You can't sync Notes on iPhone and Mac? and MobileMe? What??

to do's and note & sms sync are fundamental to switch from any other non iphone/mac platform. i will continue to stick with treo and the ever so slow missing sync until this cute iphone and mobileme can do these very basic things.

I can't believe that notes and task list are not available. I was about to trade my treo 650 for iphone 3g

Yup agree totally. I'm a Mac AND PC user so MobileMe seemed the perfect "at last" solution. Until I realised it only does half the job.

I keep a shed-load of vital info in my Notes on Outlook and every mobile phone I've owned has had to have been able to sync it across for when I'm out and about.

I was so tempted by the new iPhone 3G and MobileMe was the clincher but no! Still no Notes sync.

I can't be fiddling with dodgy workarounds like copying all my notes into emails and searching them....

I have Notes in Outlook 2007, Notes in Leopard, Notes in iPhone... cummon Apple Brainiacs - how hard can it BE!!?

I and probably millions of others who thought the cute side of iPhone was finally matched by the business / utility side will now scuttle off to new Blackberry 9000s. The RIM device might not have the UX but it IS a complete product! Afraid RIM will get my wedge for the next 18 month contract... what a waste when I was SO looking forward to finally owning an iPhone.

Steve you coulda had me - but you blew it - - -AGAIN!

Are you serious? You mean the new 3G phones didn't fix this obvious omission in the first generation of iPhones? I can only assume this is a deliberate ploy to make use store and access their data on the web, which sucks for somethings like a calendar, contacts and a notepad. You MUST have a hard sync from computer to phone for this. To not have this and all the other gizmos is so dumb it sounds practically Microsoft. Won't buy an iPhone (or another Mac) until I can do this.

Unbelievable! I am unable to understand why they would leave this functionality out. It has to be a conscious decision, especially after all of the feedback from people wishing for these features. Why?

just as frustrated as the rest of you.. i renewed .mac because @me looked promising. I certainly love being able to utilize my calendar on the web. But i keep A LOT of information in notes, and i would like to bring up my 'to do' list when i'm somewhere other than my laptop or desktop. iCal on the web, but no to-do? that's only half of my information.

I feel like I was misled. I'm pretty sure that the Apple website and the video tour said that it would synch notes. Now it has magically disappeared and there is no mention of it on there. I stood in line for 7 hours to get an iPhone, partially because of the idea of synching Mail with my phone without worrying about wires. If I knew it was only going to do HALF the job, I would've never stood in line so long to get a phone. I would've waited. I guess I should've known it was too good to be true.

What is doubly (or triple-y) maddening is that there is a "Notes" check box on the MobileMe sync menu in preferences...

Grrrr

Hi here from the Netherlands... i'm dissapointed too... but let's all hope they put it in an update somewhere soon...

This is getting to the point I can not manage my days any more as I try to setup my systems to support me, not make me less organized.

Strangely enough, a couple of days ago I noticed that my notes in Mail at work were actually showing up in my notes on my Mac at home. But still no sync on the iPhone which is where I need them the most. So I guess it's some of the way there.

Also surprised by this omission.

I found the following quick work-around: in Mail.app, just drag your note from "Notes" onto "Inbox" (make sure its one of the account you also have on your iPhone, e.g. your MobileMe inbox). Notes are really just a special kind of email and doing this will cause the note to sync just like normal mail. Hope it helps.

come on Apple do you magic and lets us have the sync for notes with our iphone

I agree, what an awful omission, Apple!
For managing life, I can't believe you don't have a fully integrated Notes and To-Do-List. Or at least Notes. I guess Steve Jobs has perfected a system where he does not use Notes nor To-Dos - or review them very often.

So -- when I sync notes with MobileMe, is it syncing the notes from the iPhone? very confusing! - where do they go on my mac? - are they supposed to go to Mail app? or to iCal? - I've been keeping notes on the iPhone in the Notes area, but I don't see anything similar on my Mac ... so what's the point of syncing Notes if it doesn't copy from those lists from the iPhone??? - can someone explain how this works? -thanx!

"so what's the point of syncing Notes if it doesn't copy from those lists from the iPhone??? - can someone explain how this works? -thanx!"

Apparently, the Notes app on the iPhone different than the Notes app on the Mac. My notes will sync between my Mac at work and the Mac at home. But it does NOT sync with the iPhone. But it only started syncing between my 2 Macs just recently. It didn't work at all at first.
I'm thinking that they will eventually get it to work with the iPhone as well. Hopefully

I have been a avid Palm user which syncs all my data with either the palm desktop or MS Outlook. It took alot to convince my to buy the apple iphone 3g thinking now finally I would have one device to handle everything including my phone....got it yesterday, performed the sync process only to find out there was no option for tasks and notes...what the heck; how could this be overlooked? Apple had what I thought was the perfect solution to replace Palm & Rim....seems not to be so perfect after all!
Common sense says sync all the features of my outlook, everything is there for my life to function. Surely if Palm could provide the conduit to sync it all, than apple should be able to do the same...come on Steve, finish off Palm once and for all in fact why don't you provide a desktop like Palm and we can eliminate the outlook as well....most of us use gmail anyhow. At least provide the syncing solution everyone needs via a software update, don't make us have to wait for the next generation and buy again...restore our faith in apple and come to the table with the solution ASAP....thank-you

I've been a palm user for 10 years. Bought an iPhone this morning. I can't believe there's no way to synch my notes and tasks. The first Palm I bought 10 years ago had these features. So much for progress, Apple.

I have a brand new iPod Touch. I went to a meeting and wrote a bunch of notes on it and unfortunately ran into the same problem. However, I found half a solution: You can email these notes to yourself... I know it would be much better to just be able to sync the notes on your iPhone or Touch to the notes in Leopard's Mail, but at least you can get them on your computer and copy/paste. Just tap on the envelope icon at the bottom of the Notes app. Hope this helps.

Yeah, this is a problem. If Apple wants to truly have the cell phone of choice, then they must fix this problem and allow syncing of tasks and notes. It will be a very long path for them to replace Outlook, but if they have a phone that works completely in conjunction with it, then adoption of the iPhone will improve amongst the business users. Until then, we business users will have to keep using the Blackberry.

Hey everyone, I believe I have come up with another alternative for both notes and tasks that will sync as well. In Outlook, you can add other calendars which I did and call one Memos and the other To Do's or whatever name you like. Then I add my note or task as an all day event on the 1st day of the month(e.g. Oct) to whichever Calendar you want; you can give it a subject line along with your favorite label and type the balance of the note/memo or task/to do in the notes section of the event. Now you will have all your items in one place under one date. They are automatically organized in alpha order. Then you can select to have the event reoccur on the 1st of every month so you can see it each month until you want it deleted. The best thing is all the calendars will sync with your iphone and outlook via the itunes sync function.....Now you have all your important info in both places....I admit a bit of a work around for now, but it works! At least a solution until Apple decides to improve their OS.
BTW how about copy, cut and paste like we all could do on our Palms? We have been able to do this for years on our PDA's...I hope Apple can step up to the plate soon.
I do love my iphone, just working around the idiosync issues has been challenging and costly in time.

I can't see how difficult for Apple to make a notes sync between Outlook and iPhone, which notes copying can be easily achieved with a simple Visual basic Script (http://ioutnotes.blogspot.com/). And I believe full sync is not far away if Apple decided to do it..

In fact, I don't think they have originally planned for it because there is not even a field in the notes.db for marking the last modification date of each note.

For some reason Apple abandoned NotePad, and left it to competitors like MoosePad (now defunct) and the better iNotePad. If they don't have an app that will do notes, (despite offering to sync it in the MobileMe part of System Preferences) then they should offer to sync to a 3rd party app like iNotePad
Derek Williams,
Edinburgh,
Scotland.

I am surprised that its been 4 months and nobody has done anything. I gave up my blackberry and now I find that "Notes and tasks dont sync", I have like 700 with important day to day notes that I need in my hands and not just in my Mac Book Pro.
Have you also noticed that you cannot search in the calendar. Let's say you have a meeting but don't remember when, you have to go day by day to find it instead to perform a simple search like in the blackberry.
Im dissapointed and seriously considering returning the 5 IPhones that we just got for the office and go back to Blackberry or Treo.
Eduardo Barrientos
Dallas Texas

I would have to agree with you. I have over 60 notes and would need to have immediate access on my mobile device. Otherwise, it is almost useless.

This stupid inability to sync is one of the reasons(among many others) why I still haven't switched to Leopard and why I'm thinking about quitting .Mac

I'm also suffering but I have found some (however somewhat better or worse) alternatives. Most important for me is having a physical file available containing the valuable data on my PC and not only somewhere on a server I can't control.

For syncing To-Dos you can use the ToDo application (AppStore) and the Toodledo Toodledo webbased service (free basic account available which does the job quite ok for me) and sync the Toodledo contents to Outlook. This works. There is a somewhat nasty security warning each time the sync tries to access the outlook database but that can be solved somehow soon I hope. The physical backup of the To-Do's dtaa is in my Outlook pst file.

For syncing text notes I will try Ilium Software's eWallet with an unencrypted wallet file. The wallet file syncs perfectly across platforms (PC, PocketPC, Palm, iPhone, sorry, no Macs supported, even allowing to use an arbitrary FTP location) and allows copy and paste on the PC for text. The most important thing is I have a physical file with all my notes on my PC, so if the webservice is down or unavailable I still can continue to work and my data is not lost. Also the data is on the iPhone and only needs to be online for syncing, not for working.

So I have once to migrate all text to eWallet one by one and then have it smoothely synced on all platforms. I can even edit stuff on all platforms and it's smoothly synced, as long as I don't edit one note on several places. I hope this will do the job for me. Unfortunately this can't be searched on the iPhone but it can be searched on the PC version.

I used to use notes for my to do list's but now I use http://www.RememberTheMilk.com and ToDo iPhone app (http://www.appigo.com/todo/index.html).
This is not the answer you want to hear, but, give ToDo and RTM a go instead. if you are the type of person who keeps todo lists and notes a dedicated third part solution might be more appropriate.

I already downloaded Ilium Software's eWallet but still waiting the development of the sync with a Mac. The good thing: the encryption, the bad, I will have to key in all my secure notes (400 minimum). I'm already syncing using the notes from entourage as a contact with a category (eg Passwords, Bank Acct or Credit Cards) and works. The downside the lack of encryption
Is there a way to import from entourage to eWallet?

I wish I had known this before I switched from my Treo to IPhone. I find it a real inconvenience not to have Notes sync with my new IMAC. Just boggles the mind, how this is not available. I too do not wish to use another application to do this, as I would like to have one program, interface with this as well.
I also wish that there was a better search for Contacts on the IPhone. Wish you could search with either name or company name. Too bad you can't search by city as well.

THERE IS A WAY TO SYNC NOTES.

Not what we are all looking for, but it ok for now.

In the Mail application, you have your notes on the left side right, well, if you expand that you'll see some other options, one of them should say "Apple", you have to have a MobileMe account.

Every time you make a Note, send it to this folder (Apple) in Notes. Then with your iPhone go to your MobileMe account, and where you have the inbox, drafts, sent, etc.. you will see a folder named Notes... well... here they are!..

I hope this helps in some way.

This notes sync problem just took the cake.

I've kept a lot of information in Mail's notes, such as serials and keys for my programs, client notes, quick thoughts, everything one would use notes for. They were synced to my macbook, and when dragged in to folders on the @me.com side in Mail, they were retained as emails, and although couldn't be handled as notes, they were at least *backed up* and available as e-mails from the @me website.

Or so i thought..

DO NOT assume that because you are storing notes in other foldiers, or that they are on your other computers, that they are backed up.

I can only assume the following problem began because i re-did my imac last week (because Leopard itself is a whole other story of frustration). I go in to Mail today to check a note, and all of the notes must have been tied to data on my computer because they are all of them gone. Their 'shell' remains in my @me.com folders but when you attempt to open the note, there is no information there. A few seconds later, the e-mail itself vanishes!?

I jumped on my macbook, where all of my notes were still in Mail and still worked--But then messages i had attempted to open from the imac side began disappearing as @me started it's sync. i copied what information i had left in to stickies, before the last of my notes were swallowed up in the Nothing.

I can't begin to imagine how this information was set up in MobileMe that it disappears from one computer and then removes itself from the other locations.

Thanks, Apple. You fucked me. I hope you sell lots of new computers and iphones on your 'it just works' philosophy.

It's true that the inability to sync Notes or ToDos in the iPhone is an inexplicable and slightly irritating omission. Having said that, it is easily remedied:

(1) there are several good ToDo apps for the iPhone available; I use Remember The Milk, which syncs tasks seamlessly between clients (web browser or widget on my Mac, dedicated app on the iPhone which will work offline and sync later) and their server where the data resides;

(2) I use OneDisk (another iPhone app) for syncing files between my iPhone and my Mac; it offers a choice of MobileMe, Box.net or any WebDav-compatible server, stores and syncs a copy on the iPhone for offline use.

12/14/08

1. It appears that Noter2 ($7) will allow for synchronized notes between computer and iPhone.

2. "astorg" apparently found an app that will synch FILES with a Mac. FilesLite (free), Files ($7), and Air Sharing ($5) will allow you to place copies of files & folders on the iPhone but you cannot modify anything on the iPhone nor is there a synch function. Upon first glance I can't tell the difference between these two apps. Files Lite works like a charm, though - that much I can say.

3. Does anyone know of an app that actually syncs files & folders between iPhone and PC (i.e. deletes, adds & updates files and folders as PDAs have been doing for a decade) ?

Thanks.

@academic doctor: yeah, OneDisk ($5.99) will sync docs between iPhone (where a copy is saved locally for offline use) and your choice of MobileMe, Box.net or any other WebDav compatible server. It's an elegant solution and works flawlessly. Any mods made offline on iPhone will be synced whenever you run the app. This basically solves the issue as far as I am concerned.

Regarding Syncing of ASCII information (e.g. notes, passwords, numbers etc.)

Look at ilium software's eWallet. It stores ASCII information in hierarchically organizable tabs and places them into a single file, strong password encryption optionally.

eWallet syncs this file tabwise with the PC via WLAN. Sync means, that new tabs are copied, deleted ones get deleted and modified get modified on the other side. If a tab has been modified on both sides it gets duplicated on both sides with a message in the log.

The PC client can sync via FTP to internet servers, so syncing between different PCs is easy. I use two eWallet files, one without password for simple notes and one with password for sensitive information.

The good thing is that you have all data saved when you backup this one eWallet file. The bad thing is if this single file is destroyed all your data is lost. ;-) However I never experienced this situation. I prefer to have everything in one place. I use eWallet now for over one month on the iPhone and for several years on my Palms (Treo) and on different Windows mobile smartphones and appreciate never to have to re-enter all the data when migrating.

Unfortunately there seems to be no Mac version of eWallet.

I highly recommend using Evernote to handle your notes. Evernote is free and offers a desktop app (for Mac or PC), a mobile app (for iPhone and Windows Mobile) and a web-based interface. Evernote handles text, photo and voice notes, so it already has more to offer than Apple's solution, and all of your notes are handled online via an account that's shared by all of your Evernote apps, so you don't have to worry about syncing. More info:

http://www.evernote.com/

Evernote is pretty cool, but everything is kept online, so without GSM coverage there are no notes. The only way out is to mark everything as Favorite (which keeps them on the iPhone), but editing larger files is a pain and generally evernote shows poor performance, even when on WiFi. I checked it out and still have installed it, but I'm not convinced. A lot of the features (like graphical notes (pictures) or graphics OCR) I don't need and I think would be even slower compared to ASCII notes.

An advantage indeed is the availability of the client on a lot of different platforms including the Mac.

Evernote is pretty cool, but everything is kept online, so without GSM coverage there are no notes

Actually, that no longer true. Initially, Evernote notes were only accessible when you were online. But the current iPhone client will keep a local copy of any note you designate as a favorite, and will sync it when you next get online. I actually find this works fine.

I actually Evernote and OneDisk on my iPhone: OneDisk for documents that I need to keep on my iPhone (and occasionally send as an email attachment, which OneDisk does quite well and the iPhone Mail app doesn't) and Evenote for notes that I need to occasionally modify and sync.

I'm still looking for a way to sync the stikies on my desktop with my iphone native 'notes' application... anyone have any idea if this is possible?

My feedback to Apple:
1. In UK, I can't use YouTube, use iTunes or download even FREE apps because even though I have an UK billing address, my credit card was originally issued in Australia. Apple should cancel its IP contracts with all the stakeholders until they pull in their stupid heads and start realising it's a world market now. We don't want to buy a separate iPhone and have a different credit card, DVD player et al. for every country we visit. This should work anywhere in the world, or be explained at sale time so the user can make the wise choice not to buy an iPhone
2. Poor quality photos, low res, poor colour contrast
3. No video recording
4. No Video calls even though it is a 3G phone
5. MobileMe in System Preferences says "sync Notes" but they are nowhere to be found on the Mac host
6. GPS SatNav is a joke, not intuitive, current location not always available, gives wrong directions,burns the battery before you reach the destination and keeps dropping out
7. Ripoff Roaming charges of £6/MB even when I am visiting Australia where the card was issued and therefore I should be able to use YouTube, iTunes and buy apps at local rates
8. Changes to iCal on the iPhone if made when on a WiFi logged in subscriber network don't appear on MobileMe.Com until 24 hours later, if at all
9. Confusing interface in iTunes/Sys Prefs that shares comparable tasks across two apps for no apparent reason.
The only reason I kept this incredibly expensive phone is that it makes phone calls, allows sms and an online digital diary.

Blah! Blah! Blah

Sure there is a few things that the Phone does not have, BUT dang tell us a Phone that is better and has a better chance to fix any issues that we might have. With the IPHONE we have a chance, yes a way better chance , than any other phone to get an App that will allow us to .......Sync Notes, Video Recording or any of the others... BUT and I SAY BUT, with the Apps that come out every day.. we have a easy and fast chance to have any fixes fixed.. Way better than any other phone

With all the Apps that come out... PLease and I M
mean PLEASE.. Lets post it here, I have a feeling that it will need to come thru MobileMe but maybe just maybe a 3rd party App might be able to do it. Having Notes sync from OUTLOOK to the IPHONE is my dream...Having a APP on my desktop.. or should I say yet another on my laptop just is not easy to keep track of

SORRY.. But things keep poping in my mind..

IS there a cheap way to have an exchange Server, if you are just a small business.. and is that exchange server available if my laptop is off?? I like MobileMe because it syncs everything, but working perfect with OUTLOOK it does not

It's 2009 and still my notes are stuck on my iPhone. Sure, can email them, but then what ?? Too clunky to rely on as a way to write notes !!

I see there's Mail Notes syncing, but even this is a bit hacked up, with "unspecified domain" entries etc.

Honestly.....what is this !

Hey Gang, I'm confused. I just recently switched from a Treo to an iPhone and signed up for MobileMe. While I'm still working out a few glitches in syncing my laptop (XP/Outlook2003), home desktop (Vista/Outlook2007) and my iPhone contacts & calendar....I just checked and it DOES appear my Notes do come across.

I don't use the ToDo List....so don't care there.

So what's the bottom line? Does MobileMe sync your contact's Notes field....or not?

Scott
ProTechTraining.com

So what's the bottom line? Does MobileMe sync your contact's Notes field....or not?

Yes....

I create contacts called "Notes- XXXXXX" in order to have notes sync between my phone and computer. This works fine, but it sucks to have to do a workaround like this..... Come on, Apple, get with it!

When you sync using MobileMe in System Preferences, the sync takes time for Notes, and presumably uses network resources. So the data is being moved somewhere.

Some programer at Appl probably knows where, but is acting like a public servant.

Public Servant definition: Someone who knows the answer to your question, but doesn't have the authority to tell you.

Apart from this - I love Apple.

Is there any alternative for notes that i can use to sync my iphone with my mac? i just want it to be as simple as NOTES.

any suggestion from the APP STORE? any help would do i just want to edit my notes from my phone and mac but sync them at the same time. not like what iphone Notes offers now wherein you can compose a message and email....i need more than this!

Is anybody at Apple listening? Has Apple taken a public position on this or indicated that they have some intention of providing this support? Or even shown some indication that they understand how much proper synching of notes and tasks is? (and, btw, I don't want "another" app to hack around this - I want it to just work).

They admit that it doesn't work, but that is all I could get out of them.

Alas, alack. Thank you, sir.

HEY ALL.. I use my Notes from OUTLOOK like all the time, when the IPHONE came out, I was UPSET that they did not sync via Itunes, or even MobileME.. I tried all the fixes from all the sites and discussions here and any where else.. Evernotes, Notes that gave you yet another program on the DeskTop, but nothing and I mean Nothing Worked, so that I did not have to Transfer or what ever............UNTEL now.. yes guys this is the program.. It is an APP that is on the Phone but it syns your OUTLOOK NOTES with the app on the IPHONE.. No not thru a USB, no not thru WiFI, but just a plan old sync thru the internet,..

http://www.chapura.com/keynotesiphone...

they also have Tasks

http://www.chapura.com/keytasksiphone...

Works Perfect.. SYNC Outlook Notes with your IPHONE... Thanks Chapura

IPhone OS 3.0 is comming this summer. Beta is already available for developers. I hope this solves everything

Check out The Missing Sync for iPhone. It can import notes from the iPhone notes app. Then it syncs between Mac or PC to their free Fliq Notes app. It works pretty nicely on the Mac. http://www.markspace.com/iphone

Check out an application called Things, which is available for both Mac and iPhone. It is a powerful yet easy to use organizer, which brings notes, to-do lists and projects together in one app. It also synchs between Mac and iPhone. I started using it in beta when it was still free and before the app store existed but happily paid ($10) to upgrade when the latest version came out.

Reply to Hernan: Thanks! It does much more too - import, transfer, archive, send, share and syncs all my stuff - notes, tasks, documents, files, music, video, photos, calendars - thanks to Mark/Space http://www.markspace.com/

Oh, someone said on Twitter it was coming out for Windows too next week...

"Apple monitors but is not active in this community"

Bummer. Sometimes Apple is NOT very usable. Anyone have links to good reviews of any of the apps mentioned here?

You can now sync Notes using iTunes with Mail on the Mac and with Outlook on Windows using iTunes.

It doesn't appear you can yet sync Notes using MobileMe. On Windows, there is no option and on the Mac, while MobileMe lists Notes as something to sync, when you "check" Notes, nothing happens. At least, they don't sync with Mail and I can't find anywhere on the computer where they put them.

One troubling note. It appears to me that using both iTunes to sync (Notes) and MobileMe to sync (contacts and calendars) with an iPhone and a Mac and a Windows box leads to a problem where MobileMe thinks you have sync conflicts and won't let you resolve them. I don't know that this combination is what leads to it, but it rather seems it to me. Maybe if you only sync via iTunes with one computer it would be ok. I only know I am broken (again...).

I downloaded and tried Evernote (http://evernote.com/) after scanning the comments above.

I think it is great - I tested it, and it synced flawlessly across iPhone, Desktop (OSX) app, and web site. Simple and just works.

Free up to a number of notes, and cheap if you have a ton of notes and cross the free limit. I'll probably pay for it if I do hit the limit.

No I don't work for them or have any interest, I just liked the app because it does exactly what I wanted ;)

-- Chad