Do android and Mac really mix...?

[xmenbteam]

I have been using my android phone (Sony Xperia Play - don't judge me) with my Mac for about seven months now. I love my phone, and I love my computer. The only problem is when I try to put them together...

MUSIC - Double Twist is INCREDIBLY sluggish, to the point where I have to leave my computer when it is updating playlists because it takes too long. Even when it has (eventually) finished transferring my music, there are always about 10-12 songs it hasn't managed to do, and even more frustratingly, it's different songs every time. Sony Ericsson bridge for iTunes is a great idea, however it crashes and force quits every time I open it. iTuneMyWalkman is a non starter. I see no other alternative then drag and drop - but we've moved on from that, surely...?

CALENDAR - iCal with the Gmail calendar is all very well and good, but my favourite feature of iCal is that you can have more than one calendar. This is rendered obsolete by the fact that I can now only have one calendar - my Gmail one.

EMAIL - WHY will Mail not sync with the email app on my phone?! I use a pop3 Hotmail account (@live.com), as well as my mandatory Gmail account (which I didn't want to create in the first place. it just makes things awkward...) I get emails on both my phone and my computer, but they do not sync with each other, meaning I receive the same email twice, as well as having to delete it twice, and only having my sent messages on one or other, as they do not sync together.

PHOTOS - Again, Double Twist is a step backwards and a MASSIVE waste of time. It is SO SLOW!!! iPhoto will recognise the SD card in my phone, but will not let me go deeper than the root menu, meaning once again... I have to drag and drop.

As well as this, don't get me started on contacts and address books and copies of contacts and blah blah blah blah blah...

This would not bother me, but then I look and see my friend with an iPhone and his MacBook Pro, and they just gel with each other. They sync properly and smoothly, everything is the same and it's so beautiful to behold... It seems to me that Apple have made everything to do with Android just that little bit too hard and fiddly and almost-but-not-quite-compatible. Like providing a circular hole with a icosahedral (yeah, i went there...) peg. Ploy by Apple to make everyone buy iPhones...? Almost definitely. Does it work? Absolutely. I see myself now counting iPhones instead of sheep when I go to bed, dream of cheating on my android with the Siri lady and looking at my phone with guilty shame.

Does anyone else feel like this? And also, can anyone help me sync my computer and phone more effectively and smoothly...? I'm sick of Double Twist, for everyone that says it's 'the iTunes for Android', I say that you are cutting off your nose to spite your face by saying that. I hate to say it, but the old cliche that 'Apple products just.... work!' is true. And now I'm stuck with my xperia play with a broken right trigger button for another year and a half.

 

[DroidDavi]

You might want to put this in the computer/IT section not saying your wrong for putting it here but they might know more.

As for my input. I'm pretty close to buying a new laptop. I'm stuck in between. I love Android and I could never see going back to IOS but at the end of the day all of apples products are meant to work together. I have friends who use double twist with there Macs and let me be the 1st to say its slow on windows to.

 

[xmenbteam]

This was entirely just a rant for no reason other than the fact that I'm frustrated. I'll keep going on with what I have because I have no choice, I'm stuck with this phone till 2013 and there's nothing I can do about it. I'd just appreciate it if Apple made it a little bit easier for everyone else. All the concessions have to be made in Apple's favour because now they have the share of the market and the apparent attitude is 'if you don't like it, buy an iPhone'. I sound like a whiny little child when I say this, but... it's not fair!!

 

[DroidDavi]

I can't see apple making it more simple for people who choose not to live in there bubble. It's do able by all means but why would they.

 

[SoundFX]

well i think they get along pretty well. i just migrated to an android, and have contacts and calendar syncing pretty well with my macs. hopefully some of this may be of help to you...

calendar---first of all ditch iCloud, it won't sync with google at all. set up your calendar in Gmail. On the left under the small month calendar is "My Calendars". Click the down arrow to the right of that and add as many secondary calendars as you need. You can even color code them like iCal. when done, go into iCal>preferences>accounts, click the plus and add your Google calendar-this adds the primary calendar from Gcal. Before you close prefs, click the "Delegation" tab. You should see your secondary calendars from Gcal, click each one to enable. I also set the ical colors to match gcal. Now your Gcal is part of iCal and is fully editable and will sync with Gcal and your android phone.

i had a bunch of 2012 appointments already set in ical, i manually changed the calendar on each appt from ical to gcal and didn't have to reenter everthing from scratch. that also took care of them showing up twice. the only remaining issue is that for iOS (ipod/ipad) setting up the calendar only sees the gcal primary, none of the secondaries...still working on that but a dead end so far.

contacts---again, ditch iCloud. setup your contacts on gmail. I used an app to export CSV from apple address book and then import into gmail. in apple address book go to preferences>accounts. select the "On My Mac" account and on the right enable sync with Google. if your contacts are already local skip the google import it will happen automatically. now contacts have sync apple<>gmail<>android.

email---change your hotmail setting on all devices from pop3 access to imap, then if you open/delete mail from one terminal it should take care of it everywhere else.

i dont sync music or pictures so i can't help you there, sorry. yet

i think you are right, in that apple is making it difficult and/or forcing everyone to go their way. the old mobile me synced really well outside of apple but was not free. the shift to mostly free icloud looked great at first, but they have quietly cut off sync outside of their world and will be phasing out the old system this summer. i think this will bite them in the long run...there are too many people that are not fully inside the apple circle...or not running lion.

 

[DroidDavi]

It's nice to see some one can make then work together.

 

[EarlyMon]

I have been integrating Macs with Android for quite some time with great success and satisfaction.

Google Calendar allows multiple calendars and iCal will recognize them all. The trick is to set them up first on the Google side, then tell iCal Preferences, Account, to sync to Google.

Contacts - export your Address Book to a vcard (vcf file) then import that to your Google Gmail account on the web. The Gmail / Contact tool on the web will let you resolve duplicates. Once you sync that to your phone, set your Address Book Preferences to sync with Google. That way your Address Book groups transfer to your phone without hassle. None of the other methods give you that.

DoubleTwist is well-known, popular, and highly recommended. It is also written by Windows programmers. I use DavDrive and just wirelessly drag and drop music and photos between my phones and my Mac. That approach doesn't work for everyone, but it works well for me.

Ask here or click on my name and send me a private message for details on these tips.


I would caution everyone that this is not the bash Macs thread. Go to the Lounge to stick up for your favorite operating system.

Here we only care about solving Android problems.

I believe that every operating system has its strengths and weaknesses, based on my experience writing software for 40 years on a variety of operating systems, including the ever popular Windows and Linux.

Thanks to everyone for staying on the helpful and friendly Android path.

 

[IOWA]

I have been using my android phone (Sony Xperia Play - don't judge me) with my Mac for about seven months now. I love my phone, and I love my computer. The only problem is when I try to put them together...

MUSIC - Double Twist is INCREDIBLY sluggish, to the point where I have to leave my computer when it is updating playlists because it takes too long. Even when it has (eventually) finished transferring my music, there are always about 10-12 songs it hasn't managed to do, and even more frustratingly, it's different songs every time. Sony Ericsson bridge for iTunes is a great idea, however it crashes and force quits every time I open it. iTuneMyWalkman is a non starter. I see no other alternative then drag and drop - but we've moved on from that, surely...?

CALENDAR - iCal with the Gmail calendar is all very well and good, but my favourite feature of iCal is that you can have more than one calendar. This is rendered obsolete by the fact that I can now only have one calendar - my Gmail one.

EMAIL - WHY will Mail not sync with the email app on my phone?! I use a pop3 Hotmail account (@live.com), as well as my mandatory Gmail account (which I didn't want to create in the first place. it just makes things awkward...) I get emails on both my phone and my computer, but they do not sync with each other, meaning I receive the same email twice, as well as having to delete it twice, and only having my sent messages on one or other, as they do not sync together.

PHOTOS - Again, Double Twist is a step backwards and a MASSIVE waste of time. It is SO SLOW!!! iPhoto will recognise the SD card in my phone, but will not let me go deeper than the root menu, meaning once again... I have to drag and drop.

As well as this, don't get me started on contacts and address books and copies of contacts and blah blah blah blah blah...

This would not bother me, but then I look and see my friend with an iPhone and his MacBook Pro, and they just gel with each other. They sync properly and smoothly, everything is the same and it's so beautiful to behold... It seems to me that Apple have made everything to do with Android just that little bit too hard and fiddly and almost-but-not-quite-compatible. Like providing a circular hole with a icosahedral (yeah, i went there...) peg. Ploy by Apple to make everyone buy iPhones...? Almost definitely. Does it work? Absolutely. I see myself now counting iPhones instead of sheep when I go to bed, dream of cheating on my android with the Siri lady and looking at my phone with guilty shame.

Does anyone else feel like this? And also, can anyone help me sync my computer and phone more effectively and smoothly...? I'm sick of Double Twist, for everyone that says it's 'the iTunes for Android', I say that you are cutting off your nose to spite your face by saying that. I hate to say it, but the old cliche that 'Apple products just.... work!' is true. And now I'm stuck with my xperia play with a broken right trigger button for another year and a half.

Ditch iCal for Thunderbird and your Google Calendar/contact integration will go much smoother.

Ditch DoubleTwist for CheetahSync and your media will sync over wifi automatically without a hitch.

 

[mikedt]

I have been using my android phone (Sony Xperia Play - don't judge me) with my Mac for about seven months now. I love my phone, and I love my computer. The only problem is when I try to put them together...

MUSIC - Double Twist is INCREDIBLY sluggish, to the point where I have to leave my computer when it is updating playlists because it takes too long. Even when it has (eventually) finished transferring my music, there are always about 10-12 songs it hasn't managed to do, and even more frustratingly, it's different songs every time. Sony Ericsson bridge for iTunes is a great idea, however it crashes and force quits every time I open it. iTuneMyWalkman is a non starter. I see no other alternative then drag and drop - but we've moved on from that, surely...?


PHOTOS - Again, Double Twist is a step backwards and a MASSIVE waste of time. It is SO SLOW!!! iPhoto will recognise the SD card in my phone, but will not let me go deeper than the root menu, meaning once again... I have to drag and drop.

I think both of those are not really the fault of Android. Seems to me you're trying to use proprietary Apple software with non-Apple devices. They're were never designed to be used like that. iTunes only knows about iOS devices and that's it. Third-party things like DoubleTwist are really just a kludge. You're basically fighting with Apple software that doesn't want to be used that way. Apple's way or the highway?

The time honoured drag'n'drop method still works for me, I'm not a fan of syncing, crossing my fingers and hoping all went OK.

As well as this, don't get me started on contacts and address books and copies of contacts and blah blah blah blah blah...

Try storing your contacts, address book, calendar using Google and not Apple's proprietary stuff. Once you've done that, you can sync the Apple stuff with it if you want.

I've used a Mac with an Android phone for over a year now, just as easily as using a PC(Windows or Linux), but I never attempted to use the proprietary Apple software with it.

 

[EarlyMon]

Apple has been known to try to break Android. For example, iPhoto used to recognize the industry standard DCIM directory and would mount your phone as a camera. Then one day they updated that and claimed that never worked in the past. Of course, that was the point where it also decided to no longer recognize my little Olympus camera, too. Apple told me that this was all Android's fault.

Bottom line, there are plenty of ways to skin that cat, as you can see by the helpful tips already given so far.

You can work with the Apple software to a point, work around it, or replace it.