New Parallels Beta adds support for iPhone, other enhancements
I love the iPhone and I love virtualization software like Parallels to run Windows on my Mac. But until now I couldn't get my two loves together if I needed to sync my iPhone with Windows while running it in Parallels. Well, according to the official Parallels blog, that problem may now be a thing of the past due to recent improvements in the software. At the site, they detail information concerning the latest beta release of their software which contains a host of new and improved features.Among these new and improved features are a fix for Coherence Windows which now will work in Expose' and a fix for the Image Tool to allow it to work with snapshotted drives. Other changes include improvements to the Parallels' Explorer tool which allows you to view information on your virtual hard drive even when Parallels isn't running and, of course, the previously mentioned ability to sync your IPhone with Windows XP or Vista running in Parallels.
All of the other improvements seem like good ones but you're probably asking yourself why would someone want to sync an iPhone with Windows in Parallels when they can just sync it to the Mac OS? Well, the answer is also found at the Parallels blog, as written by Ben Rudolph. "Yes, I realize the irony of syncing an Apple device with Windows running on a Mac, but lots of people need to hook their iPhones up to Outlook. Try not to judge." Sounds reasonable to me.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Joseph said 10:07PM on 8-02-2007
There were some heavy duty Paralles bashing in an earlier blog at tuaw, but over-all i'm satisfied with Paralles!
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PSM said 10:14PM on 8-02-2007
I'm a pretty satisfied user as well. I'd like to test the beta, but I don't want to be the first. Anybody tried it yet?
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Gorillapond said 10:20PM on 8-02-2007
I'm confused, how was syncing an iPhone any different than USB (2.0?) support? What made this 'feature' difficult or notable to implement?
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Matt said 11:07PM on 8-02-2007
I was using VMWare Fusion's unity for the Expose feature. It seems that i am switching back and forth between the two
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guilt+1 said 12:53AM on 8-03-2007
I've been a parallels user since the start but I have to say I was almost tempted away by the expose feature in VMware. Now I don't have to be :)
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Sparks said 3:36AM on 8-03-2007
I am another Parallels user who has been seriously tempted by VMware Fusion due to (of all things) the drop shadow, hiding-the-toolbar and Exposé support.
Do not get me wrong; Parallels works well, but I found few performance differences between the two in my testing and so it came down to usability/UI polish, and Fusion had that down better than Parallels. If they have drop shadows and proper Exposé now, I may well stick with Parallels instead of pre-ordering VMware.
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Hansi said 5:05AM on 8-03-2007
Yeah, if Parallels USB 2.0 would actually work as advertised, the iPhone would have worked out of the box and would not need a special announcement.
I switched to VMWare instead of upgrading to V3.x and couldn't be happier with my choice. Finally, things work as advertised, my virtual machine can access two CPUs AND I can finally use virtualization without having to see all my apps getting swapped out as with Parallels.
I have full respect for what Parallels did, but VMWare does ship a more mature solution.
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Valentijn said 5:14AM on 8-03-2007
Yep Fusion is for me the best app.
I have a bloody fast 8 core mac pro 8gb 4x 750, raid0 and raid1 and no complaints with fusion...
Especially I installed the Ultimate vista 64 bit with no problems at all.... I wish only that the graphics would be faster but hey it's a beta now.. better pre-order! Cause it's 40 $ at this moment I think.....
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andy said 5:49AM on 8-03-2007
Parallels is a great product and has generally been in front of VMware with features (VMware, I'm looking at cloning machines specifically here!). VMware just has the corporate edge, to be able to take any VMDK from any other VMware implementation and run it is a major benefit. Right now, I run both in 'parallel' and while the pre-order $40 deal is good, but I'd rather wait to see what comes of say Parallels v4 and VMware v2.
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Ian said 10:19AM on 8-03-2007
My only complaint (and maybe this is fixed now?) is being able to run parallels Vista and boot into vista if I need the extra performance without the activation issue.
I use "extra performance" with a grain of salt.
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UncleWinker said 1:05PM on 8-03-2007
40.00 to try out and then 79.00 to buy it again. parallels 4 lyfe!
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Andrew Coleman said 10:34PM on 8-03-2007
Well, back to Parallels from VMWare again! I always found that Parallels ran better for me than VMWare.
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D Holland said 1:23AM on 8-04-2007
Who cares about iPhone support. Why would you want windows to have anything to do with your iPhone when you have a MAC already?
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