Never judge a book by its cover is a very old saying, that still holds good but has gone out of the window a little since they started publishing books with more attractive images on – admit it! Who hasn’t bought a book (and enjoyed it) based on the cover alone?
I was guilty of this recently when I got the opportunity to review PhoneView ($19.95) from the excellent ecamm. Anyone that knows me will know that ever since I got an iPhone I have been extremely disappointed with the fact that it didn’t sync with notes, so I got somewhat excited when I saw this:
I assumed that this meant that it would sync with the Notes in Mail on the Mac. It doesn’t!! Now that isn’t the fault of the application, well it is as they could have built it to do that, but as they didn’t I accept that the application does what it says it does. The fact is that it has zero value to me the way it has been built.
So what does it do?
If you want to be able to:
- Use your iPhone as a Disk
- Access Music and Movies
- View and Export SMS
- Download Camera photos
- Access, Edit and Create Notes
- View and Export Call History
- View Synced Photos
- Access Contacts
Then PhoneView could well be what you are looking for, although to be honest with the exception of the SMS and Call History features I thought you could do all the other stuff anyway? Before I looked at PhoneView I could get the camera photos onto the Mac, I could view Photos on the iPhone, I could access my contacts etc.
About the only positive thing that can be said is that PhoneView puts all these features in one interface.
That said it has a very un Leopard like feel to it and comes over as rather clunky and very much like the ‘original’ PDA syncing applications that I was obsessed with in the 90’s!
ecamm work hard to sell the features of PhoneView:
But for me they remain just that – features not benefits. The impression of clunkiness (if there is such a word) can be summed up with this Q&A from their FAQ page
Q: When does the iPhone have to reboot, and is this really necessary?
A: The iPhone will reboot after adding, removing or editing notes. It will also reboot after removing SMS messages and Call History items. In order to make changes, PhoneView utilizes the iPhone’s backup/restore mechanism. After updating the device, it must reboot in order to see the new information.
I must confess that I was left wondering what was the point of the application especially with the 3G Version 2 due out in June.
In conclusion, what it does it does OK. I can’t really see a iPhone as a genuine option as a Disk (iPod Classic sure), the Notes function is long winded and impractical in my view, and all the other features are just a minor fiddling with something that for me worked well enough. The acid test of a application for me is does it make life easier and would I miss it. When the answers are No and No as in this case then I think that sort of says it all.
Thanks for the observations. As I’m mentioned to you, I’m ready to renew my mobile phone contract. This is just such a lousy time to do it. The new iPhone (rumors) show progress. The Nokia N95 looks like a really great — albeit expensive — toy. The stuff appearing on the internet about the new Blackberry “BOLD” look good too.
Then there is syncing. Can I sync mail/calendars with my business apps (Lotus notes or Exchange). How about both worlds (Mac and PC/BUSINESS)? Third party apps, as you point out, have been largely a disappointment.
I’m leaning toward waiting — and unless I learn a lot on 6/9 from Mr. Jobs, I’ll probably stay with Blackberry.
Kenny
I would certainly wait on the new iPhone – especially if you are a BlackBerry fan as it is set to ‘compete’ with that.
Good question on syncing across multiple devices though, my guess is iPhone never will because of iTunes.
The N95 is great, am very happy with it for what I need, which is more phone/camera/video with an adequate diary/notes/To Do. Fact I can’t send emails yet would be a real pain if I actually needed to send any 🙂