iPhone and iPad entourage support.

[JRC]

Hello, everyone.

I've been a long time user of Entourage and find it to be one of the
best PIM applications currently available for the Mac (although this
is changing fast).

For a little while now I've been struggling with iPhone support and
connectivity as Microsoft has yet to release an iPhone version of
Entourage that will sync with the same application on a Mac. The
situation is about to get even more complicated as I am purchasing a
new iPad and will have not one but two mobile devices that I won't be
able to sync with Entourage.

I find it hard to understand why and how such a large company can't
seem to be able to do such a simple task. It is obvious that there is
a market out there for this. Palm had a installed base that never came
near the current installed base of iPhones and yet Microsoft made an
application available to allow synchronization between Palm PDA's and
Entourage.

Do any of you have any suggestions for a simple way to solve this
problem ? Is there anything available from Microsoft that I am not
aware of that addresses the synchronization of Entourage and the
iPhone/iPad ?

Thank you in advance,

Joe

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Do any of you have any suggestions for a simple way to solve this
problem ? Is there anything available from Microsoft that I am not
aware of that addresses the synchronization of Entourage and the
iPhone/iPad ?

What do you want to synchronize?
Many of the major options are already covered actually.

With IMAP or Exchange accounts, e-mails can sync with the e-mail app on
iPhones and iPads.
With Exchange, address book and calendar sync.
With other types of accounts, you can use Sync Services to sync to the
System and then iTunes to sync to the device.

I know it leaves out projects and notes for instance, but what exactly
would you need?

Corentin

 

[JRC]

Hello, Corentin.

Responses to your questions appear below next to the appropriate text
sections.

What do you want to synchronize?
Everything.

Many of the major options are already covered actually.

With IMAP or Exchange accounts, e-mails can sync with the e-mail app on
iPhones and iPads.
With Exchange, address book and calendar sync.
With other types of accounts, you can use Sync Services to sync to the
System and then iTunes to sync to the device.

I don't have access to an Exchange server and wouldn't know how to get
one configured properly even if I did. What I was hoping for was
simple solution that would allow me to synchronize "all" the
information in Entourage for Mac with an iMac version of Entourage.
Many applications on the iPhone synchronize with their Mac
counterparts. As I stated previously Microsoft offered with Office a
simple utility that synchronized with Palm PDA's and it was great.
Very simple and straightforward. So why can't Microsoft do the same
for the iPhone ? The latest numbers I've seen indicate the number of
iPhones sold places one phone in the hands of more than 10% of
Americans in the USA. This is a respectable number.

I know it leaves out projects and notes for instance, but what exactly
would you need?

Again the same answer as above. Projects and notes are two of the most
important sections of Entourage that I would like to synchronize.

Corentin

I don't mean to start the old debate Apple x Microsoft nor do I intend
to use this post to make negative comments about Microsoft. But what
is it about the company that everything it does always seems more
complicated and less effective than necessary ? I have chosen to use
its suite (by suite I am referring to Office for Mac) and Entourage is
the one application I use every single day of my life. I am now being
forced by them to use several different applications to try to
organize my personal and business data on the iPhone when all I had to
do before when I was using a Palm device as a PDA was hit one button
to synchronize everything.

Why not create an Entourage app for the iPhone ?

Thanks,


Joe

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Hello, Corentin.

Hi Joe,

Everything.

Yeah, right now, it's not going to happen :-\

[...]

I don't have access to an Exchange server and wouldn't know how to get
one configured properly even if I did.

I mentioned Exchange because it's one of the solutions that yields the
best (and easiest) results.

What I was hoping for was
simple solution that would allow me to synchronize "all" the
information in Entourage for Mac with an iMac version of Entourage.
Many applications on the iPhone synchronize with their Mac
counterparts.

Sure. I suspect that in these cases, companies like MS weight in the
pros and cons and cost of everything.
If mail, contacts and events already sync, then do they really have a
market for creating an application that would also sync tasks and notes?
Apparently, they decided not.

As I stated previously Microsoft offered with Office a
simple utility that synchronized with Palm PDA's and it was great.

Well it was a hook to the Palm software. It didn't sync everything either.
Actually, I'm not even sure it could have synced notes, tasks and
projects now that I think about it.

Very simple and straightforward. So why can't Microsoft do the same
for the iPhone ? The latest numbers I've seen indicate the number of
iPhones sold places one phone in the hands of more than 10% of
Americans in the USA. This is a respectable number.

Well, again: e-mails sync, and through SyncServices (or Exchange), so
does the address book and calendar events. Not very different from the
Palm days (yeah, I know, it's buggy as hell, but that's a different
story).

Again the same answer as above. Projects and notes are two of the most
important sections of Entourage that I would like to synchronize.

I hear you. That's one of the reasons why I decided to use third party
software for both. I use OmniFocus for tasks (and projects in a certain
way) for instance.

I don't mean to start the old debate Apple x Microsoft nor do I intend
to use this post to make negative comments about Microsoft. But what
is it about the company that everything it does always seems more
complicated and less effective than necessary ?

Well in this case, as I was saying, I think the key is cost/benefit.
Too expensive to develop a solution if there is no real market to make
it profitable I fear.


Corentin

 

[Mountain]

Hello, Corentin.

        Hi Joe,

Everything.

Yeah, right now, it's not going to happen :-\

[...]

I don't have access to an Exchange server and wouldn't know how to get
one configured properly even if I did.

I mentioned Exchange because it's one of the solutions that yields the
best (and easiest) results.

What I was hoping for was
simple solution that would allow me to synchronize "all" the
information in Entourage for Mac with an iMac version of Entourage.
Many applications on the iPhone synchronize with their Mac
counterparts.

Sure. I suspect that in these cases, companies like MS weight in the
pros and cons and cost of everything.
If mail, contacts and events already sync, then do they really have a
market for creating an application that would also sync tasks and notes?
Apparently, they decided not.

As I stated previously Microsoft offered with Office a
simple utility that synchronized with Palm PDA's and it was great.

Well it was a hook to the Palm software. It didn't sync everything either..
Actually, I'm not even sure it could have synced notes, tasks and
projects now that I think about it.

Very simple and straightforward. So why can't Microsoft do the same
for the iPhone ? The latest numbers I've seen indicate the number of
iPhones sold places one phone in the hands of more than 10% of
Americans in the USA. This is a respectable number.

Well, again: e-mails sync, and through SyncServices (or Exchange), so
does the address book and calendar events. Not very different from the
Palm days (yeah, I know, it's buggy as hell, but that's a different
story).

Again the same answer as above. Projects and notes are two of the most
important sections of Entourage that I would like to synchronize.

I hear you. That's one of the reasons why I decided to use third party
software for both. I use OmniFocus for tasks (and projects in a certain
way) for instance.

I don't mean to start the old debate Apple x Microsoft nor do I intend
to use this post to make negative comments about Microsoft. But what
is it about the company that everything it does always seems more
complicated and less effective than necessary ?

Well in this case, as I was saying, I think the key is cost/benefit.
Too expensive to develop a solution if there is no real market to make
it profitable I fear.

Corentin

Hi Corentin,
I'm using Entourage and my company uses Exchange 2003 (I'm pretty
sure) and have both an iPad and an iPhone. The problem I have is that
the folders I've created using Entourage do not sync consistently with
my iPhone/iPad. Some folders do appear but others don't. Can't
figure out the pattern, my IT person says it's a known bug and there
is no fix available. He believes Entourage 2010 will fix this but
wondering if you know another solution available now?

Thanks for any and all assistance!
mtn.

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Hi Corentin,
Hi,

I'm using Entourage and my company uses Exchange 2003 (I'm pretty
sure) and have both an iPad and an iPhone. The problem I have is that
the folders I've created using Entourage do not sync consistently with
my iPhone/iPad.

Can you see then on OWA?? If yes, it's an Active Sync issue outside of
this scope :-\
If not, you have to make sure they are indeed in the Exchange account,
and not in the On My Computer section.

Some folders do appear but others don't. Can't
figure out the pattern, my IT person says it's a known bug and there
is no fix available. He believes Entourage 2010 will fix this but
wondering if you know another solution available now?

Entourage is going to change into Outlook for the 2011 version and I
don't know what the compatibility with Exchange 2003 will be (since
Exchange 2003 is starting to be a bit old).
If it's an Entourage bug, it's not one I have ever hear of before. It
sounds more like an Exchange bug :-\
Are you sure he wasn't talking about Exchange 2010 instead?

Corentin