Micromat Announces Syphone

Wednesday, 10 October 2007

Micromat today announced the beta release of the freeware utility Syphone for use with Apple's iPhone. The program installs on a user's Macintosh and does not alter the iPhone in any way. It allows the user to view, save, and back up their SMS messages. This utility will be welcomed by iPhone users who make frequent use of SMS messaging. They will now be able to archive and view SMS conversations, including those that have been deleted from the iPhone.

Syphone allows an iPhone user with a Macintosh computer to:

• View synced iPhone SMS messages
• Archive SMS messages
• Import/export SMS messages
• View SMS messages offline in an iChat-like interface with selectable colors
• Open Address Book contacts
• View the number of sent and received messages for each contact
• Support multiple iPhones

The iPhone has a limit on the number of SMS messages it can store at one time. If this limit is exceeded, existing conversations must be deleted in order to make room for new messages. Syphone allows the user to view and/or save any of these conversations, including those that have been deleted from the iPhone. It uses the familiar iChat format to display archived SMS messages. In addition, if multiple iPhones are synced to a computer, Syphone allows viewing and archiving of messages from any of the iPhones.

Micromat president Jeff Baudin said, "Syphone represents our first endeavor into the iPhone product market. This was a function we all wanted for ourselves and so we decided to make the best SMS archiving utility we could." On the release and future of the product he added, "We decided to make Syphone free so we could gauge what kind of appeal products like this might have. If the response is good, we might venture into making a pro version that has many additional features. There's quite a bit of functionality we can bring to iPhone users without needing to modify or install software onto the iPhone."

Ryan DuBois, a Syphone beta tester remarked, "Syphone allows me to archive and display my old text messages in a simple and attractive user interface. Plus, I don't even have to have it open to stay up to date. I'm glad I don't have to worry about losing those old text messages."

Pricing and System Requirements

Syphone is a free utility that may be downloaded from the Micromat website. Syphone only works on Macintosh computers running Mac OS X 10.4 or above.

For more information and to download the file, go here.