A few days ago, I saw a blog post highlighting how difficult it can be to sync a phone on the free desktop. For a battle hardened command line user, the steps aren’t that troubling (although that example looks easy compared to some of the setups i’ve seen). Regardless, I certainly wouldn’t want to put my parents through this experience.
In contrast, after a recent mishap with my phone, restoring its address book from Evolution was trivial with the copy of Conduit SVN I had kicking around.
I started Conduit and plugged in my phone. It appeared on the left hand side of the screen, so I dragged it and the Evolution endpoints to the canvas, and I did a sync. My address book is back.
There is more UI love to go of course. SynCE automagicness is getting there, but we can make it even better. Plus, we love HAL, and the next step is to respond to new devices and say “Hey, I know how to deal with that thingy you just plugged in” and offer to sync to some sensible defaults (Evolution for PIM stuff, Tomboy for Notes, F-Spot for Photos, Banshee/Rhythmbox for Music). And of course, the next time I plug it in.. Just sync it. Never make me press the sync button again.
The blinding future is to use PackageKit to download extra support packages like SynCE and libgpod as needed, when you plug in the device.
