[markw10]

I have a MacBook Pro and MobileMe and also have a iPhone 3G. I haven't upgraded to 3.0 yet but am considering it.
One question I have is about Notes syncing.
-Does it sync over MobileMe or would I have to connect my iPhone through USB to the computer
-Also, I switched to Thunderbird sometime back for Email so don't use Apple's Mail App. If I'm correct the way to get to the Notes on the Mac side is to use Mail and go under the Reminders Section. Is this correct? I know where it sync on the iPhone but is there a way to view or create notes on the Mac without going into Mail?
Thank you for help with the above questions.

[JKT]

I think it only works over USB for synching, but you can now have both MobileMe synched content and USB synched content active at the same time (previously, it was one or the other), though not for the same things; that is, you can synch your mail accounts over the air but not both over the air and via USB, but you can synch some of your calendars such as the Birthdays one via USB and the rest over the air.

You currently need to use Mail to edit and create notes, I believe.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by JKT 

You currently need to use Mail to edit and create notes, I believe.

Mail's Notes were the only "notes" I could get to sync. I spent quite a lot of time trying to get Entourage notes to sync, but some Googling led me to believe that it was only Mail's notes that would work. They do, so I moved all the text I wanted to sync into Mail and it worked great.

[Spheric Harlot]

Mail notes sync over MobileMe.

[JKT]

They do? I can't get it to work and the iTunes interface would imply that they do not as there is no indication that you are doing so with MobileMe (you receive a warning that you are doing so for everything else).

[JKT]

E.g. This is what you see for Calendars, but there is no message at all for Notes:

[JKT]

I think I see the confusion here - when I'm talking about synching notes, I mean to the Notes app on the iPhone. MobileMe notes only appear in the Mail app as far as I can tell, and do not synch to the Notes app over the air. With iTunes, you can now synch your notes from the app on your iPhone to the Notes stored in Mail.

[slugslugslug]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

Mail notes sync over MobileMe.

Yeah, I think you're mistaken, too. But if you've got a source, I'd love to be wrong. I barely ever sync via USB these days, unless I want to swap out my music.

[edit: Oh wait, now I think I get what you're saying, too. But I want notes to show up in my notes app, rather than in Mail on the iPhone, where it takes too many taps to switch folders. (I'm not a huge fan of notes in Mac OS X Mail, but I can live with it.]

[kman42]

The Notes you write in Mail on your computer are synced over-the-air to the Mail Notes folder on your iPhone. The Notes app on iPhone is synced with these notes over USB when you plug in your phone. The Notes app is not synced over-the-air.

[JKT]

Originally Posted by kman42 

...the Mail Notes folder on your iPhone...

I don't have a "Notes folder" in my iPhone Mail app - they just appear in my Inbox for me (and thus get lost in the crowd which dramatically reduces their usefulness). Am I missing something here?

[kman42]

Originally Posted by JKT 

I don't have a "Notes folder" in my iPhone Mail app - they just appear in my Inbox for me (and thus get lost in the crowd which dramatically reduces their usefulness). Am I missing something here?

This is a setting in desktop Mail. Go to Preferences-->Accounts-->Mailbox behavior and uncheck the box that says "Store Notes in inbox". They will then be put in a separate folder under Reminders in the sidebar of desktop Mail. Mobile Mail will just create a new folder called Notes on your iPhone where you will find them.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by JKT 

They do? I can't get it to work and the iTunes interface would imply that they do not as there is no indication that you are doing so with MobileMe (you receive a warning that you are doing so for everything else).

Hardmac.com : Le "Macbidouille" in English - Things of interest about the iPhone3GS

Notes that you type on the iPhone or in Mail>Notes>On my Mac get synced OTA via MobileMe.

[kman42]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

Hardmac.com : Le "Macbidouille" in English - Things of interest about the iPhone3GS

I saw that post on Hardmac as well and went back to try again. I think their description is confusing. Notes sync over the air between desktop Mail and iPhone Mail. They DO NOT sync OTA to/from the Notes app on the iPhone.

[turtle777]

iPhone Notes and Mail Notes are way underpowered, and confusing to use (sync OTA vs. USB).

Evernote Desktop + Evernote iPhone + Evernote online access is much more powerful.

I'm only using Notes for temporary brain dumps when it has to go fast.

-t

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by kman42 

I saw that post on Hardmac as well and went back to try again. I think their description is confusing. Notes sync over the air between desktop Mail and iPhone Mail. They DO NOT sync OTA to/from the Notes app on the iPhone.

Huh.

AppleInsider | Review: Apple's new iPhone 3G S and iPhone Software 3.0

Notes syncing is another one of those "why wasn't it here sooner" things, but I can't think of any major features of iPhone 1.0 or 2.0 that I would have delayed just to sync my scribbles. In any event, all those Notes you tapped into your mobile over the last two years are now synced to Mac OS X Mail via iTunes, making the Notes feature actually pretty useful. Notes also get synced to MobileMe and between your mobile devices.

Okay.

At least they appear to get synced via iTunes (and then back over the air via MobileMe???)

I'm confused, but won't have an iPhone to test it with until late July.

[kman42]

I'll try to explain it one more time. There are two ways to sync notes on the iPhone: 1) using IMAP through Mail; 2) using iTunes to sync with a USB cable. Here are some examples:

1) notes typed on your Mac in Mail in the 'MobileMe' folder get synced over-the-air to the Notes folder in iPhone Mail

2) notes typed in any other folder of an IMAP account in Mail on your desktop get synced over-the-air to their respective Mail account on the iPhone

Situations 1 and 2 have been true for a long time now, well before 3.0 came out. I'm not sure of the exact time the feature was implemented though.

3) notes typed on your iPhone in the Notes app are synced with the 'On my mac' folder of Mail on your desktop whenever you do a sync with iTunes using a USB cable.

4) notes stored in all those folders of the desktop Mail application associated with situations 1 and 2 above also appear to download to the Notes app on the iPhone when you sync with iTunes and a USB cable, but some of them are randomly missing for me so I don't yet have a totally clear picture of this particular situation.

So, in summary, the only notes that sync over-the-air are the IMAP related Mail style notes that have been syncing over-the-air for some time now. The only notes syncing feature that 3.0 introduced was to allow iTunes syncing with a USB cable of the notes typed in the Notes app.

THERE IS NO OVER-THE-AIR SYNCING WITH THE NOTES APP ON THE IPHONE. PERIOD.

[turtle777]

^^^ Thanks.

Wow. Just wow. Could it be any more complicated ? Try to explain all that to your mom or so.

Theoretically, you can have three (four) sets of unrelated "notes"

1) Notes app on iPhone
2) Notes on IMAP Mail on desktop Mac
3) Notes in Mail on iPhone (if not set up to sync)
4) Stickies

Why the heck Apple can't make sure that these are all in sync is beyond me.
Oh, wait, they'd probably charge you $ 100 for it.

Like I said, Evernote does all this and more, for free.

-t

[::maroma::]

I think Apple should just make the back of the iPhones a marker board type thing so you can just write crap down and it'll always be with you!

But I agree, note syncing isn't very intuitive at the moment. And one would think that such a simple thing could be done... well, simply.

[ghporter]

Syncing with a cable works great for Mail Notes. The thing I'm curious about is why you'd want to sync so much stuff via MobileMe. Wouldn't that take a) a lot longer, b) a lot more battery power and c) a lot of trust that your stuff isn't going to be intercepted or garbled?

Is there any driving need for MobilMe except for "OMG someone stole my iPhone and I want to nuke it from orbit" that cannot be done at your computer? Just curious, since I haven't even tried the "free demo" of MobileMe.

[Simon]

I feel that way too, Glenn.

Find my iPhone sounds neat, but otherwise I see no reason to get MobileMe.

I would OTOH love to be able to sync over wifi or BT without having to dig out that USB cable every time. Sure it's slower, but if I know I only have little to sync I'd prefer the convenience of wireless syncing.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by kman42 

I'll try to explain it one more time. There are two ways to sync notes on the iPhone: 1) using IMAP through Mail; 2) using iTunes to sync with a USB cable. Here are some examples:

1) notes typed on your Mac in Mail in the 'MobileMe' folder get synced over-the-air to the Notes folder in iPhone Mail

2) notes typed in any other folder of an IMAP account in Mail on your desktop get synced over-the-air to their respective Mail account on the iPhone

Situations 1 and 2 have been true for a long time now, well before 3.0 came out. I'm not sure of the exact time the feature was implemented though.

3) notes typed on your iPhone in the Notes app are synced with the 'On my mac' folder of Mail on your desktop whenever you do a sync with iTunes using a USB cable.

4) notes stored in all those folders of the desktop Mail application associated with situations 1 and 2 above also appear to download to the Notes app on the iPhone when you sync with iTunes and a USB cable, but some of them are randomly missing for me so I don't yet have a totally clear picture of this particular situation.

So, in summary, the only notes that sync over-the-air are the IMAP related Mail style notes that have been syncing over-the-air for some time now. The only notes syncing feature that 3.0 introduced was to allow iTunes syncing with a USB cable of the notes typed in the Notes app.

THERE IS NO OVER-THE-AIR SYNCING WITH THE NOTES APP ON THE IPHONE. PERIOD.

Thanks for the comprehensive run-down.

Excellent info.

[JKT]

Simple - I don't have to worry whether or not any contacts or events or notes I've added to my iPhone are on my desktop and my laptop and in all the accounts I have for which I have MobileMe set up and vice versa. If I only did it via iTunes, the data would only ever be synched to one account on one machine at any one time, and that assumes that I have connected my iPhone to the computer before I start doing anything with it.

Yes, it probably makes things a bit slower. Yes, it probably makes my battery drain that little bit faster. Yes, there is a small risk that the data will become garbled (but this is just another reason to back up and back up regularly). However, the convenience of having a do it and forget it system far outweighs all three. Also, as the data is synched straight away or near enough as, should I lose my phone shortly after, at least I haven't lost my data and my data is worth a great deal more to me than a phone. Wi-Fi synching would have the benefit of being OTA, but it requires proximity to your LAN and would therefore put me at risk of losing data if I lost my phone.

Then we have the convenience of iDisk and the apps that let you access files on it OTA on your iPhone, the ability of other apps to make use of iDisk and synching to a WebDAV server over a secure https connection (e.g. OmniFocus), etc. Now we have Find My iPhone too and I think MobileMe has finally turned from a decent set of services for slightly over the odds cost into a must have extra if you have an iPhone.

Fwiw, a little exercise in recursive fun - unlike mobile Safari, iCab mobile can gain access to me.com on your iPhone* so you can actually use Find my iPhone on your iPhone

* The performance is atrocious which is probably why Apple stopped you from doing it. Presumably because of all the Javascript involved.

[JKT]

Incidentally, I suspect that you have Notes synching within your Mail accounts because it is useful to people who don't have an iPhone. If it were exclusive to iPhone users and its Notes app, then why would anyone else ever use it?

[slugslugslug]

Yeah, I'd had a recurring urge to dump .Mac when it went non-free. I used to just end up keeping it because I never got round to dealing with the logistics of getting rid of an e-mail address (since inevitably I'd forget about some account somewhere that uses it and maybe miss a message I care about). But I got my iPhone after it became MobileMe, and I've stopped wanting to get rid of it. You can usually get a discount on the box on Amazon, so it comes to maybe 6 bucks a month.

Not having to care whether I've synced my iPhone before I look on one device for a contact/event I've added on another is so worth it to me.

[kman42]

Originally Posted by JKT 

Incidentally, I suspect that you have Notes synching within your Mail accounts because it is useful to people who don't have an iPhone. If it were exclusive to iPhone users and its Notes app, then why would anyone else ever use it?

I don't think having the iPhone Notes app sync would exclude people who don't have an iPhone. Apple could easily add the ability of the Notes app to sync up with the IMAP folders for notes. It could act just like another IMAP mail client, but slimmed down to only deal with those specific folders.

[webb3201]

This is a very silly, perhaps bad implementation of notes and synching. I would highly recommend Evernote as a great implementation information sharing. Easy to use and easy to understand!