Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iPhone
Mystery Solved? 10.4.10, Yahoo!, and the iPhone
The addition of a Yahoo! sync framework in 10.4.10 certainly seems a bit puzzling on the surface, but after some grinding of my mental cogs, I think I've figured it out.If you will think back to MacWorld 2007 and the announcement of the iPhone, you'll remember that Steve Jobs brought three special guests on stage. Stuffed between Eric Schmidt and Stan Sigman (of Google and Cingular, respectively) was Jerry Yang from Yahoo! who used his time to talk about the free Yahoo! IMAP "push" email that will be bundled with every iPhone.
With an email account comes a contact list, and in this day and age of do-everything service providers, a calendar usually comes with it. It makes sense then that Apple would make it possible to edit and sync these things from your desktop– thus the new framework. Sure, I can do all that from my iPhone, but do I really want to enter and tweak 300 address book entries on such a small device?
Obviously, this is just idle postulation, but I'd be surprised if something like this didn't get announced before the release of the iPhone later this month.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
San Sharma said 7:20AM on 6-21-2007
Hmm...interesting...but I tell you what, my friends and colleagues are going to get fed up with me if I change my email address again!
I went from Gmail to Gmail for my domain and now to .Mac, thinking that would be the best thing to use with the iPhone.
What does the Yahoo! connection mean for .Mac users? Are we being abandoned? Will I have to switch to Yahoo! to make the most of the iPhone? And can we really expect an overhaul of .Mac with all this work being done with Yahoo!?
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joe said 7:39AM on 6-21-2007
Hard hitting, great investigative work...great job TUAW! I don't think we would have ever been able to put this together for ourselves.
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Marky said 7:48AM on 6-21-2007
It's nice that the choice has been provided by Apple to provide access to all the variations of calendar/address book/email solutions provided.
I wonder though, if the ability to sync the Yahoo! calendar to the iPhone exists, why can I still not sync my Yahoo! calendar to iSync? Do I need an iPhone as an interminitary? I hope not.
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Kedar said 8:02AM on 6-21-2007
Would be great if there was something like this for Google's services instead...
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St3phen said 8:14AM on 6-21-2007
This further jibes with a statement by Apple that used to be on the iPhone's website and was picked-up and repeated by people like David Pogue: “It also automatically syncs all your contacts from a PC, Mac, or Internet service.” When I first heard that, I automatically assumed it would be dotMac. But, with the Yahoo services found in 10.4.10 and Dan's reasoning, I think this is it!
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Marky said 8:32AM on 6-21-2007
St3phen I think you're reading too much into this. Why would Apple not provide access to dotmac when both iPhone and dotmac come from the same company especially given Apple's previous ability to join up the services they have. The Yahoo! is in addition to the other services just as it suggests at apple.com/iphone/easysetup/getready.html
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paul said 8:46AM on 6-21-2007
I put my money on an adaptation of Yahoo Go.
http://mobile.yahoo.com/go
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guilt+1 said 8:50AM on 6-21-2007
Where's the Google lovin' I can't remember the last time I actually went to yahoo. Yet I always have gmail open (in mailplane) and gCal for all my commitments.
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Jay said 9:37AM on 6-21-2007
What wonders me is why Apple isn't using .Mac for this. There is already sync ability and they could adapt .Mac for push mail. All of which makes me wonder if .Mac isn't going to be sold/bartered/given to Yahoo.
I also wonder if there's a way to remove the Yahoo cruft from 10.4.10 since I won't be using it.
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Majormauser said 7:59PM on 6-21-2007
I think we are in for some big changes in .mac... its days are numbered.
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Joe said 9:48AM on 6-21-2007
Yahoo? Does any one even use that anymore? Push is cool, I'd love to know if something like this for the Google Services lineup.
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Ed said 9:45AM on 6-21-2007
I'm wondering why Apple and sucking up to both Google and Yahoo!... They seem to be firm friends with Google, so why are they going with Yahoo! for their email?
As others have said, why are they going with anyone - can't they do it in-house?
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Leonard Nimrod said 10:00AM on 6-21-2007
Really? Wow! Who would have thought that announces 6 months prior about Apple partnering with Yahoo to supply PUSH email would somehow require additional code on your Mac? Crazy!
Seriously though. The iPhone is very similar to the iPod. Everything syncs through iTunes. However, unlike the iPod you can alter the vast information stored in the device. This requires a way to sync your Mail's Yahoo account, Address Book and iCal with possible changes with your iPhone.
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As an aside, I hope this new Apple/Yahoo partnership will bring Y! Messenger into iChat. As well as a full fledged Google Talk client, not just Jabber.
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mungler said 10:39AM on 6-21-2007
well...... duh.
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Dave Chartier said 10:45AM on 6-21-2007
Three possibilities/speculations help all this make sense to me:
1) Apple isn't doing this themselves because they aren't an ISP. .Mac is a very specific *package of services* aimed at a specific kind of user. Taking on a new load of email hosting and trafficing on the scale that the iPhone is likely to illicit simply might be outside the scope of what Apple is interested in dealing with.
2) While Gmail is popular, especially among the power user crowd, the latest user statistics still places Yahoo! at the top of the worldwide email user range by a landslide. Don't quote me, but I *thought* the last numbers I saw put Yahoo! at something like 250m users worldwide, whereas Gmail only has around 51m.
3) Yahoo! offers both POP and IMAP email - Gmail only does POP. And when you're talking about checking your email across a desktop computer and now a powerful phone as well, POP simply isn't going to cut it. People will want to keep things synchronized, and only IMAP allows for that.
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Roger G. said 10:54AM on 6-21-2007
Read the Contacts section of "Get ready for iPhone" at http://www.apple.com/iphone/easysetup/getready.html.
"If you keep your contacts on the web using Yahoo! Address Book, iPhone can sync with them, too."
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Gerardo Algarin said 2:26PM on 6-21-2007
Hey, i found a new check box in the General Prefs of the Address Book! it says: Syncronize with Yahoo! check it out!
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TexAus said 10:36PM on 6-21-2007
With the release of Safari for Windows, Apple is doing for iPhone what it did when it released iTunes for Windows. e.g. Apple is betting many iPhone users will have a Windows machine, by incorp'ing bonjour, yahoo, google features into Safari + .Mac service (sure to be revamped for Windows users) it now has a PLATFORM (SAFARI) that allows syncing of user data with iPhone, iTunes, .Mac and even Apple TV usr services. Sneeky, but a great gorilla strategy!!!
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