Touch Pro for Mac users

[whinecellar]

Howdy,

Been lurking here while I was researching the Touch Pro (resisting the urge to drink the iPhone cool-aid). Based on my needs and frustration with some major missing features on the iPhone, I pulled the trigger on a TP about a week ago. So far so good - amazing phone and as much of an Apple fan as I am, this thing blows away the iPhone in almost every way.

OK, so being a Mac guy I'm completely new to the WinMo world and I'm wondering if anyone might be so kind as to offer some advice.

1. Anyone know of a Mac-based solution that will allow me to completely back up my Sprint TP? I know about Missing Sync but that will only back up my basic data (contacts, calendars, media files, etc.) - I don't think it will back up the entire state of the phone as far as I know...

2. Is there anything in particular I need to know about installing custom ROMs coming from the Mac side? In particular, I'd like to try the audiopara volume hack (but I'd also like to go back to factory state in case I need to return the phone). Do I just drag the downloaded CAB to the phone and run it from there?

Any other tips/tricks anyone cares to share for Mac guys? You all seem like a really helpful bunch - hoping that applies to those of us "in the orchard."

Thanks in advance!

JD

[Baffles]

1. That's all activesync does on Windows as well. Pretty much, what I do is keep a list of my reg hacks, installed programs, etc to reapply if I hard reset. My contacts, calendar, email is all synced to google.
2. Audiopara isn't a custom rom, so a hard reset will get rid of it.

[CaliforniaPlaya]

Are you running an Intel Mac? If so, you'd probably be better off playing with your Pro in the Windows world by running Boot Camp or Parallels on your Mac. I too am a diehard Mac fan and initially wasn't able to do much with my 6700 when I got it three years ago - nor did I know of its capabilities. As soon as I started running Windows on my Mini (and now MacBook) and saw the capabilities it opened up with that 6700, I was in love. I'm just as excited about the possibilities of the Pro now. Yep, WinMo does have its quirks, and it was definitely a learning curve in the beginning, but definitely worth it. These devices, along with all the great information on boards like this make it so much fun!

And to answer your specific questions, Missing Sync is the only solution I know of that allows backing up a WinMo device to a Mac. But, this isn't something I've used or know much about since I back up on the WIndows side.

Last I checked, a Mac isn't able to recognize a WinMo device connected to it, so you're not able to move files to-and-fro. If this is something you want to try, your best bet might be to use a card reader, connect it to the Mac, move the cabs you want to use to the card, then put the card back in the phone and run the cabs that way. Again, don't know that this would work, as its not something I've done. But, if you really want to unlock the potential of this device and install costom ROMs, you're going to need to be able to run Windows.

Good luck!

[whinecellar]

Thanks guys. CaliforniaPlaya, I have no need (or desire) to use Boot Camp, and it looks like I won't need to as Missing Sync will back up/sync all the important stuff. It would sure be nice though to save the whole state of the phone (incl. all pref settings) in case I need to do a hard reset...

Also, the TP does show up on the Mac desktop when you connect via USB - no card reader necessary. The Mac only sees the storage card though (basically acts like any other drive) - so it's just a matter of dragging files onto the card and running them from there on the phone.

So are custom ROMs distributed as CAB files or are they something else that requires Windows to install?

Thanks again...

[silver25u]

I just switched from the Diamond to the Touch Pro. I tried to flash to custom ROM's on my Diamond in my VMware Fusion WinXPVM with no success. The flash would start but then "time out". Best I can figure is that is some particularity with the VM'd connection that is just won't work. I did get it working in Windows Vista using BootCamp.

I also had so-so results using the flash from the devices internal storage route. My only problem with it is that I couldn't consistantly do the combersome button hits to activate it.

Based on my experiences with my now returned Diamond, our choices as Mac users are two either 1) flash on someone else's PC, 2) run Windows through BootCamp, 3) flash from the device itself.

Russell