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Contributor socceroos

Enhance mobile devices sync  
Ubuntu

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Priority : Undefined
Definition : New (Needs guidance)
Implementation : Unknown
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Written by jherran the 28 Feb 08 at 15:01. Global category: Hardware support. In development
There are lot of people having troubles syncing their devices (pda, smartphones, etc.) with ubuntu. At this poing there is only one solution available, multisync, and works for only a few devices, and it's very limited on their functions.

And I think, this is a very important point for lots of people.

**Suggestions from duplicate idea 397 work on that idea :

1) Clean up the Opensync and SyncML plugin packages to work properly with Evolution by default.

2) Set up an official Ubuntu SyncML server for Ubuntu users.

3) Possibly clean up open source SyncML clients for the different mobile platforms.

Developer comments
The current status of mobile devices synchronization in Linux is generally is quite shaky. It *can* work but it's a lot of work usually. There are a few efforts around but there's no single project that works in the majority of the situations.

This is also caused by manufacturers not using a single synchronization protocol. The most promising project now is OpenSync[1] which supports basically SyncML 1.1 and the Nokia variation and it works with several degrees of success between phones and desktops but the project itself is in a constant alpha state with a lot of issues, the GUI is simplistic and there are no integrated resources to sync with online contacts/calendars
like Google's. This can be overcome by preparing Evolution and/or Thunderbird to do it.

In short, despite the infrastructure is mostly there, we need work to make it a seamless experience for the user.
Bear in mind that this is a huge effort. Synchronization looks simple but there's a lot of factors and situations that need to be addressed like how to synchronize devices with different capabilities and how to keep 3 way synchronizations (desktop, online and mobile).
4448
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inprogress
Selected solution (#1): Auto-generated solution of idea #28
Written by jherran the 28 Feb 08 at 15:01.
Ubuntu Brainstorm was updated in January 2009. Since the idea #28 was submitted before this update, its rationale and solution are not separated. Please vote accordingly, and if you have the necessary rights, please separate the rationale from the solution. Thanks!
55
votes
inprogress
Selected solution (#2): Sync both PC and phone with google calendar & contacts
Written by fc.truter the 2 Jun 09 at 20:27.
Instead of creating hardware interfaces for every phone/PC combination, Canonical could take different approach, and sync both devices to a online service such as Google Contacts/Calendar or perhaps even with Ubuntu One.

On the PC side, Evolution already supports this to an extent but the process can be made much more streamlined. From the phone side, projects like GCalSync have already started something like this but few have seen the potential in this, and there is massive room for improvement.

This could be the next step in cloud computing and could bypass all the device driver issues and unwilling hardware manufacturers, since most phones already support Java or a similar language.
29
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Selected solution (#3): Get behind Conduit and make it shine
Written by socceroos the 23 Oct 09 at 00:04.
Conduit seems to be a worthy step in the right direction to solve this particular issue. I would suggest that Canonical puts some muscle behind this and kill off this issue once and for all.

http://live.gnome.org/Conduit
-5
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Selected solution (#4): multisync
Written by sn0m the 11 Dec 09 at 19:34.
multisync seems to work fine, it just needs fine tunning with ubuntu and evolution.
All we need is contacts, calendar and notes to synch, who cares about sending text or making calls through whatever.
12
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Selected solution (#5): Create a Syncing API for better syncing between different programs and devices
Written by AdlerHorst the 27 Dec 09 at 13:38.
I Think this API should store a Database on local or Ubuntu One in that the Data should be stored in the most detailed version.

eg: The street of the address should be split in the Data base into Streetname and houseNr.

Sync modules for connections and Data fields and merging/split should give the access on other devices.

This tool should not only could be used for Contact, Calendar, ToDo, Notice and Messages. File Syncing like rsync should also be possible to use with.

See the 72 comments or propose a solution (latest comment the 10 Dec 11 at 13:55) >>