Switching an iPhone from PC to Mac?

I just switched to a MBP from a PC laptop. I have some iPods and my iPhone that were PC formatted. I just reformatted and reloaded one of my iPods. I know it says in iTunes that if its formatted on the other system, it cannot be updated on the Mac. Well this is not going to be so simple with my iPhone. I have 50+ contacts and a ton of calendar entries that I want to keep. Not to mention some photos I took with the phone. Is there any way to back up this information and swith the iPhone over to the Mac side?

After I clear my PC off I am going to be exclusively be using the mac, so I really need to solve this.

I plugged my iPhone, which I had previously used with a PC, into my new MacBook and it synced with no problems at all.

Its not the syncing problem, its the updating the software issue. To do that on a Mac, it has to be Mac formatted.

Mac Formatted Iphone? Never heared that one before. I recently switched from PC to MAC and my iphone switch was pretty simple too.

1)Sync your contacts with windows address book. Before you do that make sure you create atleast one contact directly in your windows address book.
2)Export your contacts as vcard, copy it to a USB drive, Import it into your MAC address book.
3)You can do the same for photos, Copy it to the PC and then to the USb and to the MAc from the USB
4)I never did the calender stuff so dont know abt it.

For music...there is an freeware which copies all ur music from iphone to your Mac in one click.

There's a similar thread somewhere involving the ipod. As I understood it...

If you plug a brand new iPod straight out of the box into a PC, it gets formatted so the PC can read it. From that point on, it can be used with either a PC or a Mac.

If you plug a brand new iPod straight out of the box into a Mac, it just works. However, if you later want to use it with a PC, it has to be reformatted once. Once this PC reformat is complete, it will work on either platform.

The initial format by iTunes is so simple, that most PC users never notice that it happens. It just appears that iTunes is configuring the device. Mac users notice when they switch back to the PC because it's an extra step that was unnecessary before.

I suspect the same situation is occurring with your iPhone. I believe (but I'm not sure) that you will have to reformat the iPhone for PC use. However, once it's reformatted, you will still be able to sync with the Mac and regain your contacts. The reformatting basically makes it dual platform compatible.

Thanks! I figured out last night I didn't need to reformat since I was going to the Mac from a PC. I was able to sync my calendar entries into iCal on my new Mac, but can't seem to figure out how to get my contacts from the iPhone to address book. Any suggestions?

When syncing your iPhone, check the "Info" tab to make sure you've selected the check box to "Sync Address Book Contacts". I'm pretty sure that's how I got my contacts on my MacBook when I switched from a PC.

DarkKnight369 said:

Thanks! I figured out last night I didn't need to reformat since I was going to the Mac from a PC. I was able to sync my calendar entries into iCal on my new Mac, but can't seem to figure out how to get my contacts from the iPhone to address book. Any suggestions?

Click to expand...

I explained that in my earlier post

1)Login to your PC
2)Start-->Run --> wab.exe
3)Windows address book will open, Create a new entry in there.
4)open Itunes and hookup ur iphone. Go to info tab and select Sync contacts with Windows address book. SYNC now.
5)All your contacts are in WAB now. Select all and export as vcard. This will result in one vcard file per contact. Should not be more than few kb's.
6)if you have a docmac account , you can drop these puppies some there or copy it to an USB thumb drive.
7)Fire up your mac and open address book. Go file , import and select all the vcard files you have on ur USB thumb drive or on your idisk.
8) You are done now. Open itunes and sync. You will not see any difference in your contacts in your iphone. Everything is intact and you can now sync ur iphone with MAC.