Until recently, Macintosh users who owned Palm organizers have been at a disadvantage. Our desktop software remained at version 1.0 (and let's be honest, it's not even a very good 1.0 Mac program) while Windows-based users have enjoyed updates and new features.

Every Palm handheld beginning with the PalmPilot Professional has included built-in Mail and Expense applications, but we were unable to synchronize them with data on the desktop. And when our Palm III-owning friends discovered they could HotSync to several brands of laptops via infrared, we (harmlessly) pointed our own IR beams at the back of their heads and said "Zap" beneath our breaths.

New Palm Desktop
Fortunately, we're a patient lot. After a lengthy development process, Palm has released Palm Desktop 2.1, bringing Mac users into parity on the desktop with the rest of the Palm crowd--and even excelling in a few areas. This new personal information manager is built for the Macintosh from the ground up (it's based on Claris Organizer, which Palm bought from Apple earlier this year; see "PalmPilot and Macintosh: together at last" in the November, 1998 issue of PalmPower for more about what's in the new PIM), rather than being an ugly Windows port. A quick exploration of what comes with the core Palm Desktop software reveals a few interesting nuggets. I'll discuss each in the next few sections

Infrared HotSync
When the Palm IIIs first came out with built-in IR support, its main purpose seemed to be for beaming contact information between Palm organizers. Nice touch, but not terribly exciting after you've done it once or twice. More and more devices are now including IR ports, such as PowerBooks and iMacs (and cellular phones, though I was disappointed to learn that my Nokia 6160, despite possessing an IR window, doesn't include the actual hardware to back it up), but nothing seemed to talk to anything else.

Now, after installing four Extensions on your Mac and four IR libraries on your Palm handheld, you can perform a HotSync via IR to Macs supporting infrared. You'll find a new screen (under Preferences, Serial/IR), that provides a simple toggle for changing the HotSync port, as shown in Figure A. Plus, in a great example of foresight, Florent Pillet's Palm Buddy utility is already IR-ready -- just set your Palm III, IIIx, or V on a table near your PowerBook and perform a full backup without lifting a single cable.