The multi-iPhone family - two approaches

What's the best way to manage multiple iPhones in a single family?

There are at least two broad approaches, and combinations of them. We've tried 'em all. At the moment we manage 3 iPhones (parents and one child) and 1 iTouch as well as several iPods.

I'll share our experiences here.

Apple's preference is for every family member to have at least a separate OS X user account, if not a separate computer. Each person should have a companion MobileMe that manages synchronization across multiple machines. Apple would probably prefer that each family member have their own iTunes (.mac) account for media purchases, so DRMd material would only play on one device.

This approach does have advantages, but there are obvious disadvantages. It's an expensive and complex approach with a lot of management needs and there are issues with sharing apps and movies.

We've used a variant of the "Apple approach" with two user accounts on one machine, and all purchases through a single iTunes account (mine). One account owns iTunes and apps, the second subscribes to App updates through "family sharing" [1]. This does enable each account to have its own Address Book and it aligns well with using MobileMe on phone and multiple OS X machines.

This "classic" multi-user approach blows up completely when you add Parental Controls. Among other problems, MobileMe is violently incompatible with Parental Controls. I wasted hours trying to make it work before I retreated to a much simpler Google approach.

The Google Approach [2] is relatively painless. I use it with my son's iPhone. I sync it in my user account for media access and app installation, but I use Google Sync (Exchange server/ActiveSync) against his account on our family Google Apps domain for the phone's email, contacts and calendar. He could access the Google Calendar and Mail through a Parental Controlled account using OS Mail and iCal but in practice he just uses his phone [3].

There are some downsides since iTunes is designed for a single user with a single set of "last played" values and ratings, but in practice the confusion is modest and the pain reduction is immense. It's also much cheaper than the "Apple approach".

So, going forward, we're making less use of the OS X desktop, more use of Google (alternative is MobileMe) cloud services. This gets around the sharing/identity problems of iPhone synchronization.
--
[1] We go through some geeky maneuvers so that my wife can have full access to all media from her user account without replicating files. See links below for tips. In short; set iTunes to not import, then media library into client iTunes. Incredibly iTunes creates links to media.

[2] You can do this with MobileMe on the iPhone and the MobileMe web interface, but without the Parental Controls-incompatible desktop you lose a lot of the value of MM. For various reasons we've gone the Google approach.

[3] Google web browser access is (yet again) OS X Parental Control hell. You can't enable web access to a Google Apps domain without enabling access to Google search.

See also:

• The flaw in iTunes: 2 users, 2 iPods - and our brain locked future (2005, introducing BrainLock with Palladium Inside, aka the RetinaChip)
• iTunes 9 home sharing is mediocre (2009)
• The ultimate AirTunes, iPhone Remote, iTunes setup
• Working around iTunes lack of multi-user support
• Sync iTunes Libraries Between Two Macs

Gordon’s idiosyncratic revenue-free iPhone 4 and iOS 4 review

For geeks like you and I, the iPhone 4 is annoying. We’d have been much happier with an enhanced 3GS with more memory, more processing efficiency, a better display, iOS4, better antenna design, less case cracking and built-in bumpers.

Alas, Apple gave us a pretty phone.

The antenna problem is an annoyance, but even without a case it’s not bad if I minimize skin contact and hold the top of the phone. If I’m ever able to find a case, I doubt I’ll give it another thought. I haven’t yet run into problems with the facial sensor – I guess my face and the way I hold the phone fits Apple’s design.

The real problem is the damned phone is too fragile. It feels fragile, it looks fragile, and half the geeks I read are showing broken screens. It doesn’t need a case, it needs a nursing home. If it were possible to find a case I’d have one now. Do not buy an iPhone until you can buy it with a case.

In fact, if you don't need an iPhone right now, wait until October. By then iOS 4.1 will be out and many of the worst bugs will be resolved.

In fast-to-read-and-write bullet form, here are the rest of my impressions.

Updating

I took the very conservative root of treating my iPhone 4 as a completely new device and gradually moving things over. This minimizes bug problems, but at a minimum you will lose:

• all application specific data and configuration
• all saved account credentials
• all phone Favorites
• SMS/MMS messages
• Notes (may be available on desktop if sync)
• 1Password and like files

If I were to do it again I'd probably do the standard update from the existing phone.

I ran into some glitches with

• 3G data service access was initially missing. I had to shutdown, restart and wait a while.
• Voice mail wanted my voicemail password (PIN really).

Phone (hardware)

• The SIM card removal tool is not included in the US (it is in the UK)
• Facetime: I don’t have time to play with it. It will only be interesting when/if there’s a desktop client.
• Battery: I’m not big changes over my old 3G. I suspect Push sync is a huge battery killer, and I’m currently synchronizing Calendar and Contacts with a corporate ActiveSync server, Google’s ActiveSync server, and Apple’s MobileMe services.
• Face sensor: It works for me but I usually use the headphones so I might not notice a big problem.
• Antenna: If I touch the "dead zone" I drop the call. Elsewhere it's ok. Apple should stop pretending other phones have this problem. It's a genuine design flaw. I'm going to duct tape my phone until I get a case.
• Retina display: It hasn’t changed my life. Text is easier to read, which is good news for geezer geeks like me but it's not a big deal.
• Camera/video: Nice. Good improvement. I love being able to take a low light snapshot of printed text from a few inches away and get a very readable image. For example (click for full image, the image is from a pending post on AT&T’s latest scam):

• Performance: I was using a 3G. I’m seeing performance comparable to my wife’s 3GS. For me, this is a huge improvement but a 3GS users wouldn’t notice much.

iOS4

• I think Apple did some keyboard layout consolidation. That’s a relief! I don’t see as much context-specific keyboard reconfiguration. That was a good idea in theory, but in practice it was a pain in the buttocks.
• I’ve been waiting for multiple ActiveSync servers for ages. I do wonder if the battery drain is worse than CalDAV but this is a meaningful improvement.
• Calendar is still very weak. The options for scheduling alerts still max out at 2 days ahead -- I need 3-4 weeks. You can only have one alert per item. Recurrence is very weak; you still can't schedule 2nd Tuesday of each month or the 2nd Tuesday of August each year. People over 77 don't exist and color assignments are per server, not per phone. All old bugs and design mistakes, none fixed.
• Contacts can now be "linked". In the UI this shows as "Linked Cards" and "Link Contact", and in the documentation it's "Unfiied Contacts". This nomenclature confusion is a strong indicator that this feature was released prematurely. Do not use it. The iPhone manual says it's intended to support "contact unification". Contact unification sounds insane -- people with the same first and last names are grouped together in the iPhone UI. You can force this "linking" or break it. This sounds awful.
• You still can't change group membership in the iPhone. If you select a group when you create a contact it will be assigned to that (single) group.
• I'm not getting anything out of the multitasking. The apps I use haven't been updated to use it yet. I miss the ability to get to phone Favorites by clicking the Home button twice (now goes to multi-task).
• The unified email boxes are a nice convenience, but I'd much rather Apple had fixed the damned calendar.
• You still can't easily delete all images and videos from the iPhone camera roll. You need to use Image Capture on OS X to delete them. Image importing on OS X is as kludgy as ever (it's better on Windows).
• I think Apple has fixed the bug with deleting a single instance of an Exchange server recurring meeting. It no longer deletes every instance. Wrong. They just changed it to a different bug.
• The biggest iOS advantage for me is the ability to use ActiveSync with both Google and with my corporate Exchange server.
• The OS has been stable for me. No crashes.
• I like that I can turn off Cellular data from the Network setting.
• Pairing with an external keyboard can be tricky.
• The ancient text truncation bug in calendar memos has not been fixed.

Overall

• iPhone 4 is an improvement over my iPhone 3, but it's only a mild improvement over the iPhone 3GS (better display, better camera, but more fragile). Certainly nobody with a working 3GS should spend a lot for an iPhone 4. If you have an iPhone 3, and are not in love with AT&T, you might want to buy a used 3GS out of contract and wait and see how the market evolves.
• The biggest plus is the camera and support for multiple Exchange servers.
• The biggest minus is that an already fragile phone is now more fragile and the Calendar remains pathetic.

See also

• iPhone 4 Fix It repair manual

Update 7/31/10: I've had no reception on my phone while my wife's 3GS had "four bars" (More bars in more places, fake of course since she's on OS 3.) I restarted my phone and had "three bars". I bet that problem is software related and fixable.

Apple's Parental Controls: Never more broken than with Apple's MobileMe

You haven't really felt the full pain of OS X's busted parental controls until you try to enable MobileMe access on a restricted account.

I've tried and failed repeatedly with both MobileMe synchronization and me.com web access. To enable them I had to disable all application and all web content restrictions.

I'd previously run into the Google Parental Controls problem. You can't enable access to a Google Apps domain without also enabling access to Google search. I thought MobileMe would be more parent friendly. I was "oh so wrong", if anything it's a bigger Fail than Google.

If only I could lock Steve Jobs into a room until he got this working. Apple's Parental Controls would be a quite different experience.

I give up. Time to try something different.

Getting the iPhone user guide into the iBook application

The iPad user guide is available in the iBookstore, but the iPhone user guide is not.

It's available as a web page in the iPhone or as a PDF. I tried mailing a link it to myself per Apple's advice:

Apple - iPhone - Tips and Tricks

... From a Mail message or a web page, touch and hold the PDF icon or link, then select “Open in iBooks.”...

The email touch and hold didn't work -- so Apple's documentation is wrong for iOS 4.01. Instead I tapped the link and in Safari I saw an Open in iBooks button.

So now I have the PDF manual in my bookshelf. It's not bad, but not clear that there's an advantage over using the web version.

Escape from Outlook Notes - ResophNotes, SimpleNote for iPhone and Notational Velocity

I had despaired of rescuing my notes from Outlook 2007.

I'd written hundreds over time. In the old days I used Palm products that would sync with Outlook, so I could carry them with me. Now my iPhone, after years of struggle, gives me good Outlook sync with Contacts and Calendars. Notes and Tasks, however, have been orphaned. There's no real hope of an Outlook Notes to iPhone sync solution; although a few people use Outlook Tasks almost nobody uses Outlook Notes.

I've learned to live without corporate Outlook Tasks (I schedule my time on a 3 week plan basis), but I wanted those notes. I decided they needed to live within either ToodleDo Notes/Appigo Notebook, iPhone Notes (unlikely), or the Simplenote / NotationalVelocity universe (for various reasons I've given up on Evernote).

Today I discovered ResophNotes, a Windows app that syncs with the Simplenote cloud data store. The Simplenote cloud data store, of course, also syncs with Notational velocity (open source, OS X Spotlight indexed), OS X Tinderbox, OS X Yojimbe (3rd party sync), and there's a Chrome extension for editing notes.

I exported my Outlook 2007 notes to Outlook's odd CSV format (includes line feeds!), then I imported into ResophNotes and synchronized with Simplenote's cloud store. Then on my iPhone I viewed them in the Simplenote iPhone client.

It worked better than I'd expected.

Now I can move my old (originally Palm III Notes, now ToodleDo/Appigo Notebook) personal notes to the same cloud store. I'll sign up for the $10/year premium Simplenote service. (Currently I have free version.) If Simplenote belly up the rich ecosystem and open source Notational Velocity desktop solution provides the insurance I need.

A good day.

See also:

• Gordon's Notes: The rise of software rental (aka software as service)
• Moving Palm notes to Toodledo via CSV file - what worked. (Hard!)
• Appigo Notebook is coming to the iPhone
• Kiss your Google Notebook good-bye
• Palm to iPhone migration - address book and notes (Aug 2008 - dated)
• Toodledo gets it
• Appigo and Toodledo – nasty emergent design flaw makes a mess of my iPhone Notes and Tasks
• Evernote's import/export test (updated)

Update 7/31/10: The author of ResophNotes tells me he's preparing a new version that will import CSV files -- like the ones ToodleDo Notes export creates. Incidentally, I discovered that FileMaker Pro 8 does a great job opening Outlook's CSV files with embedded line feeds. I never imagined ...

iPhone 4 bug with smart album sync

Apple - Support - Discussions - iPhone 4 Won't Sync Smart Photo Album.

I've confirmed this one. It's broken in iOS 4.01 with iPhone 4.

We'll have to wait for a fix.

AT&T will data block a phone - but this disables MMS messaging

In the process of picking up my new iPhone [1] I asked (again) about blocking a user's data services. Today the store AT&T rep more or less confirmed this anonymous comment on a June post:

Gordon's Notes: AT&T’s secret Nov 2009 mobile contract change – Elegant Evil

... you can have AT&T put a data block on any phone. I have one on one of my blackberries. And it's something they do routinely, in fact on my bill it's explicitly called out as a line item. Call them again, and tell them to put a data block on, and they should do it ....

The catch (you knew there was one?) is that the data service block also disables MMS messaging -- even if that is covered by an unlimited texting plan. It does not impact SMS messaging.

I also asked again about AT&T's policies on adding data plans to "smart phones" connected to AT&T's network. I've asked about this previously and gotten conflicting responses:

• AT&T’s secret Nov 2009 mobile contract change – Elegant Evil
• AT&T Contracts, Terms of Service and Plan Terms – observations of interest

This time I got yet another response - a very bad one.

I'm going to put up yet another post on this topic, including some AT&T policy language that's not publicly available. I'll update this post with a link when the new material is out.

[1] I can kill bars by touching any part of the antenna. I used to tune TVs by waving my hands; I think it's a sign of alien possession. I suspect a lot of the antenna problems are actually user-specific.