The agnostic iPhone

iPod owners who’ve had occasion to plug their little musical buddies into an other-platformed computer understand the limitations of doing so. When you plug a Windows-formatted iPod into a Mac, it pretty much works. When you plug a Mac-formatted iPod into a Windows box, the PC hasn’t a clue what to do with it unless you’ve installed a utility such as Mediafour’s $30 XPlay 2.

So, what happens when you plug an iPhone into a differently-platformed computer?

As far as I can tell, it just works—no hassles.

To see how certain Windows functions behave on the iPhone I booted my Mac Pro into Boot Camp running Windows Vista Home Premium and prepared to kiss my Mac-formatted iPhone goodbye when I jacked it into the Mac running Windows. Vista did no more than install the Windows iPhone driver and tell me that it was ready, willing, and able to talk to the iPhone.

In iTunes 7.3 for Windows the iPhone appeared with all my data and media on it. Had I wished to I could have synced it with this version of iTunes. I didn’t care to but I was happy to know that I could have done so without having to restore the iPhone.

I’m not sure exactly what the implications of this are other than the fact that it will be far less of a pain to move an iPhone from one computer to another, regardless of the operating system that computer is running. Still, nice to know.

And because I know you’ll ask, yes, I have tried using my iPhone with Parallels and it won’t recognize it, claiming that it’s being used by another application (and yes, I’ve quit iTunes on the Mac side and I still get the message).

Category:

Posted by Christopher Breen on Jul 10 2007, 7:10 PM ET

Comments (3)

MISTER "B" -
In Parallels, click on the little USB "fork" at the lower right corner of the window. Click and Hold to be able to choose iPhone.

Chris, this post makes my day! I've read and listened to you for YEARS and enjoyed every minute logged doing so. Thank you.

That Ray Guy - www.insidetheboom.com

ADOBE (P.S.) -
I spend my spare time standing in line at the U-Village Apple Store in Seattle (the OTHER Washington). My iDay is August 15, 2007 according to my budget. I spend minutes a week staring longingly at the two HUGE iPhones in the window. Besides wearing out two paper mock ups of the iPhone, I've created a video blog of my experiences.

Posted by That Ray Guy | July 11, 2007 12:30 AM

It will actually do even more.

I synced my iPhone with my Mac. I then connected it to my work PC and set iTunes on the PC to sync only contacts and calendar. iTunes offered to merge the data with the existing data on the phone.

Now my phone syncs media automatically with the Mac, and calendar/contacts automatically with my PC, which is the exact combo I wanted. At any time, I can re-enable contact/calendar synching on the Mac and it will merge the data onto the Mac as well.

Posted by John S | July 11, 2007 12:41 AM

Ray: I tried that (as well as tried choosing the iPhone from the USB submenu) and Parallels still told me that the iPhone was busy elsewhere. Have you been able to get it to work? If so, let us know cuz I'd much rather work in Parallels than have to boot into Boot Camp.

John: Yeah, I've mentioned this ability for the iPhone to merge Info somewhere or other and I should have done so again. This is a feature of the iPhone whether you go Mac to PC (or vice versa) or to another computer running the same OS as the one you're synced to. Nice idea.

Posted by Chris Breen | July 11, 2007 12:48 AM

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