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Apple Pulling iPhone Note Syncing Support from Leopard?

Submitted by Michael Johnston on October 21, 2007 - 11:38am.
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Remember the joy and merriment you all experienced last week when news came that Leopard would sync iPhone notes? Well, I hate to be that guy, but the party seems to be over. In anticipation of the new OS, I was happily browsing Leopard's 300+ new features page when I found that something was oddly missing. Under Leopard's notes feature, Apple had posted that iPhone would actually sync those notes back and forth. Now note syncing seems to have been pulled.

The 300+ feature page used to read:

Write handy notes you can access from anywhere — including graphics, colored text, and attachments. Group notes into folders or create Smart Mailboxes that automatically group them. Your notes folder acts like an email mailbox, so you can retrieve notes from any Mac or PC or access them from your iPhone.

The page now reads:

Write handy notes you can access from anywhere — including graphics, colored text, and attachments. Group notes into folders or create Smart Mailboxes that automatically group them. Your notes folder acts like an email mailbox, so you can retrieve notes from any Mac or PC.

The line "or access them from your iPhone" has been quietly removed. Why? Did Apple have to pull a feature at the last minute? Or maybe they just want to keep that feature secret until the release.

These are all possible explanations, but there seems to be one more. Look closely at what this notes feature is. If you remember from the Leopard presentations, Notes are just specially formatted Mail messages. Because of this, iPhone note access could merely mean that you get them via Mail.app on the phone.

..."Your notes folder acts like an email mailbox, so you can retrieve notes from any Mac or PC or access them from your iPhone."

My thinking here is that Apple removed the "or access them from your iPhone" line after everyone mistook it for meaning that Leopard would sync notes rather than simply providing them via email.

Your thoughts?

Submitted by chr1s60 on October 21, 2007 - 11:43am.
This is strange. Not only was it mentioned on the site, but it was also noted in the Leopard video guide. I wonder if they took it out because they need to do a software update first and it isn't ready or some issue like that. It just seems strange that it would change after there have already been preorders and everything. I guess we will see what is up on Friday.

I don't think so

Submitted by agent6998 on October 21, 2007 - 12:27pm.
I don't think they pulled it. It would be impossible because as I'm typing, they're already packaging and getting ready to ship. When their's only 5 days left, they really don't have time to make such a change. I think their was probably some confusion about the iPhone notes so they just removed it for us to find out how notes really work.

Submitted by Matt Stewart on October 21, 2007 - 3:21pm.
Wow, that's very interesting. I think that Apple did not pull the feature, but took that little feature listing because people mis-interpreted what it's feature was. From how I look at it, notes are emails, not little documents that would appear under the notes app, it would go under your email application on the iPhone... people didn't understand that. Of course they didn't change the OS itself for something so small, so late into the process. My Leopard shipment is already "Prepared for Shipment".

That's how I view it, atleast.

Submitted by RickyGervais on October 21, 2007 - 3:33pm.
Im hoping we see that feature back in sometime.

Seemed handy for shopping lists lol

and other stuff of course lol

Submitted by Smon (not verified) on October 22, 2007 - 7:17am.
Well... on my beta Leopard here.. in Mail prefs, there is an option to use .mac to synchronise accounts,rules, notes, signatures and smart mailboxes...