Macworld Forums

Hi all

this is actually on behalf of a mate of mine who is new to macs.

she is trying to connect to the internet, via BT on her macbook and via her mobile phone. she is with O2 and they have confirmed they have activated her account to do this, and supplied her with the 8 digit passkey to use when pairing the devices.

I have talked her through the whole process on the phone:

1. both devices are in discoverable mode

2. the mac can 'see" her mobile phone, and apparently vice versa - it comes up in the listing etc as a found device

3. all the checks we do beforehand are fine...but when we come to connect...it drops off after about 5 seconds of attempting to get it going.

O2 are being less than useless...the usual panic stations when you mention you are on a mac...I have managed to download a macguide from O2 for connecting to the web...but I see that it states under system requirements...OSX 10.2.x. my mate actually has 10.4 and i am wondering if this is the issue??? her phone as I say is with O2 and is the Sony Ericsson K550i model.

any help much appreciated!

cheers
Bexford

bexford,

the SE 550 is on Apple's iSync list. So it should work with iSyn 2.4, see the bottom of that page for a link for earlier versions.

I think your reference to an 8 digit pass key and the need to enable her account is to do with accessing the Internet via BlueTooth on that account.

It seems to me that the problem you're describing is more fundamental than that - you need to be able to pair the Mac and phone before you can do anything else. You'll know when it's working because you can sync your Address Book and iCal once it's working, so will surely want to do that ( back up your Mac Address book before syncing for the first time - you have been warned ! )

The way I set up phones is to enter any number I feel like ( even something as simple as 1234 ) on one BlueTooth device and then the same number of the device to be paired with it, when prompted.

Once you have iSync working, you can move on to trying Internet over BlueTooth.

Generally speaking most SE phones sync very well with Macs.

bexford,

Alan is correct in about the K550i syncing to address book and calendar via iSync but I believe you are trying to use the phone as a bluetooth modem when away from your broadband connection, is this correct?

If so I think you may be in trouble. Most SE phones support this function in the Windows world using the PC Suite software you get with the phone. Unfortunately this is not available for Mac OS. If you Google you may find some modem scripts you can use but to be honest I've had mixed results. The K550 is not 3G so even if you get it working, the performance will be like dial up at best.

If you need to use your laptop remotely it may be worth considering a USB 3G modem from Vodafone which is fully Mac compatible.

hi there

yes, you are correct - she is trying to use it as a bluetooth modem as she is struggling to get BB where she is in a remote part of Scotland.

I have just checked the specs for her phone on the SE site and they state that "Many Sony Ericsson phones are also compatible with Apple® iSync"...and that is actually listed on the spec page for her model phone but I just need clarification of this so will contact SE direct.

I appreciate you taking the time to message me and will let you know how it all goes!

thank you alan too for your message...

Best Wishes
Bexford

bexford,

I use my SE w810i in exactly the way you want to connect. However I am on Orange with GPRs for data, so I can't really help with settings.

Orange were very helpful when I had a problem.

actually, my mate has just called to say she gave me th wrong model for her phone - she actually has a SE 800i so am pretty sure this should be fine - will let you all know!

cheers!
Bexford

Chris@Blue22,

I was aware that the message concerned Internet access via BlueTooth and referred to it in my reply.

It seemed to me that the first task should be to make the BlueTooth connection between the phone and the Mac work properly ( so that iSync works ) and then when that's sorted, move on to getting the Internet access working.

bexford,


Its still not that easy even with a K800i you need to frig about with 3rd party modem scrits, this is a good starting point

http://www.taniwha.org.uk/

thanks for this! I;ll take a look a little later...you wouldn't think it would be this hard would you?!!

Bexford

bexford,

If you want the simple option, forget Bluetooth and use the USB cable you get with the phone.

To do this grab your K800i and click on settings then select the Connectivity tab.

Click down to the USB option and select

Select USB Internet and turn on

Go down to USB data accounts and click select and select you default GPRS account.

All you do now is connect the phone to your Mac, after a few seconds it will detect the new network connection and you are on-line.