Why is syncing notes so complicated?

[old thrashbarg]

Hello all--

I have a Mobile Me account, and iPhone and two iMacs - one at home, and one at work. I am delighted that Mobile Me keeps my Address Book and iCal up to date, but the way that Apple has designed the "notes" sync is just plain stupid.

So I write a note on my iPhone. Great. It's there on my phone, and then it shows up in Mail as a note associated with my email account. No problem there.

Then, I write a note on my work iMac. It shows up in Mail as "on my mac." It too shows up on my iPhone. Okay, strange to have two different versions of notes (one on my email and one on my mac, but okay, what the heck).

Then, I write a note on my home iMac. It shows up in Mail as "on my mac." It also shows up on my iPhone, but it does NOT show up on my work iMac! It's like there are THREE different notes - one on my work computer, one on my home computer, and one associated with my mail account.

All three show up on my iPhone, but the two iMacs are not syncing!

Why couldn't this have been designed like everything else with Mobile Me? Everything else just works - it all syncs together - but it's like there are different "kinds" of notes, not all of which show up together.

I can't use a note program that doesn't sync among all of my computers. Please advise if I am doing something wrong - in fact, I would love it if I was doing something wrong - but I just can't figure this out.

Thanks to all for any help that you can offer.

Firefly

 

[UngratefulNinja]

In order for it to sync, the notes on your computer have to be created in the mobileme notes folder.

 

[old thrashbarg]

Okay...

Fantastic. How do I do that?

 

[ma11ory]

*also interested* I have the problem where I end up having duplicate copies of the notes. As in, two in mail, which may or may not be the same. Sometimes only one shows up on my iPhone, sometimes both. I'm sure that this is operator error, but any hints are definitely welcome.

 

[Macsterguy]

In the current form - notes are a sad joke. I gave up on them for now until apple improves them hopefully with 10.6.3, iPad, and iPhone 4.0...

 

[spacepower7]

iCal

And how do iCal notes work?

Or Exchange Server for that matter?

 

[UngratefulNinja]

Fantastic. How do I do that?

Sorry, I forgot to check back on this thread! Beside the Notes tab in the sidebar in your mail, is there a sideways triangle? If so, click on it and it should expand to On My Mac and MobileMe. Try creating notes in the Mobileme tab and see if that syncs to your iphone over the air.

 

[applesupergeek]

Sorry, I forgot to check back on this thread! Beside the Notes tab in the sidebar in your mail, is there a sideways triangle? If so, click on it and it should expand to On My Mac and MobileMe. Try creating notes in the Mobileme tab and see if that syncs to your iphone over the air.

It's a sh*t implementation this one by apple anyway you cut it for sure.

Thanks for explaining the work around, but having notes transmitted as mail and having to open up the mobile me folder in mail to add a note that will sync (instead of by default writing the note there) it's just very bad implementation.

 

[miamialley]

I've always thought Stickies should sync between the Mac and iPhone. Get rid of Notes.

 

[applesupergeek]

Supposedly fixed with iphone os 4.0, but let's see it in action.

 

[andybno1]

going to jump in here I am doing a trial of mobileme and I created a note on my iPhone but when I synced my macbook I have no note showing in inbox in mail

 

[miamialley]

going to jump in here I am doing a trial of mobileme and I created a note on my iPhone but when I synced my macbook I have no note showing in inbox in mail

Make sure you select the option in iTunes to sync Notes.

 

[317342]

Notes Sync was mentioned in the iPhone 4.0 keynote, so it's clear they know about it but it will require the new OS.