Android phones with macs... (HTC)

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Hi all,

I'm looking at getting an Android phone, specifically the HTC Desire HD (long story short the (any) iPhone is too expensive).

I've successfully synched my iCal with Google calendars, along with my contacts - so am not too worried there. Doubletwist is apparently the done thing for synching iTunes content too.

What else is there? This'll be my first smart-phone, so I'm not sure whether there's some huge oversight that I'm missing. I don't want to get the phone and then find out I can't use it as I'm a mac user...!

Does anyone here use android phones?
 
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Hi all,

I'm looking at getting an Android phone, specifically the HTC Desire HD (long story short the (any) iPhone is too expensive).

I've successfully synched my iCal with Google calendars, along with my contacts - so am not too worried there. Doubletwist is apparently the done thing for synching iTunes content too.

What else is there? This'll be my first smart-phone, so I'm not sure whether there's some huge oversight that I'm missing. I don't want to get the phone and then find out I can't use it as I'm a mac user...!

Does anyone here use android phones?
Yep, you can use it with Macs.

You have to turn on USB Debugging on your phone in order to use it as a mass storage device (if you want to move pictures, music, etc from your mac to your laptop). To do this go to: Settings -> Applications -> USB Settings then say yes to turning it on (this is from my Samsung Vibrant. Just look at your specific phone forums / guide whatever and you'll figure it out). This should turn Debugging on. If you plug your phone into your mac via USB it won't do anything just yet, you need to do one more thing.

Then from the phone you need to pull down the top menu then "click here to turn on USB mass storage" then say yes, and it will mount to the desktop. It will then show up as 2 volumes (1 as the phones internal memory, 1 as the SD card. You can figure out which is which just by looking at the available size of memory left). Then just transfer all your pictures, music etc.

You've pretty much got everything covered then, with your contacts already being synced and your calendar.
 
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Cool, I'm glad that there aren't any hidden problems.

If I add a contact on my phone, will it sync back to google calendars and therefore back to address book?

Also, is there an app to sync to-dos? Ideally I'd like the ical to-do items to sync to the phone, but as there doesn't seem to be a way to sync them with google tasks in any way I'm guessing it's not going to happen...

Is there some sort of note taking alternative, such as stickies that sync across in some way?

Thanks :)
 
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Cool, I'm glad that there aren't any hidden problems.

If I add a contact on my phone, will it sync back to google calendars and therefore back to address book?

Also, is there an app to sync to-dos? Ideally I'd like the ical to-do items to sync to the phone, but as there doesn't seem to be a way to sync them with google tasks in any way I'm guessing it's not going to happen...

Is there some sort of note taking alternative, such as stickies that sync across in some way?

Thanks :)
I don't use Address Book on my Mac so I cannot comment on adding a contact to phone then syncing, sorry.

As far as To-Do's what I do is I set a new task in my Google Calendar which then can sync to my iCal. I also set up Google Calendar to text me when the event is occurring. I'm not sure about To-Do lists tho.

And as far as note taking, I havent looked into that yet.

Not as helpful as the first time, eh? Sorry, lol.
 

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I have an HTC Incredible, which is pretty similar to the Desire (or so I understand). No need for USB debugging, you just plug it in and it mounts (although the phone will prompt as to which mode you want to use it in).

You'll be happy to know that it tethers nicely with PDANet, Doubetwist makes iTunes syncing nearly seamless and everything else pretty much syncs through Google. All-in-all, they're very Mac friendly, although maybe not as seamless as the iPhone.

I think you'll enjoy it. Let us know how you make out.
 
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I don't use Address Book on my Mac so I cannot comment on adding a contact to phone then syncing, sorry.

As far as To-Do's what I do is I set a new task in my Google Calendar which then can sync to my iCal. I also set up Google Calendar to text me when the event is occurring. I'm not sure about To-Do lists tho.

And as far as note taking, I havent looked into that yet.

Not as helpful as the first time, eh? Sorry, lol.


Hehe, thanks anyway :)

I have an HTC Incredible, which is pretty similar to the Desire (or so I understand). No need for USB debugging, you just plug it in and it mounts (although the phone will prompt as to which mode you want to use it in).

You'll be happy to know that it tethers nicely with PDANet, Doubetwist makes iTunes syncing nearly seamless and everything else pretty much syncs through Google. All-in-all, they're very Mac friendly, although maybe not as seamless as the iPhone.

I think you'll enjoy it. Let us know how you make out.

Ok, well I'll give it a go with and without debugging. Is PDAnet a tethering service?

If anyone else knows a way of synching to-dos or stickynotes I'd be very grateful if you could post :)

One last thing, how does the phone get backed up? iPhones you sync to iTunes... where do my apps get saved etc?

Thanks!

Jonik
 

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Ok, well I'll give it a go with and without debugging. Is PDAnet a tethering service?

It's an app you install on your phone and your Mac/PC. Once the phone is connected (and USB debugging does need to be enabled for it), you can use it to act as a mobile broadband modem for connecting to the Internet. There's a free version that has some restrictions, but if you buy the full version (I think it's $15), you can surf as you please.

If anyone else knows a way of synching to-dos or stickynotes I'd be very grateful if you could post :)

One last thing, how does the phone get backed up? iPhones you sync to iTunes... where do my apps get saved etc?

Thanks!

Jonik

I don't know how to backup the apps or sync sticky notes, unfortunately. But do post back if you figure it out.
 
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Well, after a bit of googling...

Evernote seems to be a sensible (and apparently free) way of synching notes between a mac/pc/phone. Not been able to try it yet though.

As for saving apps, apparently froyo allows saving apps to an external SD card, which can then be copied onto a computer. That's all I've found so far, so I expect a direct copy will have to be enough...!?
 
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Well, after a bit of googling...

Evernote seems to be a sensible (and apparently free) way of synching notes between a mac/pc/phone. Not been able to try it yet though.

As for saving apps, apparently froyo allows saving apps to an external SD card, which can then be copied onto a computer. That's all I've found so far, so I expect a direct copy will have to be enough...!?

Some apps will allow you to choose where you want them to install (i.e: Isyncr for iTunes)
 
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New question....!

I have a POP3 gmail account and an IMAP personalised email both on my mac mail. If I was to add these to my android mail accounts, how would I go about it and would it sync sensibly?

If I was to pick up an email on my phone, would it appear on my mac mail - and would it be viewed as read or unread when I see it on the other device?
 

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Switch your Gmail account over to IMAP. Life will be a LOT easier that way.
 
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So just to clarify, if I switch gmail to IMAP, and then put it on my phone too, the following will happen:

mac off
get imap email on my phone, read it/mark it as read
turn mac on
mail will then receive that email, but instead of marking it as unread will just appear and go through the filters I have in place whilst being marked as read.

So if I look at an email on my phone it will still be on my mac?

What happens if I delete a message on my phone?
 

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That is correct..IMAP is a way of basically getting the same view to your mailbox on every device. So a read message in one place shows up as read everywhere else..

If you delete the message on your phone, it will go to the trash just like you'd expect it to..

Regards
 
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Excellent. I'm moving away from the original question... but...

I've created an IMAP account for my gmail, but am having a few problems...!

If I delete the POP3 account I'll lose all my emails from the last 2 years as they are no longer on the server. Any way around this? I'm thinking I might start a new account if not!

Also, the IMAP folders are set up like follows, so I seem to be getting multiple copies of the same email! :-s

MAILBOXES
>Gmail

and

GMAIL
>[gmail]
>>All mail, Bin, Drafts, Sent Mail, Spam, Starred

So I'm receiving a message under the mailbox and also the [gmail] All Mail folder. What's gone wrong?

It really should be easier to switch from POP to IMAP...
 

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Excellent. I'm moving away from the original question... but...

I've created an IMAP account for my gmail, but am having a few problems...!

If I delete the POP3 account I'll lose all my emails from the last 2 years as they are no longer on the server. Any way around this? I'm thinking I might start a new account if not!

Also, the IMAP folders are set up like follows, so I seem to be getting multiple copies of the same email! :-s

MAILBOXES
>Gmail

and

GMAIL
>[gmail]
>>All mail, Bin, Drafts, Sent Mail, Spam, Starred

So I'm receiving a message under the mailbox and also the [gmail] All Mail folder. What's gone wrong?

It really should be easier to switch from POP to IMAP...

I'm almost positive that I just switched the account from POP to IMAP in settings. I didn't have to go through any hurdles at all.
 
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You sure? The only things it seems like I can edit that easily is the 'incoming mail server' from pop.gmail to imap.gmail. But that doesn't seem to actually change it from pop to imap...
 
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For syncing your apps, in case you ever lose them or your SD card becomes corrupted, download "AppBrain". It does more than just sync of course, so please do a bit of research on its other features. I like it a lot.

On the e Mail front, I also wanted to add something about Yahoo Mail. You can forward Yahoo mail to your Gmail account without paying for Yahoo Pro. Quite simply, go into your Yahoo Mail account, and change your location to: "Yahoo! China"

Yes, for some reason, we have to pay for forwarding here in the States but Asia gets it for free. Then when that's set, just go into the forward/IMAP settings and select forward to. Now you'll get all your mail there.

Doug
 

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You sure? The only things it seems like I can edit that easily is the 'incoming mail server' from pop.gmail to imap.gmail. But that doesn't seem to actually change it from pop to imap...

No, you have to change it on the Gmail webpage.

Sign into Gmail, go to Settings (upper-right corner), go to "Forwarding and POP/IMAP", then go to IMAP Access and choose "enable IMAP".

Once that's done, you'll need to point your clients to imap.gmail.com instead of pop.gmail.com for the incoming mail server address. And also set it to use IMAP instead of POP for the protocol.
 
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Hmmm... well I'm using Mac Mail, but something doesn't seem to be lining up!

Gmail settings already were imap enabled. The picture below shows my settings after pop. was changed to imap. Where do I go to change the whole protocol? Doesn't seem like I can...

googleimap.png
 

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Looks good to me. What exactly is the problem you're experiencing at this point?
 

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