FoneLink cell phone manager hits Version 2.0

The Mac isn't always well supported by cell phone manufacturers. While a number of phones are supported by Mac OS X's iSync management app, Mac users often rely on third-party products. The Berlin-based developer Nova Media on Thursday released a major update to FoneLink, revamping its interface and supporting Sync Services.

The updated FoneLink now provides a drag-and-drop interface to manage the phone. The software lets users backup the phone's files and restore them, or just a single file. The new version is free to current users (the software costs $39.95).

One interesting feature of FoneLink is its management of SMS messages. The company says its software supports group SMS as well as multipart SMS and the manager is linked to your Mac's Address Book.

The list of FoneLink's supported devices is here.

Many Mac users are familiar with developer Mark/Space, which offers the Missing Sync products for PDAs and smartphones. The company said it will release a version for the Symbian phone OS used by many Nokia phones.

If you're running Leopard (or finally considering it now that the Mac OS X 10.5.3 update has arrived), be sure to update your Missing Sync software. There are Leopard updates for all of the versions.

BTW: Mac OS X's iSync application supports many older phones out of the box (and you can find iSync drivers on the web for many more). The list of supported phones is surprisingly full. However, not all features are supported on all phones. And the third-party software, like FoneLink, provide many more features, such as management of text messages and music.