Mac user's questions about syncing with WP7

[nzcwp]

Hi there,

I really do want to upgrade to WP7 (most likely radar from my iphone 2G).

However, two features are really important to me - contacts and calendar!

I do have a gmail account, but I don't want to use this particular account to sync my contacts/calendars. However, I'd be prepared to get a Windows Live and or second gmail account just for syncing ical/mac contacts. Is this possible? Would this account appear as an email inbox on my screen as well? Or could I switch that off and use it for syncing of calendar/contacts only?

My other question is regarding the number of email addresses and (mobile) phone number constraints. Many of my contacts do have 3 or more mobile phone numbers and several email address. How does WP7 handle these?

Please let me know of any other "mac-WP7" pitfalls that I may need to be aware of

I know I'm a little bit of a complicated case, but I really do love WP7 and hope I can go ahead with my purchase asap!

Thanks for all of your help in advance!

nzc

 

[Pronk]

First off, you can select what to sync from any account, so no problem there - just calendar from a Google account is fine (I have one account that syncs everything, and another that just syncs mail).

Multiple emails/numbers is handled very well - once all your contacts are in, you can just choose to link them, and then they'll appear just under one name. Contents with identical names or info about their other sources already embedded in the contact info you pull in will automatically link up.

Windows Phone Connector is fairly good at syncing content from iTunes, but it doesn't allow wifi sync/updates as the Zune Windows software does, and it doesn't sync photo albums - all your pics just end up in date order, which is quite annoying.

Hope that helps!

 

[nzcwp]

Thanks for the quick reply - that's great news!

Don't worry I'm not very hung up on photos... contacts and calendar is what counts for me!

I'm not sure whether you're a mac user, but have you (or others) encountered any glitches when syncing contacts/calendars back and forth from WP7 to mac and vice versa using a gmail account and/or windows live?

Thanks again

nzc

 

[Gorki247]

Thanks for the quick reply - that's great news!

Don't worry I'm not very hung up on photos... contacts and calendar is what counts for me!

I'm not sure whether you're a mac user, but have you (or others) encountered any glitches when syncing contacts/calendars back and forth from WP7 to mac and vice versa using a gmail account and/or windows live?

Thanks again

nzc

My calender is currently setup using iCal <-> Google <-> WP7, which seems to work quite well and in general there have been no issues. On occassion I ended up with a double entry, which I haven't looked into yet so I don't know what may be causing this and it's only happened twice so far. I don't use Google contacts, so cannot comment on that.

I'm planning to cut all ties with Google soon, so will be looking for an alternative that I can get to sync between mac and wp7 just as easily. I think Yahoo mail could be one, as I noticed iCal syncs with that as well.

 

[nzcwp]

My calender is currently setup using iCal <-> Google <-> WP7, which seems to work quite well and in general there have been no issues. On occassion I ended up with a double entry, which I haven't looked into yet so I don't know what may be causing this and it's only happened twice so far. I don't use Google contacts, so cannot comment on that.

I'm planning to cut all ties with Google soon, so will be looking for an alternative that I can get to sync between mac and wp7 just as easily. I think Yahoo mail could be one, as I noticed iCal syncs with that as well.

Thanks for that answer!

An occasional double entry should be alright ..

Well I know what you mean.. I'm not too keen on sharing my data with google, but then again winlive/icloud etc are not that much different...

Anyway I'll get a WP7 anyway, unless someone's gonna report some contact mac/wp7 syncing nightmares!

 

[Pronk]

I am a mac user, and I filter everything via my google account for ease of use with all my stuff (Mac, iPad, WP phone). Never had any double-entry probs so far.

All my contacts came via an address book sync with gmail and that was pretty flawless bar the loss of contact pictures. Not an issue though, as I pulled most of them in from facebook.

 

[nzcwp]

My calender is currently setup using iCal <-> Google <-> WP7, which seems to work quite well and in general there have been no issues. On occassion I ended up with a double entry, which I haven't looked into yet so I don't know what may be causing this and it's only happened twice so far. I don't use Google contacts, so cannot comment on that.

I'm planning to cut all ties with Google soon, so will be looking for an alternative that I can get to sync between mac and wp7 just as easily. I think Yahoo mail could be one, as I noticed iCal syncs with that as well.

Well I never use pics in my contact lists... hope WP7 contacts is still very usable without pics!

Well I guess all that's left to do for me is to decide whether to get the 710 or radar!