Don't bother with the cord for syncing calendar and contacts. You can do this automatically, over the air. I do it with Gmail Contacts and Google Calendar, but I just looked it up for Yahoo, and you can do it with Yahoo, too. I assume you're already getting your Yahoo mail on the iPhone, and I am including a link from Yahoo for how to set up the iPhone to sync with Yahoo Calendar and Contacts. Link to sync to Yahoo Contacts: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/contacts/basics/contactsbasics-11.html Link to sync to Yahoo Calendar: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/calendar/yahoocalendar/sync/sync-06.html Once you do this, your calendar and contacts online will stay in sync with the calendar and contacts on your iPhone automatically, within seconds of any change. And then you'll be able to view the online calendar from any computer, at home or elsewhere. Your other sync settings will depend on what how you want to use the iPhone. But here's a quick run-through. Feel free to email me for more information. First of all, make sure you have iTunes installed on your computer. Then connect the iPhone to your computer with the cord that came in the original box. The first thing that pops up is the same dialog box that pops up whenever you connect to any storage device. I only use this dialog box if I have pictures on the iPhone and want to transfer them to my computer. After that, the sync starts automatically. To select your options for sync, you go into iTunes. About halfway down the left-side column is an entry for your device. Click on that. Across the top of the page, you will now see the categories for sync settings, i.e., "summary," "info," "apps," etc. Under "summary", at the bottom of the page, make sure the option for "open iTune when this iPhone is connected" is checked. If you've set up the Yahoo over-the-air sync, then ignore "info." Under "apps," click "sync apps." Also, if you want to change the organization of your apps, you can do it here by drag-and-drop, and the new organization will sync to your iPhone. I don't use special ringtones, but if you do, then go to the "ringtones" second and click to sync. Under "music," you can either choose to have your entire music library sync, or just choose individual playlists. I choose "all," but I don't have that much music. If you want to sync movies, tv shows, and books, choose those settings. (If you're not already doing it, do try some of the ebook reader apps, like iBooks and the Kindle app. And if you have a Netflix account, do get the free Netflix app and try watching a movie on the iPhone, just for the novelty of it!) Here's what I did for "photos." I set it to sync to a folder called "iTunes pictures" that I created on my computer. Then you can fill that file with the pictures you want to keep on your iPhone. That's about it. I hope it's helpful, but feel free email me or write more in this thread.

If you are using iOS, you don't need to connect anything to the computer, just follow the steps as given by theclose. However, I think you do need not to be using the horrible, horrible Houzz app, but just a browser, like Safari, for the steps to work.

When I used Android, I also encountered similar problems. Probably there were even many times more of them. With the iPhone I don't have most of the problems. I switched to iPhone more than 5 years ago and only changed 2 models. Whereas with androids I had a hard time after a year of using the phone. I decided to try another model because my last android was stolen. So the first thing I did as soon as I bought an expensive phone at the time was to take care of identification and security purposes. I quickly found a good website that helped me find out the IMEI number on my IPhone so that if it was lost or stolen it could be easily found.

"I can use Google apps on my Apple iPhone, and sync that iPhone with my Microsoft laptop running Windows." Apple products are still less, not more, interoperable with third party products. A friend of mine, a pretty consistent Apple products user, has to maintain a Windows PC to use three very common financial products - Turbo Tax, Quicken, and Quickbooks. One of the three-maybe Turbo Tax - has a Mac version but my friend says it sucks compared to the Windows version. I think two of the others aren't available at all in Mac versions. These are widely used programs, with tens of millions of customers. As far as Apple compatibility with other standard products, well, duh. Maps are another good example. The iPhone map app has struggled, playing catchup for years and years and (according to iphone users I know) still isn't there yet. They could easily encourage use of the Google Map app to give users a more useful capability but they won't do so. My immediate thought concerning what lars was talking about when he said "I prefer to have more choices than what Apple offers". is how in the Apple world, there are few user configurable options and no alternative sources of equipment manufacturers (which keeps prices somewhere in check). As an example of inflexibility, I use Itunes as a "podcaster" or podcast aggregator. In it I choose what podcast series I want to receive regularly and when I trigger an update, it does the download. Itunes has this annoying feature that it periodically unsubscribes me from podcasts I've set up to have downloaded. . I called Apple support and asked why. The support guy asked "Do you ever listen to the podcasts on your PC?" I said "No". He said "That's one of the most useful features - when you haven't listened to the podcast in (I think he said) 2 weeks, we know you don't want it anymore so we switch the status to "not subscribed". I said - "No, not at all. I download the podcasts to the PC but then transfer the files to two different portable players that I use to listen to them. In doing that, I never listen on the PC. How can I change the setting so that it doesn't keep unsubscribing me". He replied- "You can't change that setting, it's made that way to be most useful to our customers" I got what I should have expected - a BS answer akin to the joke from long ago in the consumer-market software industry - No, that isn't a bug, that's an intentional feature. WIndows PC and Android device users are accustomed to being able to choose configuration options so that the devices behave as they prefer. I understand that at first pass sometimes for beginner level users, this can provide some difficulties and frustrations but all of it is well documented and can be learned. Apple products often don't offer options.