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Sixteen things you should know about iPhone MMS & Tethering

iTunes Guru — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Although iPhone OS 3.0 introduced MMS and tethering capabilities to the iPhone, support for these features has not yet been made available on all carriers in all countries. Notably, Apple’s original iPhone partner, AT&T was one of the few iPhone carriers in the world to not provide MMS support at the time of the iPhone 3.0 launch, and remains one of the few major carriers not providing any kind of tethering support.

Note that you can find a list of the various iPhone carriers around the world and which features they provide in Apple’s Support Knowledgebase article, Locating iPhone Wireless Carriers

With AT&T finally beginning their rollout of MMS support, we hope that tethering will not be too far behind. To this end, we offer some tips and insights for our readers on what to expect from these features and how to get the most out of them.

MMS

MMS, short for Multimedia Messaging Service is an expansion of the SMS text messaging service to allow multimedia content such as pictures, video clips and audio to be sent over the cellular network between compatible devices. Although the iPhone itself provides a number of methods such as e-mail support for sending content, the advantage of MMS is that messages can be sent to many other non-smartphone devices—phones that may not even be capable of receiving e-mail or accessing the Internet.

1. MMS is an extension of the normal Messages app

You won’t see a separate MMS app. The existing Messages app is also used to send MMS messages once the feature is enabled. The quickest way to determine if MMS is supported is to look for the little camera button to the left of the text entry field. This button is used to browse your photo library to send pictures and videos via MMS.

2. A carrier settings update is required to enable MMS

The iPhone hides all MMS-related features unless MMS has actually been enabled in the carrier settings file. These files are specific to each carrier, and the MMS settings are not enabled for carriers that don’t support that feature. This means that when a carrier adds support for MMS they must also send out an update to their carrier settings file. These updates are distributed through iTunes, so you will need to connect your iPhone to iTunes in order to receive the updated carrier settings.

iTunes checks for carrier updates for the iPhone in the same way that it checks for firmware updates. If the carrier settings update is not detected automatically, you can force iTunes to check for it by clicking the “Check for Updates” button on the iPhone Summary screen in iTunes. Note that since the carrier settings update process is the same as the iPhone OS update process, you will also need to have already downloaded and installed the latest iPhone OS update, otherwise you will be prompted to install that first before receiving the carrier update.

Also keep in mind that once MMS is enabled by your carrier, MMS support can be toggled on or off in the iPhone Settings app, under Messages. If you’ve received the carrier update and still aren’t seeing MMS options appear, be sure to check these settings.

You can confirm that you have the actual carrier update installed on your iPhone by going into your Settings app and choosing General, About. The “Carrier” information will show the version of the carrier settings file that is in use. For the AT&T MMS carrier update, it should read “AT&T 5.5”

3. The original iPhone will not support MMS

Unfortunately, users who are still toting the original first-generation iPhone will be left out of the MMS club. The exact reasons for this limitation are unclear, but the bottom line is that MMS support requires an iPhone 3G or iPhone 3GS, and there’s no reason to expect that Apple is ever going to introduce this capability to the original iPhone.

4. Sending video is still limited to the iPhone 3GS

Even though iPhone OS 3.1 provides the ability to store video files in your photo library on all iPhone and iPod touch models, the ability to actually send video files out via MMS is still restricted to the iPhone 3GS. If you’re using an iPhone 3G, you’ll find that the “Sharing” button that normally appears in the bottom-left corner for photos is conspicuously absent when viewing videos, and videos are simply omitted when browsing the photo library from the Messages application.

5. MMS is not just for pictures and video

Although photos and videos are the primary content of MMS for most users, the MMS specification actually supports just about any file type. On the iPhone, you can also send voice memos and contact information via MMS by tapping the sharing button in the respective application.

6. MMS messages will scale down content

MMS was not designed with the intention of transmitting large files over the cellular network. Further, many of the cell phones which support MMS have much lower-resolution screens and lower memory capacity than the iPhone. As a result of both of these factors, the content you send via MMS may need to be resized and trimmed to fit within these constraints.

Specifically, expect photos to be resized to a maximum resolution of 1024 x 768 and videos to be scaled down to 176 x 144 with a frame rate of 10fps and an 8khz audio track.

Further, longer videos and audio recordings may need to be trimmed prior to sending. The iPhone will notify you if this is the case and give you an opportunity to trim the video or audio-clip on-the-fly. The maximum length of an audio or video clip to be sent over MMS appears to be approximately one minute.

7. You can send MMS messages to e-mail recipients

Sending of MMS messages is not limited only to phone numbers. Once MMS is enabled, you can enter an e-mail address in the TO: field to send an MMS message to an e-mail recipient.

On most carrier networks, the recipient will receive an e-mail with a web link to view the received MMS content.

Since the iPhone includes a built-in e-mail client, and MMS content is significantly scaled down when compared to e-mail attachments, we can’t see too many reasons to use this capability, but it’s there nonetheless.

8. You can send MMS messages to non-MMS users

If you’re sending an MMS message to a phone or subscriber that does not support MMS, the recipient will simply receive an SMS message with a web link to view the received MMS content, similar to how sending an MMS via e-mail works.

9. Check your plan

Different carriers bill for MMS messages differently. Some carriers simply count MMS messages as text messages and include them in your text messaging plan, while other carriers charge for MMS messages separately and may offer MMS-specific plans and packages. Further, many carriers will happily allow you to send MMS messages even if you’re not subscribed to the appropriate plan and just bill you a per-message charge for any MMS messages you send or receive.

The bottom line is that you shouldn’t assume that MMS messages will be included in your text messaging plan. Be sure to check with your carrier to confirm how they handle billing for MMS messages and whether you need to add any additional plans or features for MMS support.

Note also that if your carrier charges separately for received MMS messages and you don’t wish to subscribe to an MMS plan, then you may wish to disable MMS support entirely by going into Settings, Messages on the iPhone and toggling MMS messaging off. Depending on your carrier, disabling MMS will result either in received MMS messages being ignored entirely or being received instead as text messages with a link to a web page where the MMS content may be viewed.

Tethering

iPhone OS 3.0 also introduced the ability to use your iPhone as a wireless “modem” to access the Internet from a computer. While AT&T has yet to introduce support for tethering, carriers in several other countries, including Canada and most of Europe have already been providing tethering support for some time. Here are some things to keep in mind if you’re interested in setting up tethering.

10. The original iPhone does not support tethering

As with MMS, the original first-generation iPhone does not provide tethering support either. Since the original iPhone is limited to GPRS/EDGE network speeds, tethering performance would likely be so slow on the original iPhone as to be a source of frustration for many users.

11. Enabling Tethering

As with MMS, a carrier settings update is required to enable tethering from your provider. Tethering options will not appear unless they have been enabled by your carrier. Note that unlike MMS, tethering is disabled by default on your iPhone, and you will need to turn it on if you plan to use it. This is done from the Settings app, under General, Network, Internet Tethering. The option will appear here either as “Set Up Internet Tethering” or simply an option to access the tethering settings and switch tethering on or off.

Note that when enabling tethering, the iPhone may check with your carrier to see if you have a tethering package. In this case you may need to contact your carrier to have your account provisioned for tethering.

12. You’ll need iTunes for USB tethering

If you’re tethering via USB, you will need to have iTunes 8.2 or later installed on any computers that you want to tether from, as the Windows or Mac OS X drivers for tethering are included in the iTunes installation. With iTunes installed and tethering enabled on your iPhone, it should appear as an Ethernet network device and immediately go into tethering mode as soon as you connect it to your USB port.

13. Bluetooth tethering

Tethering over Bluetooth does not require iTunes. Instead, the iPhone uses the standard Bluetooth Personal Area Network (PAN) profile. This requires that your computer hardware use at least Bluetooth v2.0 and support the PAN profile. All recent Mac computers provide PAN support, as should most recent mainstream Windows computers, although actual Bluetooth capabilities may vary widely with the wide diversity of Windows configurations available.

14. Check your plan before tethering

As with MMS, tethering may or may not require subscription to a separate tethering plan, and may or may not be billed separately from normal iPhone data usage. As out-of-plan data usage can get frighteningly expensive, be sure to check with your carrier as to their tethering policies before enabling and using tethering.

AT&T’s plans for tethering in the U.S. are not entirely clear as they have not as of yet announced the availability of tethering support. In Canada, Rogers and Fido are currently providing tethering data usage included in any iPhone data plan over 1GB per month until the end of 2009, at which point they may begin charging separately for it. In the UK, O2 requires that you add a tethering “bolt-on” package for an additional cost.

15. Keeping track of your tethering usage

If you’re using iPhone OS 3.0, you should note that your tethering data usage may not be included in your normal data usage screen, particularly if you’re with a carrier which tracks tethering usage separately from normal iPhone data usage. In this case, the “Cellular Data Usage” only includes data usage from the iPhone itself, and not data used while tethering.

iPhone OS 3.1 adds an additional section below the normal data usage summary to track your tethering usage separately.

16. Your tethering speeds may vary

Your maximum Internet connection speed while tethering depends on a number of factors. The most obvious of these is your carrier’s 3G network speed in your area, which can range from 1.8 mbps through to 7.2 mbps or even higher. Most AT&T areas are limited to 3.6 mbps, although AT&T has begun rolling out 7.2 mbps service in some areas. In Canada, Rogers and Fido provide 7.2 mbps speeds on most of their 3G network.

The next consideration is your iPhone model. The iPhone 3G provides a maximum 3G throughput of 3.6 mbps, while the iPhone 3GS provides a 7.2 mbps maximum.

Whether you are using a USB or Bluetooth connection for tethering will also make a difference. USB is significantly faster than even the fastest 3G network speeds, whereas even the fastest Bluetooth implementation is limited to 2.1 mbps.

Of course keep in mind that all of these are maximum speeds, and real-world usage scenarios may result in significantly lower speeds based on network congestion and other factors. Time of day can also make a noticeable difference, since network speeds are affected by the number of users who are currently using the network.

Since the same 3G hardware in the iPhone is used both for internal data and tethering data, you can get an estimate of what kind of performance you can expect from tethering simply by downloading an iPhone app such as Speedtest.net (iTunes link) and running a test over your 3G connection.

iPhone Gems: Geo-Defense Swarm, Lumines, Backbreaker Football + Eric Snider’s Solitaire: Klondike

iTunes Guru — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Welcome to iPhone Gems. This week, we look at four recent App Store releases spanning several different genres: strategy, puzzle, cards, and sports. Each of the titles is inexpensive, with a single $3 game—augmented by additional $2 In-App Purchasing levels—sitting at the top of the pricing pile.

The standout title of the week is Geo-Defense Swarm by Critical Thought Games, a strategy game with impressively implemented vector graphics; the disappointment of the week is Q Entertainment’s Lumines, a puzzle game that has been widely admired on other platforms, but is a mess on the iPhone and iPod touch. Read on for all the details.

Backbreaker Football

Though two full-fledged football games appeared for the iPhone and iPod touch over the past couple of months, NaturalMotion decided to take a different angle in its representation of the sport with Backbreaker Tackle Alley ($1), also known as Backbreaker Football. Whereas Gameloft and Electronic Arts used the iPhone’s limited 3-D polygons to represent entire football teams and parts of stadiums simultaneously, Ideaworks instead focuses only on the art of dodging tackles, and created an engine that only a handful of player models at a time. This limitation allowed it to spend its limited polygons on fewer but more detailed and fluid character models, as well as a great-looking football stadium.

All you do in Backbreaker, over and over, is run the ball from the moment of receipt to try and score a touchdown, dodging however many defensemen the game places in your way. Your player can be customized in skin color, number, and jersey—no real teams or people here—and starts the game running forward. You just need to tilt the device to move left or right, hit left or right arrow buttons to dodge quickly to either side, use left or right twist buttons to spin, and hit boost and showboat buttons for a burst of speed or a slowed-down hotstep to the goal line. At first, the challenge is simple: avoid one defenseman. You continue through wave after wave, the number and quality of tackling attempts increases, and you score points for juking, comboing with the buttons, and extended showboating, obviously with the risk that someone comes from behind and knocks you down. Later levels add red “out of bounds” zones to the field, requiring you to run more towards the left or right at a given moment.

Is Backbreaker a great football game? No. But it is a fun title for brief challenge sessions, offering great-looking graphics, including completely smooth animations, stadium lighting lens flares, and slow-motion replays; crowd noise fills the gaps between player grunt and footstep sounds. To the extent that it has much less going on as you play than other football games, it’s hard to think of it as an ambitious title, but it is one of the best-looking sports releases yet for the iPod touch and iPhone. For the low price, it’s worth checking out if you’re a football fan. iLounge Rating: B+.

Eric Snider’s Solitaire: Klondike

Though we don’t have a lot to say about Sniderware’s card game Eric Snider’s Solitaire: Klondike ($1), given that we’ve played dozens of different solitaire titles at this point on the iPhone and iPod touch, we can say this: it has an interesting pedigree. Snider wrote the iPod game iQuiz, as well as the Eric’s Solitaire and Eric’s Ultimate Solitaire games for Macs and PCs, so he’s hardly a novice at making such titles; the iPhone OS game is relatively simple, but easy to enjoy.

It’s played either in horizontal or vertical screen mode, with relatively few frills—everything’s in 2-D, with your choice of three tables, no different cards, and only a handful of rule options: Casino Klondike with dollar bonuses, standard Klondike, and Klondike Revealed with all cards dealt face up, each offering 1 or 3 card deals, and Casino also with a No Redeal feature. Rather than offering much in the way of music or sound effects, the game includes very soft tones or chimes, and eschews flashy graphics for relatively subtle ones—cards float above the table’s surface and wag when you drag them, casting shadows, and clues as to next moves are offered with gentle swaying or glowing effects. Eric’s version of the game also includes an Autoplay feature to pull cards automatically from your stacks as they become unnecessary, which makes the game a little bit more fun than the free Apple Klondike rendition that has been included with iPods for a while. We’d call this title a flat B release overall, good enough on the basis of its controls and clean presentation to consider for a buck, but not the best value in terms of rules, customization, or audiovisual frills that we’ve seen. iLounge Rating: B.

Geodefense Swarm

Due to what seemed like a fittingly never-ending stream of all but identical tower defense games, we all but tired of the genre a few months ago, and haven’t had the desire to keep trying all the permutations out there. That said, we loved GeoDefense Swarm ($1) from Critical Thought Games. Strictly speaking, it is “more of the same” given the genre—you are given various offensive weapons that need to be positioned on a grid to stop waves of enemies that emerge from point A and try to survive until they get to point B—but the execution, diversity, and challenge here are all great.

Thirty levels are all individually selectable from the start, and divided amongst easy, medium, and hard difficulty. All are “open field” in the sense that the waves of attackers have multiple paths that can be used to get to each stage’s exit(s), and your task is to add towers to try and limit their paths, destroying everything before they get to the exit. You’re limited in building towers only to the extent that you completely close off the exit; virtually anything shy of that is permissible.

The graphics engine continues the retro vector theme of games such as Geometry Wars, combining brightly-colored towers and enemies with line-based grids and cool visual effects—most notably line-warping wave-like pulses and linear particle motions for explosions, plus bright-line lasers and circular blips, all impressive in subtle ways. As with most such games in the genre, you can use cash from destroyed enemies to power up your towers through increasingly stronger levels of attack strength, and the visual effects they create become more striking. Semi-robotic voice samples and metallic sound effects are sparing—too sparing unless you provide your own music—one of only two issues with the game.

More important though certainly unobjectionable given the $1 price is its depth. The thirty stages aren’t pushovers, but they will leave serious players hungering for more, and though the developer changes up the levels enough to keep the towers and enemies interesting, they could stand to be even more diverse. Critical Thought would have no problem selling additional level packs for $1 each should it decide to do so. We’d also hope to see additional towers and other sorts of twists added to the title; as-is, it is a fantastic value for the price and impressive in all ways except sonics. iLounge Rating: A-.

Lumines – Touch Fusion

Normally, we would devote a lengthy review—perhaps even a dedicated one—solely to the puzzle game Lumines – Touch Fusion ($3) from Q Entertainment. We love the work of Q Entertainment’s chief Tetsuya Mizuguchi, loved Lumines on Sony’s PSP, and seriously looked forward to playing the charmingly music- and rave-inspired puzzler on the iPhone and iPod touch. Unfortunately, a game that worked perfectly on the PSP was let down by almost idiotically broken controls and a less than completely fluid presentation; Lumines – Touch Fusion is at best a mobile phone-quality port of a fun little puzzler.

The premise is simple: drop square blocks into a wide well, matching four or more of the same-colored block into squares or rectangular boxes to remove them from the screen. A line runs from left to right through the well, queuing the elimination of matched blocks to help you accrue bonus points. Make lots of matches and the “skin”—the background, blocks, and even the sound effects—change dramatically; seeing the game’s skins change as the blocks speed up is a substantial part of Lumines’ appeal. Players who want to see even more skins can buy them in packs via In-App Purchasing for $2, a fact which has some fans up in arms; frankly the low initial price of this title doesn’t have us quite as angry.

But Lumines is ruined for other reasons, specifically by Q Entertainment’s decision to use a truly awful flick-based control scheme to position the blocks. Flick left or right to move the pieces left or right, and down to make them fall quickly downwards. Simple enough, right? Unfortunately, the block rotates almost every time you tap the screen, so all sense of precision is lost as you try to touch the display to move the block and instead turn it around. Worse yet, you can only rotate blocks in one direction, setting that direction in an options menu. Anything—dual control zones or an on-screen joypad and buttons—would have been smarter than this. We suspect that Q Entertainment will eventually fix the title and make the controls better; hopefully it will smooth out the game’s animation a little to bring it up to par with the PSP original. For now, this is a huge disappointment, and not even worth trying in its free Lite version. iLounge Ratings (Both): C-.

Hundreds of additional iPhone app and game reviews are available here.

iPhone OS 3.1: ‘Policy Requirement’ error when adding Microsoft Exchange account

iTunes Guru — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Symptoms

When using a Microsoft Exchange account on an iPhone or iPod touch, the following error message may appear:

Policy Requirement
The account "______________" requires encryption which is not supported on this iPhone.

Products Affected

iPhone, iPod touch, iPhone 3G

Resolution

iPhone OS (beginning with the iPhone OS 3.1 update) can enforce the Exchange ActiveSync mailbox policy requiring encryption on the device. If your Exchange Server administrator has selected this option, only devices that support device-level encryption are allowed to sync Mail, Contacts, and Calendars.

To reestablish syncing, have your Exchange Server administrator change the mailbox policy to no longer require device encryption.

Additional Information

Note that iPhone 3GS supports device encryption.

Managing Exchange ActiveSync with Policies

Important: Mention of third-party websites and products is for informational purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation. Apple assumes no responsibility with regard to the selection, performance or use of information or products found at third-party websites. Apple provides this only as a convenience to our users. Apple has not tested the information found on these sites and makes no representations regarding its accuracy or reliability. There are risks inherent in the use of any information or products found on the Internet, and Apple assumes no responsibility in this regard. Please understand that a third-party site is independent from Apple and that Apple has no control over the content on that website. Please contact the vendor for additional information.

Using a Gmail account on multiple devices

iTunes Guru — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Symptoms

When using a Gmail account on multiple devices, including your Mac, PC, iPhone, or iPod touch, the following alerts/errors can appear:

Mac or PC: "Too many simultaneous connections."
iPhone/iPod touch: "The user name or password for [account] is incorrect."

Products Affected

iPhone, Mac OS, iPod touch, Windows, Gmail

Resolution

These alerts do not indicate an issue with your mail application or email account settings. Gmail has a limit of ten simultaneous IMAP connections per account, and checking your account from multiple devices in a short period of time can exceed this limit.

If this occurs, quit or exit any email applications you are not actively using. For more information on this issue, see this Gmail Help Center article.

Important: Information about products not manufactured by Apple is provided for information purposes only and does not constitute Apple’s recommendation or endorsement. Please contact the vendor for additional information.

iPhone OS 3.0 lists all ‘From’ mail aliases defined for Exchange accounts

iTunes Guru — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Symptoms

Customers with multiple email aliases defined in Exchange will see all of their aliases listed in the From field if they tap the From field when composing a message:

Note, however, that although customers can select a different alias from the list, only the default alias is used for messages sent via Exchange.

Products Affected

iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS

Resolution

Using the default mail alias for all sent messages is expected behavior for Exchange. Customers can ignore the additional mail aliases; by default Mail will display the default From alias.

iPhone 3GS: Re-calibrate Compass

iTunes Guru — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Symptoms

In Compass or Maps, iPhone 3GS may display the message "Re-calibrate Compass. Wave in a figure 8 motion."

iPhone 3GS periodically displays the message to re-calibrate Compass.

Products Affected

iPhone 3GS

Resolution

iPhone 3GS has a built-in digital compass that works just like a magnetic needle compass. The accuracy of digital compass headings can be affected by magnetic or other environmental interference, including interference caused by the close proximity of the magnets contained in the iPhone earbuds. The compass may need to be calibrated from time to time. iPhone 3GS alerts you whenever calibration is needed. To calibrate, hold iPhone 3GS in your hand and move the device in a figure 8 motion until the calibration screen disappears. The digital compass should only be used for basic navigation assistance and should not be solely relied on to determine precise locations, proximity, distance, or direction.

Additional Information

Some areas have more magnetic interference than others. For example, your car’s dashboard may have a high level of magnetic interference. If you wish to mount iPhone 3GS on a car’s dashboard and use Compass or Maps, do not wave the device in a figure 8 to calibrate. Instead, mount iPhone 3GS, open Compass or Maps, and disregard the message to calibrate. iPhone 3GS will eventually re-calibrate after several turns. Note that it may need to periodically recalibrate while you are driving, depending on the level of magnetic interference present where you have it mounted.

iPhone: Using custom APN and unable to use Cellular Data Network services after upgrading to iPhone OS 3.0

iTunes Guru — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Symptoms

After upgrading to iPhone OS 3.0, you may be unable to use some Cellular Data Network services, such as:

Cellular Data connection for Internet services
Visual Voicemail
MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service)

You may also see this error message: "Could not activate cellular data network: You are not subscribed to a cellular data service". This can happen if you edited the Cellular Data Network settings—the APN (Access Point Name) details—either manually or with the iPhone Configuration Utility prior to installing iPhone OS 3.0.

Note: This issue does not affect phone services (making and receiving calls or sending and receiving SMS messages).

Products Affected

iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS

Resolution

If you did not edit the Cellular Data Network settings prior to installing iPhone OS 3.0 on your iPhone and you are unable to use Cellular Data Network services, try turning off and then turning on iPhone. If the issue persists, contact your carrier about the availability and provisioning of these services on your wireless account.

If, on the other hand, you did edit the Cellular Data Network settings, these settings will be reset to the default values after updating to iPhone OS 3.0. You will need to edit the settings again.

Additional Information

For additional information about Cellular Data network services, see the iPhone User Guide.
Editing the Cellular Data Network settings is only available on authorized unlocked iPhones or with carriers that allow modifying the APN details.
If you edited the Cellular Data Network settings incorrectly or unintentionally, tap Settings > General > Cellular Network and then tap Reset Settings.

iPhone: Time zone unexpectedly set to Cupertino after restore

iTunes Guru — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Symptoms

After restoring an iPhone running iPhone OS 3.0 or 3.0.1, the time zone may unexpectedly display "Cupertino", and the time on iPhone will be appropriate for Cupertino, USA.

Products Affected

iPhone

Resolution

Updating the iPhone to iPhone OS 3.1 resolves this behavior.

vCard sent from iPhone using MMS is received as text file

iTunes Guru — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Symptoms

vCard is a file-format standard for electronic business cards. iPhone uses vCard to send Address Book contacts through email or MMS to other computers, phones, or other electronic devices. If you send a vCard through MMS with iPhone to a device other than an iPhone, it may result in the following:

The device may receive the Address Book contact or electronic business card as a text file rather than a vCard.

The information in the received vCard may appear as garbled text on the device.

Products Affected

iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS

Resolution

Check with your phone manufacturer or vendor to verify if your phone model supports vCard 3.0, the format in which iPhone sends the vCard.

iSync, Mac OS X 10.5: Issues opening iSync

iTunes Guru — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Symptoms

When trying to open iSync in Mac OS X 10.5, the icon may bounce in the Dock one or more times, but the iSync application may not open. A log may or may not be generated in ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/ .

Products Affected

Mac OS X 10.5, iSync 3.x, iPhone

Resolution

Make sure iSync is in the Applications folder; reinstall Combo Update if necessary

If iSync is not in the Applications folder and was not there when you installed a Mac OS X 10.5 Update, issues may occur.

Move iSync back to the Applications folder.
Tip: If you don’t know where iSync is, either use Spotlight to find it, or Control-click the iSync icon in the Dock and choose "Show in Finder" from the contextual menu. Once found, move it back to Applications (press Shift-Command-A in the Finder to open Applications).
Manually install the latest Mac OS X 10.5 Combo Update available from Apple Support Downloads.

Troubleshoot the SyncServices folder

Follow the steps in this article if the issue persists.

This document will be updated as more information becomes available.