Well, I'll buy that there's *one*...

[Christopher Browne]

On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 1:33 PM, Tyler Aviss <tjaviss-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 2:28 PM, Christopher Browne <cbbrowne-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>> "10 Windows features I would like to see in Linux"
>> http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=1196
>>
>> A fair number of the items aren't "features" as I'd recognize them...
>>
>> The only one I'd unambiguously agree with is that syncing cell phones
>> is a Huge Pain for anything aside from PalmOS-based stuff.
>>
>> - libpisync, for PalmOS, is eminently usable, but the platform is
>> effectively dead.  I'm using a circa-2004 Palm Treo; I suppose I could
>> upgrade to a Centro (2008) or a Treo 680 (2006, available from Tiger
>> Direct these days).  Near bulletproof, by now, but newer models aren't
>> compatible with anything meaningful on Linux.
>> - I can dump data off a BlackBerry using Barry, but I don't think I
>> can push data onto it.
>> - I don't think Android syncs against anything meaningful on Linux...
>
> My Palm synced nicely with Linux. My girlfriend's iPod mini syncs
> nicely with Linux (I believe we last used Rhythmbox for this), but I
> have yet to find any way to sync/copy songs properly for the iPhone
> 3G. Still, I haven't tried it with the newer versions of stuff in
> Karmic, and as all the other little issues resolved over time I'm
> hoping this one will too...

Older iPods are quite usable with tools like Rhythmbox, GNUpod,
GTKpod, Anarok, and probably some others, though essentially with a
1-way interaction.  You can copy data from "Linux world" into "iPod
world."

That includes calendar + address data; you can dump in iCal / iCard
formats, and the iPod will happily read these formats (they're IETF
standards).

However, as I said, it's a 1-way interaction.  You can't notably pull
data off of the iPod:

- If you later sync with iTunes, it rather likes to turf the data you
might have installed from the Linux side.  (There may be untruth here,
but not intentionally...  I have seen this sort of breakage...)

- You can't update calendar/addresses on the iPod.

Things change substantially with the iPhone and iTouch:
- They no longer look like USB storage devices; access to that
"transport route" is something Apple guards pretty jealously
- Many apps can talk across the network (wifi) to get/put data, so
that you could presumably sync calendars against an iCal/WebDav server
- Using anything other than iTunes to push/pull music requires
"hacking" the unit (aka "jailbreaking")

That seems *way* less viable to me, particularly since the vendor
opposes "free action" and has been known to change protocols,
firmware, software, and such in order to "remedy" hacks that have
opened things up.

I happen to have an iPod touch; I treat it as being something that I
don't care to have interact with Linux.
-- 
http://linuxfinances.info/info/linuxdistributions.html
Stephen Leacock  - "I detest life-insurance agents: they always argue
that I shall some day die, which is not so." -
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/s/stephen_leacock.html
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists