iSync is a defunct application developed by

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Comput ...

, which syncs

iCal Calendar is a personal calendar app made by Apple Inc. for its macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS and visionOS operating systems. It offers online cloud backup of calendars using Apple's iCloud service, or can synchronize with other calendar service ...

and Address Book data to

SyncML SyncML, or Synchronization Markup Language, was originally developed as a platform-independent standard for information synchronization. Established by the SyncML Initiative, this project has evolved to become a key component in data synchroniza ...

-enabled mobile phones, via

Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is li ...

or by using a

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connection. It was first released on Jan 2, 2003, with technology licensed from fusionOne. Support for many (pre-October 2007) devices was built-in, with newer devices being supported via manufacturer and third-party iSync Plugins.

History

iSync's first beta was released on September 28, 2002. In June 2003, ''The Register'' reported that an iSync 1.1 bug could lead to contacts without phone numbers being deleted from synced phones. iSync uses port 3004, which could also be blocked if the Mac OS X firewall was enabled. Before the release of Mac OS X 10.4, iSync also synchronized a user's

Safari A safari (; originally ) is an overland journey to observe wildlife, wild animals, especially in East Africa. The so-called big five game, "Big Five" game animals of Africa – lion, African leopard, leopard, rhinoceros, African elephant, elep ...

bookmarks with the now-defunct .Mac subscription service provided by Apple. Starting with Mac OS X 10.4, much of iSync's original syncing functionality was moved into the Sync Services framework, which developers can use to incorporate synchronization into their own applications. iSync, however, retained responsibility for the setup, configuration and synchronising of supported mobile handsets. Since the release of iTunes 4.8, the user interface for synchronizing iPods had been delegated to

iTunes iTunes is a media player, media library, and mobile device management (MDM) utility developed by Apple. It is used to purchase, play, download and organize digital multimedia on personal computers running the macOS and Windows operating s ...

, although conflict-resolution and substantial changes to contact information (>5%) show an iSync panel. Synchronization with

MobileMe MobileMe (branded iTools between 2000 and 2002; .Mac until 2008) is a discontinued subscription business model, subscription-based collection of online services and software offered by Apple Inc. All services were gradually transitioned to and e ...

(previously .Mac) was then the domain of MobileMe Sync, accessible through a

System Preferences System Settings (known as System Preferences prior to macOS Ventura) is an application included with macOS. It allows users to modify various system settings, which are divided into separate Preference Panes. The System Settings application ...

pane. iSync was removed from Mac OS X in version 10.7 (Lion). However, since the underlying framework still existed in Lion and 10.8 (Mountain Lion), it was possible to restore the functionality of iSync using a 10.6 (Snow Leopard) installation or backup.

Device compatibility

In 2005, iSync supported

iPod The iPod is a series of portable media players and multi-purpose mobile devices that were designed and marketed by Apple Inc. from 2001 to 2022. The iPod Classic#1st generation, first version was released on November 10, 2001, about mon ...

personal digital assistant A personal digital assistant (PDA) is a multi-purpose mobile device which functions as a personal information manager. Following a boom in the 1990s and 2000s, PDAs were mostly displaced by the widespread adoption of more highly capable smar ...

s (PDAs),

mobile phone A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable telephone that allows users to make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while moving within a designated telephone service area, unlike fixed-location phones ( landline phones). This rad ...

s, and other devices; iSync supported phones from Motorola, Nokia, Panasonic, Sony Ericsson, Siemens, and Sendo. Before the release of iSync, Palm had released its own sync software, Palm Desktop for Mac, which it soon abandoned. Apple created its own software tool, called Palm Conduit, to make iSync compatible with Palm's HotSync protocol. iSync 2.0 directly integrated Palm Conduit. After the 2009 Palm Pre abandoned HotSync, Apple dropped Palm support from iSync 3.1 in

Mac OS X Snow Leopard Mac OS X Snow Leopard (version 10.6) (also referred to as OS X Snow Leopard) is the seventh major release of macOS, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. Snow Leopard was publicly unveiled on June 8, 2009, at A ...

BlackBerry OS BlackBerry OS is a discontinued proprietary mobile operating system developed by Canadian company Research In Motion (now BlackBerry Limited) for its BlackBerry line of smartphone handheld devices. The operating system provides multitasking ...

Palm OS Palm OS (also known as Garnet OS) is a discontinued mobile operating system initially developed by Palm, Inc., for personal digital assistants (PDAs) in 1996. Palm OS was designed for ease of use with a touchscreen-based graphical user interface. ...

, and

Windows Mobile Windows Mobile is a discontinued mobile operating system developed by Microsoft for smartphones and personal digital assistants (PDA). Designed to be the portable equivalent of the Windows desktop OS in the emerging Mobile device, mobile/port ...

(

Pocket PC A Pocket PC (P/PC, PPC) is a class of personal digital assistant (PDA) that runs the Windows Mobile operating system, which is based on Windows Embedded Compact, Windows CE/Windows Embedded Compact, and that has some of the abilities of modern ...

) devices were not officially supported by iSync, but could still be synchronized through the use of third-party iSync plug-ins.

Version history

References

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Isync MacOS-only software made by Apple Inc. Personal information managers ITunes IPod software

History

Device compatibility

Version history

See also

References

External links