Lest you think that I’m a total Apple apologist, I have a complaint about the new version of the Mac OS. Yes, Tiger’s gorgeous, yes it’s fast, yes the new features are terrific, but in one area Apple has taken a step backwards.
Mac OS X was one of the first PC operating systems to recognize that users often have data in multiple places: in various programs on the machine itself or on multiple Macs, phone numbers on cell phones, contact info in a PDA or iPod, bookmarks stored online, etc. Earlier versions of the OS featured a software product to synchronize the data on those devices called iSync. It took whatever devices you had as well as Apple’s iCal and Address Book applications and made sure that the data all were the same, and up to date. It worked just like the rest of Apple’s software: it just did what it said it did.
In Tiger, though, things have changed. Now the syncing is done in a variety of places, and it’s not nearly as convenient as the one-button-syncs-all model of the former iSync. The iPod is now synced through iTunes. If I want to sync the data with another machine, I use a new .Mac syncing panel in System Perferences. And if I want to sync other devices, such as my phone or PDA, I use iSync 2.0 for that. What was once done with a single program and mouse click now takes significantly more effort.
Granted, iSync 2.0 now allows me to sync my Motorola phone via Bluetooth, where before I had to use a data cable; and I can now sync more than just bookmarks, calendars and address book data via .Mac . But we were spoiled by the previous architecture to the point where disintegrating the syncing functions seems a devolution of the OS.
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