Using iPhone 4 to sync contacts to brand new iMac

[rymack]

Hey everyone:

I just got my iPhone 4 on Friday (release day here in Canada! yay!), and I also got an email from Apple saying my newly-ordered iMac has shipped! Best day ever... lol.

Anyways, I was wondering if this is possible: I manually added contacts from my old cell phone as well as my address book (Outlook Express on a 9 year old PC) to my iPhone. When I get my new iMac, will I be able to sync all of those contacts from my iPhone on to the iMac to populate my iMacs Address book app? Forgive my noobiness, but this is my first Mac ever, and my first iPhone (not counting my iPod touch).

Thanks!

 

[Martyimac]

Hey everyone:

I just got my iPhone 4 on Friday (release day here in Canada! yay!), and I also got an email from Apple saying my newly-ordered iMac has shipped! Best day ever... lol.

Anyways, I was wondering if this is possible: I manually added contacts from my old cell phone as well as my address book (Outlook Express on a 9 year old PC) to my iPhone. When I get my new iMac, will I be able to sync all of those contacts from my iPhone on to the iMac to populate my iMacs Address book app? Forgive my noobiness, but this is my first Mac ever, and my first iPhone (not counting my iPod touch).

Thanks!

Short answer, no problem.

Longer answer, two ways I know of. One is to subscribe to mobilme and let it do the syncing. You can even use it to sync your contacts from your PC, to mobilme, then to both your new iphone AND your new iMac. That us what I do but it does cost you a subscription fee to mobilme.

The other way is to use itunes to sync all that data. This one is free since itunes can be downloaded for your PC and comes with the imac.

The biggest trick is to make sure you know what direction you are syncing your info. EG., in my case, my outlook contacts are my "base" data so I tell mobilme sync to replace all data on mobilme with data from my pc. Then I can tell mobilme sync to replace all data on my iphone and imac with data from mobilme. Trick is to just make sure you decide what your base data is and the transfers are complete and accurate after you do the first sync from your PC.

Since you're a newbie that may be a little confusing but once you have done it, you will understand it, it's really quite simple.

Hopefully others will jump in with any tips.

 

[rymack]

Awesome thanks for the reply! I think I got most of what you are saying... lol I don't know if MobileMe is in the budget at the moment, considering the two purchases I made, but it sounds like the easiest, most effective way. I'll look into it more closely..... Thanks again!

 

[huskerchad]

Gmail is great (and free) for OTA syncing. I don't think there's any easy way to get contacts directly from your phone to gmail, but once you get them on your mac, you can import them into gmail pretty easily.

 

[-aggie-]

Awesome thanks for the reply! I think I got most of what you are saying... lol I don't know if MobileMe is in the budget at the moment, considering the two purchases I made, but it sounds like the easiest, most effective way. I'll look into it more closely..... Thanks again!

Don’t get MobileMe. It’s only good for finding your iphone if that, since anyone stealing or finding your iPhone can just restore it, and you can sync OTA with GMail. However, just use iTunes to sync to Address Book and you’ll be fine.