New Parallels Beta adds support for iPhone, other enhancements

I love the iPhone and I love virtualization software like Parallels to run Windows on my Mac. But until now I couldn't get my two loves together if I needed to sync my iPhone with Windows while running it in Parallels. Well, according to the official Parallels blog, that problem may now be a thing of the past due to recent improvements in the software. At the site, they detail information concerning the latest beta release of their software which contains a host of new and improved features.

Among these new and improved features are a fix for Coherence Windows which now will work in Expose' and a fix for the Image Tool to allow it to work with snapshotted drives. Other changes include improvements to the Parallels' Explorer tool which allows you to view information on your virtual hard drive even when Parallels isn't running and, of course, the previously mentioned ability to sync your IPhone with Windows XP or Vista running in Parallels.

All of the other improvements seem like good ones but you're probably asking yourself why would someone want to sync an iPhone with Windows in Parallels when they can just sync it to the Mac OS? Well, the answer is also found at the Parallels blog, as written by Ben Rudolph. "Yes, I realize the irony of syncing an Apple device with Windows running on a Mac, but lots of people need to hook their iPhones up to Outlook. Try not to judge." Sounds reasonable to me.