This week I was migrated back to a QWERTY keyboard driven WinMo phone. Thanks to our friends at Palm. It is an awesome device, but more on that in another post. For now I want to talk about the much vaunted new service, MyPhone.

It’s in beta, so I did sit on a waiting list to get an activation code. But once I received that, I installed this on the Omnia, and it really is a “set and forget” service. So much so, that I even forgot I’d installed it.

My usual process for transitioning to a new phone is to:

  • Transfer the SIM card
  • Connect to our Exchange Server – which automatically syncs my work calendar, email, contacts, and tasks
  • Sign in to my Windows Live account – which syncs my personal email and contacts
  • Install whatever apps I deem mission critical at the moment.

It’s usually 20-30 mins and I’m back online. But that is sans whatever photos, videos, and documents are on the old phone. Not to mention, SMS messages.

This time I also just pointed the phone browser to https://myphone.microsoft.com/install Installed the MyPhone app, signed in with my LiveID, and clicked Sync.

Voila. The Palm Treo Pro was a functional clone of the Samsung Omnia. The best thing was that all of my threaded SMS conversations were just there.

Not only that, but you can get at these online as well. Sweet.

“So how does this differ from Live Mesh?” I hear you ask.

Mesh is a distributed platform for applications. Currently only one of the developed apps is folder share. So yes you can use it to back up files (including docs, photos, music, video). But on the phone this:

  • Needs considered setting up. You don’t want to be getting 100MB videos downloading to your phone over the air.
  • Only syncs when you run the app, but if Mesh is running, will sync data immediately.
  • Doesn’t mesh messaging data like SMS/MMS.
  • Allows you to share with whomever has joined your various Mesh folders

MyPhone is automatic, remote, backup & restore for your phone. It won’t sync automatically as you add a file, like Mesh, but backs up all your data at a scheduled frequency. The default is daily.

It doesn’t allow you to share with other people, but does allow you to add multiple phones.

But it is super easy to setup. Install, login, set the sync frequency, then forget about it.

If you have a Windows Mobile Phone – indispensible…

R42

Rog42 Tag