Persistence Pays Off: Treo and Mac Get Along — Mostly

Update from “Using a Treo 700p with a Mac: It’s Rough.”

It’s still not totally wonderful, but I have a new Treo 700p (now on Verizon instead of Sprint) and it’s mostly working now.

Things that have helped:

• Being on Verizon instead of Sprint. I still drop connections occasionally, but it’s far less frequent than when I was on Sprint. In the areas where I tend to use the phone (notably Kitsap Peninsula in Washington), Verizon has much better coverage. YMMV depending on where you live. Also, Verizon’s customer service, while not wonderful, is much better than Sprint’s. I haven’t had to suffer through anything like the 45-minute hold times that I encountered on Sprint.
• Knowing what connection package to request. The customer service reps at my local store didn’t get the right service package enabled for me. Even the data connection specialist on Verizon’s 800 number (who, at least, was available after only a two-minute wait) didn’t know. “I don’t think you can do dial-up networking on a Treo.” Thankfully, Antonio over at the Onda had the right recipe. Ask for “BBA CONNECT UNL” to be added to your account. The guy on the phone lit up as soon as I said that. “I stand corrected!” he said, punched a few buttons, and presto, my phone started authenticating just fine.
• An occasional re-pairing. Every so often my MacBookPro and the Treo decide they aren’t on talking terms any more. I get RFCOMM errors. David over at the Robinson Factor suggested a bunch of PPP options that would help, and I think they’re on the right track, but didn’t completely solve my problem. Unpairing and repairing the phone with the laptop seems to set them straight.
• The Missing Sync. I don’t really understand why Apple doesn’t include Treo support directly into iSync, but the Missing Sync from Mark/Space Software, and at $39.95 (download price) is well worth it. Missing Sync gets an “It Just Works” award for filling in a gap in Apple’s otherwise wonderful support for handhelds.
• Encouragement from Mike Davidson. It was Mike’s blog, timed with a pressing need to find a laptop+phone connection, that encouraged me to go looking at the 700p. A couple of e-mails in response to my comments on his blog helped encourage me to retry after I had ditched my Sprint Treo. According to FeedBurner, lots of people read Mike’s blog, and it’s easy to see why.

I briefly (just shy of two weeks) had a Motorola E815 from Verizon, and it’s a very nice, capable, but boring phone. The Verizon reps tell me that it’s their best phone as far as reception goes, and based on my experience, I would agree. I had zero problems using it for data connections either. Its voice dialing features absolutely rocked. (I lament the absence of anything similar on the Treo. I am testing the Voice Dial software you can buy for $20 from Palm, but the fact that it can’t work through a Bluetooth headset is a serious handicap. Also it does much worse than the Motorola phone at recognizing my speech.)

Where the Treo stands out (and what brought me back to it after using the E815) was the classic PDA features: contact list, calendar, and web browser on the phone. While the E815 had each of these features, I couldn’t stand “typing” by using the letters on the numeric pad. When I want to find somebody’s phone number, a ferry schedule, or some bit of trivia triggered by conversation, I can get it much faster on the Treo.

Call me crazy, but that is worth the extra dollars and the occasional connection hassle.

Update: *sigh* Moments after initially posting this, I started having trouble with getting disconnected, but not fully disconnected. The menu bar stays stuck in the “Disconnecting…” state, thus preventing me from attempting to reconnect. Haven’t yet found anything short of rebooting that causes this to go away. As I say, it “mostly” works. (This update coming via the Treo again.)