Air Sharing vs FileMagnet vs MobileME vs Headache. Recommendations?

[jmeray]

Yeah, newbie, trying to research what type of sync/storage/etc application that will work for me.
I'm coming from a TREO which can sync directly to my PC, my word docs, my outlook contacts & calendar, excel spsheets, pictures, videos, yada yada.
however, its all a manual "OK, Bluetooth, sync, done" process that you have to remember to do.

Moving foreword now, iPhone 3GS.

I want something that can sync my calendar w/o manual interaction if possible.
Like if I am in proximity (meaning i'm on my home wifi) it should sync every x hours automatically. (This could be over 3G as well).
This feature has me considering MobileME beacuse i update the iphone calendar, boom, its automatically updated in my mobileme cal.

I'd also like to sync my word & excel docs. Air Sharing & filemagnet seem like they are conduits for you to manually move files back & forth, but no sync. Right? So i dont know what to use at this point for sync'g documents. I mean even MobileMe iDisk is a send/retrieve, not a sync. right?

Bottom line is that I want to be able to have access to the most up to date information, anywhere i go. If i update a doc on my iphone, and a day later i update the same doc on my PC, then i want to see those iphone updates already on my PC and I'd like to not have had to do a "manual" sync process.
Same for calendar, if i update the OUTLOOK cal, then i want my iphone to show the updates without a manual sync.

Hope i'm not asking for too much. Any input?

 

[silver25u]

Calendaring:

If you like FREE and don't mind using Google Calendars, you can use Google Sync for iPhone to sync up to 5 calendars to your iPhone (they hope to allow more than 5 calendars when able to do so on mobile iCal). On the computer side you can either us the web interface for Google Calendars or any number of third party options to bring it into iCal/Outlook/etc... This would accomplish your desire for a common up-to-date calendar.

Documents:

I have AirSharing Pro and it is pretty good (looking forward to future updates). With it you would either have to manually transfer documents over or store documents on a webdav server such as MobileMe so AirSharing (or similar) can assess it through your wireless internet. I like both Files and Airsharing Pro, with Airsharing Pro coming out on top.

 

[tiguk]

Well if you don't mind the subscription, I'd say MobileMe.

When Apple launch iPhone OS 3.0 on Wednesday, they're also due to release an iDisk app, so the over-the-air syncing of documents you're after will be available.

And, it already does over-the-air syncing of Calendars, Contacts and email.

Well worth it I'd say.

 

[wackymacky]

To automatically sync your contacts and colander and e-mail on your phone with your computer use Mobile Me. (it works over wifi or 3G as the data is pushed to a server "cloud").

Time to sync a change takes from 30 sec to 15 min (on rare occasions), at least where I live.

Currently there a no Apps that sync documents.

AirSharing (pro), Quick office and MobileFiles all let you access you iDisk (online Moble Me storage).

You can mount your iDisk like a drive on your computer and save files on to it like you would an external drive, then open them on your phone.

AirSharing (pro) also lets you e-mail them and print (some formats) to a printer on the wireless network. QuickOffice lets you edit certain file-types. (MobleFiles is a striped down component of QuickOffice).

Apple is also (at last) releasing it's own iDisk App as part of iPhone OS 3.0. They have only said so far that it lets you view documents, so we'll have to wait a couple more days to find out if it does any more.

 

[tiguk]

Currently there a no Apps that sync documents.

Not until Wednesday!! The iDisk app was mentioned in the Keynote.

 

[str1f3]

As a MM user, I'd recommend that. While the other apps you mentioned are good apps, neither are the right solution. iDisk is easier and doesn't take up space on your iPhone. I've got Quickoffice and one of the things I need is the ability to print. I feel that  should be the one to implement since all apps could use this feature.

 

[wackymacky]

Not until Wednesday!! The iDisk app was mentioned in the Keynote.

From my understanding it won't syc files in your home>documents folder on your Mac or My Documents on tor PC hard Drive, which seems to be what he was asking.

(Rather than just opening files saved on the iDisk server)

 

[jmeray]

Thanks everyone for the responses so far.

Yes, i am looking for some "sync" option, and weather the storage be in the cloud (idisk) or on the PC, well, i would have to say there are pros/cons to both. Securitywise, the PC is better, accesswise, the iDisk is better.
But either way... are we saying that on the 3.0 there is an iDisk app that will actually let you "sync" documents, as opposed to just saving them to the iDisk or retrieving them from the iDisk to your phone?

That "sync" concept.... the yes, I can update the file on the PC or iPhone and the newest one will always be sync'd to both places... thats what I'm after for files.

It sounds so far, like MobileME (even though the costs) makes a very good effort at handling the calendar/contacts. And it provides an iDisk. Question is... is there an app, that can use that iDisk to "sync".

 

[frjps]

Try Dropbox

I use this. Free for 2 gigs. Have all my docs in there & can access them easily using Mobile Safari. If you have 2 or more Macs, it syncs them beautifully too!

 

[BrownManUPS]

The Google Calendar Sync solution works well, but it doesn't sync tasks (not even to desktop yet....) and only 5 calendars, one must be your own "me" calendar, which if you are like me has no events on it (because I use GC to subscribe to other cals).

 

[swindmill]

I couldn't live without MobileMe, for the calendar syncing alone. I use OneDisk for viewing and transferring documents to my iPhone. That would be great if Apple released an app for this. It isn't the latest dev build.

 

[Readdlemate]

You can look at ReaddleDocs.