RunningWithBulls.com - The curse of Sanfermin

So, I think I have a Treo 650, on the way to me, finally. I say think, and finally, for two reasons, which I will go into in more detail a little later.

This post is mainly for listing bugs/issues/problems and most other nasty things that could/might/would happen when syncing a Treo 650 to a PowerBook, running at least Mac OS X 10.3.9.

I have read that there are problems in syncing the Treo address book with Mac Addressbook (I can’t find the damn link now!), but from reading this, it seems to work all fine. So I am a little confused.

Most of these bugs I have found after wasting waaaaay too much time looking into possible problems with Treos and Mac OS X.

1. USB syncing and Mac OS X can be flaky. (This may be do withMac OS X, rather than the Treo).

2. Browsing a Bluetooth enabled Treo 650 device (like browsing a Sony Ericsson T630) and copying/deleting files, etc does not seem to be possible. (One possible solution for this is a piece of software called SplashData Splashphoto. This does however cost $30. More infor here.)

3. Syncing addressbook from Mac to Treo addressbook, with iSync, doesn’t work just right. The categories on either don’t sync to the other.

4. Syncing photos from the Treo to the Mac, also doesn’t work out of the box.
(There are two fixes available for 3 and 4. For 3 there is Missing Sync. Its not free though. It has a price tag of $39.95. For 4 there is itreo. Again, its not free, but it is only a shareware price of $12. The same guy also has a more powerful piece of software called Syncbuddy. A steeper price of $25)

5. The Treo 650 doesn’t work as well with Salling Clicker, as other Bluetooth enabled phones do, like for example, the Sony Ericsson T630.
Caller ID and dialling from the Mac do not work. This is a limitation on the Treo, rather than on the Salling Clicker app.
The below service matrix shows what works, and what does not:
Here is the feature matrix. (Currently there is no fix for this issue. Until Jonas Salling can write a specific app for the Treo range of products, which may take some time.)

6. Can be confusing getting Entourage working with Mac OS X and Treo. You gotta turn off the Palm conduits.
(Also there are a number of solutions to this problem too, e2sync being the most popular it seems. I do not use Entourage so I can’t vouch for its success.

7. In the US alot of wireless operators have turned off the possibility of using DUN with the Treo. follow the posts here, and if you have this problem, you should be able to use DUN after the hack is worked.

8. If you’re looking to playiTunes songs on your Treo 650, this should work for any files, NOT purchased from the iTunes store. Apple DRM does not extend to Palm OS. Kinoma will play aac, and mp3 files.

There are some good points though:
1. The Treo 600, and Treo 650 do support.Mac mail accounts. (I don’t have a .Mac account, but many do).

As I find more, I will add the here..