had no issues at all with a Nokia/Mac setup…

  • http://acurrie.wordpress.com AC

    I think Nokia plays great with Mac! I’ve been a Mac user for at least 15 years and have synced my PIM data to Treos, BlackBerries and Windows Mobiles, and Nokia’s iSync plug-ins work exactly as advertised.

    With the possible exception of video conversion I’ve had no issues at all with a Nokia/Mac setup…

  • Netdiva

    I switched to a mac in May, and I have had a Nokia N95 since October. Here are some conclusions I’ve come to about the N95 on a PC and Mac:

    1) Nokia’s application rollout for their PC Suite is really designed for Windows, but I found the PC Suite generally to be buggy. I had to reinstall the PC Suite *several* times on my Windows Vista machine. Also, it was kind of a pain to do some of the basic things I wanted to do. For example, syncing my phone with Outlook was a pain in the ass. I hate Outlook, and my main calendar at the time was a web-based calendar (for example: google, 30boxes) and subscribing to the feed in outlook and then moving that to the phone took a lot of steps.

    2) I don’t take a whole lot of pictures or videos, so whatever functionality is provided on Windows I did not take full advantage of.

    3) I’ve learned (given various phone firmware updates) that the device backup is next to useless (through PC Suite) and it just behooves individuals to backup individual files where they can and have a zip files of all the software programs they use so they can reinstall quickly.

    4) Working with my phone on the Mac is actually a whole lot simpler than using it with the PC for the things I commonly do. For example: Isync is fabulous, really quick and really reliable for syncing my calendars and contacts. No muss, no fuss. Also, I purchased Visualhub for my video conversion needs generally, but it is also vastly preferred to the PC version to convert video for the N95. Finally, synctunes – which allows itunes playlists to be transferred to a memory card – is much easier (and faster) than the PC suite apps I used to transfer music.

  • Netdiva

    I switched to a mac in May, and I have had a Nokia N95 since October. Here are some conclusions I’ve come to about the N95 on a PC and Mac:

    1) Nokia’s application rollout for their PC Suite is really designed for Windows, but I found the PC Suite generally to be buggy. I had to reinstall the PC Suite *several* times on my Windows Vista machine. Also, it was kind of a pain to do some of the basic things I wanted to do. For example, syncing my phone with Outlook was a pain in the ass. I hate Outlook, and my main calendar at the time was a web-based calendar (for example: google, 30boxes) and subscribing to the feed in outlook and then moving that to the phone took a lot of steps.

    2) I don’t take a whole lot of pictures or videos, so whatever functionality is provided on Windows I did not take full advantage of.

    3) I’ve learned (given various phone firmware updates) that the device backup is next to useless (through PC Suite) and it just behooves individuals to backup individual files where they can and have a zip files of all the software programs they use so they can reinstall quickly.

    4) Working with my phone on the Mac is actually a whole lot simpler than using it with the PC for the things I commonly do. For example: Isync is fabulous, really quick and really reliable for syncing my calendars and contacts. No muss, no fuss. Also, I purchased Visualhub for my video conversion needs generally, but it is also vastly preferred to the PC version to convert video for the N95. Finally, synctunes – which allows itunes playlists to be transferred to a memory card – is much easier (and faster) than the PC suite apps I used to transfer music.

  • http://www.mobhappy.com/ Carlo

    NMT is a solid step forward, but the release of iSync plug-ins for new devices is probably the best thing Nokia could have done for Mac users.

  • http://www.mobhappy.com Carlo

    NMT is a solid step forward, but the release of iSync plug-ins for new devices is probably the best thing Nokia could have done for Mac users.

  • http://www.nokiacreative.com/ James Burland

    (^_-)

  • http://www.nokiacreative.com James Burland

    (^_-)

  • Martin

    Hoy hoy, I quite agree with NetDiva but to me there’s a main problem… You can’t update the firmware of your phone via a mac!
    That’s a real problem when you see that there’s a huge difference between the N95-8Gb without update and the N95-8Gb with the latest update.

  • Martin

    Hoy hoy, I quite agree with NetDiva but to me there’s a main problem… You can’t update the firmware of your phone via a mac!
    That’s a real problem when you see that there’s a huge difference between the N95-8Gb without update and the N95-8Gb with the latest update.

  • Rod

    Great review, looking forward to more. You might want to give cellular Internet access a whirl using the Nokia as a modem, or try out joikuspot. Or if you’re feeling really wild, Nokia+Windows over WMware or parallels. There are a bunch of interesting Nokia+Mac apps (use your N-series as a bluetooth webcam) that are fun to mess with too.

  • Rod

    Great review, looking forward to more. You might want to give cellular Internet access a whirl using the Nokia as a modem, or try out joikuspot. Or if you’re feeling really wild, Nokia+Windows over WMware or parallels. There are a bunch of interesting Nokia+Mac apps (use your N-series as a bluetooth webcam) that are fun to mess with too.

  • Saimee

    I’ve recently run into a situation where I feel that iSync is missing a key functionality. I accidently deleted all the calendar entries in my E71 and having already syncd it with my macbook, I thought it would be a fairly simple process of changing some of the advanced settings to import the syncd entries in iCal back to my E71.

    I found that this was not possible. I could well have overlooked something pretty simple in how to use iSync to do this and if I have, please correct me.

    Other than that, my N70, N82 and E71 have all been very happily working with my Mac.

  • Saimee

    I’ve recently run into a situation where I feel that iSync is missing a key functionality. I accidently deleted all the calendar entries in my E71 and having already syncd it with my macbook, I thought it would be a fairly simple process of changing some of the advanced settings to import the syncd entries in iCal back to my E71.

    I found that this was not possible. I could well have overlooked something pretty simple in how to use iSync to do this and if I have, please correct me.

    Other than that, my N70, N82 and E71 have all been very happily working with my Mac.

  • http://www.renegadefanboy.com/2008/11/nokia-confesses-to-working-on-ovi-suite-for-mac/ Nokia confesses to working on Ovi Suite for Mac | Renegade FanBoy

    [...] Dotsisx and The Guru: Match made in heaven, Does Nokia care?, Nokia + Mac = Love? [...]

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