Phone Post
I just got a Motorola v557 from Cingular. It’s great. I get reception, my headset works. The only problem is that my Mac doesn’t work with it. No iSync, no File Browser. It sees it, but it doesn’t talk to it. Hopefully Apple will produce a fix for this in a couple weeks. I don’t sync it that much, but I was hoping I wouldn’t have to write in every one of my contacts in by hand.
Update: An anonymous commentor clued me into the idea that I have to delete the pairing in the Bluetooth System Preferences pane after making the necessary modifications. I will try this when I get a chance, probably tomorrow, and I’ll let you all know how it works.
Thanks Mr. Anonymous Commentor!
Update: I’ve tried the suggestion from my anonymous commentor and it works! Well, sorta. Every string is being converted to hexadecimal. I’ll be looking through iSync to find out how to change the character encoding on upload. Fortunately, file browser works. If you’re out there Mr. Anonymous Commentor, any tips on how to get the phone to read an ASCII character as an ASCII character and not hex would be greatly appreciated. When it’s all said and done, I’ll be sure to post the solution here for all to enjoy.
Solution!
After a really awesome comment from Lee, I found a solution to the character encoding problem. For everyone who’s got a v557 and a Mac, here’s what you need to add to your MetaClasses.plist file.
com.motorola.V557 Identification com.apple.cgmi+cgmm "Motorola CE, Copyright 2000"+V557 com.apple.gmi+gmm "Motorola CE, Copyright 2000"+V557 InheritsFrom com.motorola.usb-bt.0x22B8/0x4902 Services ServiceName com.apple.model ServiceProperties ModelName V557 PhoneIcon MOTV551.tiff ServiceName com.apple.synchro ServiceProperties stringEncoding UCS2
If you’d like to download the plugin, click here. After you’ve got it unzipped, move the folder to /Users/yourusername/Library
Update: Apple released iSync 2.2 yesterday (April 3, 2006) and it solved this issue. Don’t bother fiddling with this Hack, just go to Software Update.
I grepped through the iSync package and only found one reference to the V551… the MetaClasses.plist file in /Applications/iSync.app/Contents/PlugIns/ApplePhoneConduit.syncdevice/Contents/PlugIns
/PhoneModelsSync.phoneplugin/Contents/Resources seems to be a list of phone models and identifiers. About 700 lines down is the V551.
“Motorola CE, Copyright 2000″+”GSM900″,”GSM1800″,”GSM1900″,”GSM850″,”MODEL=V55x”
“Motorola CE, Copyright 2000″+”GSM900″,”GSM1800″,”GSM1900″,”MODEL=V551″
Make those say MODEL=V557. Delete all relevant pairings in Bluetooth prefpane and on the phone, then guess what? It works…
Coincidentally, that same folder has TIFFs representing all the various phone models supported by iSync. A few lines further down you can find these lines.
PhoneIcon
MOTV551.tiff
Drop in a custom TIFF (maybe other formats work?) and change that line to the name of your image, and you can have custom icon for your phone.
You are having the same encoding problem that we PEBL users are having.
http://www.macgeekery.com/gspot/2006-02/moto_v557_no-go
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=48633
http://macncell.com/index_html/archive/2006/02/20/user-feedback-needed-motorola-razr-v3x-isync-plugin/weblogentry_view
Here is how to change the encoding. Email me and I will send you the proper files.
ServiceName
com.apple.synchro
ServiceProperties
stringEncoding
UCS2
I tried adding the phone to the Media.plist before I added over the part for the hexcode stuff. I got it to sync one time, with all the funny characters. Then I just deleted everything off the phone, and added the lines to the media.plist like it said above. It sees the phone, but when it gets to “Applying changes to xxx phone” I get an error message saying that the device refuse the changes. I’m not having any luck figuring out how to unpair the devices either. Any suggestions?
I am still lost on the hex stuff….. I have been able to sync the phone but the names are unreadable./….can anyone help ?
Thanks..
oriz-at-mac-dot-com