P800 and Macs

export your address book entries the use bluetooth file exchange to copy the file to phone. phone then extracts all entries from the one exported file. isync is awaiting update.

Like all suckers for great gadgets, I got myself the P800 last week after a client showed it to shame my Nokia 9210. The CDs in the P800 box had nothing to support Mac users. Then downloaded ISync from Apple's website and discovered that I needed ICal 1.01 as well. Found that the Apple website was only downloading ICal 1.0 (for some strange reason even though the site says 1.02). As a result, I could not install. Rushed to the new Apple Centre in Kuala Lumpur. The sales exec helped with the installation as he had ICal 1.01 on a CD. As it was installing, he mentioned his manager also has the P800. He also mentioned that the ISync feature does not work as yet. He also said I needed a bluetooth USB gadget as my inaugural Titanium did not come with bluetooth. Now what's working is merely the transfer of files between the P800 and Powerbook. So here I am like you, waiting anxiously ....

I've just got my PowerBook set up to use GPRS over Bluetooth - very simple once you find the right instructions!

Download the Ericsson modem scripts from:
http://www.taniwha.org.uk/files/EricssonGPRSDec02.sit

Then unstuff and follow the instructions inside.

is there a way to export or copy my "contacts" from the P800 to my Mac (OS 10.2.5). I don't care whether they go into Apple's Address Book or sit there as a file on the hard drive, I just want to have a back-up of my contacts just in case the contacts file gets corrupted again - re-entering all those contacts is a nightmare and backup/restore on a PC has proved useless as Restore has yet to work?

Yes, there is a way:

1. Go to the Contacts on your P800.

2. Without selecting an individual contact, select 'Send this folder' from the Contacts menu.

3. After a few seconds, you'll get a 'Send as' dialogue. Choose Bluetooth, then click Done.

4. Choose your Mac fromthe Available devices menu (it'll appear if it's paired correctly). Click Send.

5. Wait for the file to be copied. Depending on your Mac's settings, you may need to confirm the file transfer.

6. You should have a .vcf file on your Mac which contains your contacts, and if you were to send this back to your P800, you'd have the option to import them all again (don't do this if they're already there, or you'll have 2 of each!)

I've just gotten a bluetooth adapter for my iBook (it's the Keyspan) so it was great to know how to back up the addresses - the stupid sync tool that came with the phone just won't cut it (I have a an old PC I used for backup, since I just can't seem to get VPC 6 running on the Mac. But now I can throw it out...yay!)

I understand from a friend-of-a-friend-at-Apple that we should see a new iSync very soon - possibly within the next two weeks. Of course, he was possibly just buttering me up to get more beer.

Now - to figure out how to surf the net on the P800 via the bluetooth link to my iBook - I want to share my cable connection with the phone without going GPRS quite yet...

Ideas, anyone?

- Jim

PS: I'm in Holland - any others?

Thanks, JoseyWales, for your descriptions how to backup the P800s contacts to a Mac using bluetooth file exchange.

Is there a limit by either bluetooth, OS X or the P800 address book as to how big a VCF file can get? I tried to send all my contacts to my Powerbook running 10.2.5, but the file always ends after 120KBytes. I doesn't seem to be corrupted, though.

How do I get the other contacts out?

An update regarding my previous reply.

It seems that the VCF file generated from the P800 (and sent to OS X using bluetooth) does indeed contain all address entries. The address book stopped the import after either a number of VCF entries or if irregularities in the file occur. I never get an error message, though.

Also, I had cases of missing letters before special characters such as Umlaute, which I eventually had to fix manually in the address book eventually.

Often, the data did not look somewhat wrong or ill formatted, but there e.g. was a new line character in them, or maybe there was something wrong with how the P800 encoded non-ASCII characters or in how the address book handles such cases.

Ok, I got my P800 and have Mac OS X.

I was on 10.2.4 and got no luck, upgrading to 10.2.5 enabled the Bluetooth to work.

Then I discovered that the contacts all come over as (W) #s. So I did some manual text editing on the VCF file I took out of Address Book.

(1) Replace "VERSION:3.0" with "VERSION:2.1" everywhere (find/replace)
(2) Replace ";type=" with "" (this makes ";type=HOME" become "HOME" and so the P800 recognizes the number types

OK, a forum like this is full of rumours, so here is my contribution to this: the latest rumour on ThinkSecret mentions that iSync 1.1 will be given to the masses by the end of May and will feature P800 support.

Read it here:
http://www.thinksecret.com/news/isync112.html

thanks joseywales,

onsync would only copy my simcard, not the phonebook; your suggestion is a very easy way to copy P800 contacts to osx address book. meanwhile, i use virtualpc 6 on osx10.2.6 (ignored XP & installed win2000 to make it work). has anyone successfully set up sync thro vpc6?

groovydubber