On 12/22/09 8:48 PM, "Julian Vrieslander" <[email protected]> wrote:
> I'm hoping that the next major release (Outlook, Outback, Outhouse, or > whatever it will be called) will provide a direct pipe for syncing to the > Calendar app on iPhone, or perhaps to a new calendar app. Technically, we don't sync with iCal. Instead, we use OS X Sync Services to sync with the back-end database known as The Truth. Other applications like iCal and devices like the iPhone also sync to The Truth. This is the Apple-recommended way of syncing data across multiple applications and devices. In this case, everyone is reading and writing from the same source, which reduces complexity for all involved. If you're interested in additional details about how this works, my colleague Andy wrote something quite lengthy on the topic, which the Entourage MVPs house on their webpage: http://www.entourage.mvps.org/syncservices/basics.html Providing our own pipe would mean that we have to provide our own pipe for each device out there, which is prohibitive in terms of development time. Should any of those devices change anything, we would have to issue an update to handle that change. We'd have to make new pipes when new devices enter the market, which results in either us being behind because we missed a new device that took the market by storm, or in wasting development effort because we supported a device that the market never really cared about. And let's leave aside the issues that are raised when you consider the complexity of the international market and the fact that the US never gets the cool handsets (at least, not according to Gizmodo :). Those of you who have been with us for awhile will remember that we actually did provide our own pipes in Entourage 2004. There were conduits for several devices, including the Palm (which is what I personally used). Sync Services came about as part of Tiger, and one of the major changes in Office 2004 SP2 was our support of Sync Services. You know, this is one of those funny catch-22 places for us. On one hand, there's a benefit to rolling our own solution: we can sync things that aren't supported by Sync Services (notes and categories, for example), and we could provide more robust support for certain devices. On the other hand, not supporting Sync Services makes us look like a bad Mac citizen, and using Sync Services gives us access to devices that we probably wouldn't have the appropriate bandwidth to support. We're aware of the issues that we have with Sync Services, and we're working with Apple to correct those. Reporting your issues with syncing helps us prioritise the issues with Apple to get fixes made wherever they exist (either on our side or on theirs). Best regards, Nadyne. Nadyne Richmond | user experience researcher Microsoft Corporation | Macintosh Business Unit http://blogs.msdn.com/nadyne/ -- YouTalk mailing list List address: [email protected] List information: http://entourage.mvps.org/support_options/list.html List moderator: [email protected], [email protected] To unsubscribe: mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe
