Google’s official mobile blog has just (and finally!) announced Push Gmail support for the iPhone!
Integrated into their existing GoogleSync service, which up until today supported only contacts and calendar:
Using Google Sync, you can now get your Gmail messages pushed directly to your phone. Having an over-the-air, always-on connection means that your inbox is up to date, no matter where you are or what you’re doing. Sync works with your phone’s native email application so there’s no additional software needed. Only interested in syncing your Gmail, but not your Calendar? Google Sync allows you to sync just your Contacts, Calendar, or Gmail, or any combination of the three.
One big caveat remains, however. GoogleSync is powered by Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, and most devices — including the iPhone — can only handle one (1) EAS account at a time. So, if you’re already using Exchange ActiveSync for your corporate email, that slot is taken and GoogleSync is useless to you.
For everyone else — joy! And if you try it out, let us know how it works for you!
[Thanks to mattshall for the head's up!]
Alex Evans, GroupWise Product Manager has announced in his blog that the ActiveSync protocol is coming to GroupWise in a future update. What does this new native support mean for iPhone users? Well, it means that you will be able to sync your GroupWise calendar and contacts to your iPhone via the Exchange conduit (located under Settings–>Mail–>Add Account). This is truly exciting. ActiveSync is quickly becoming the mobile sync standard for devices and businesses that do not have or cannot connect to a BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES). Of course, there is the variable of your IT supporting this feature, but it is still a reason to rejoice! I recommend sending this article to your GroupWise Admin staff to inform them of the update 
For those of you not using and iPhone, this also means you can sync to on supported devices too, such as the Palm Centro, Palm Pre, Palm Treo Pro and other Windows Mobile devices and Symbian OS.
Finally! I can haz groupwise sync!
(via GWcheck)
For most of us today, email is a major part of our lives. Whether it be for business or personal reasons, one thing we all look for in an email service, especially if we are paying for it, is reliability. So what if you’re not having the best of luck with Apple’s MobileMe service or any other IMAP alternatives? Maybe it’s time to consider a hosted Exchange account. Not familiar with Exchange? Then be sure to check out Rene’s excellent article from a while back, Walkthrough: Exchange ActiveSync On Your iPhone 2.0. That article can give you a great understanding of exactly how Exchange works on the iPhone.
Don’t have a corporate solution or your very own Exchange server, though? No problem! I’m going to be giving you some very reliable hosted Exchange services as well as some tips on getting it up and running for the flawless email you have been seeking!
More after the jump! Read the rest of this entry »
Apple’s MobileMe News blog is back after a bit of a hiatus with some helpful info on how, exactly, MobileMe and and Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync work and play together (or vice versa):
You can enter new information for each service separately as you move around, and that information is stored and synced separately. But when you check your contact or calendar information you can view the information from both jointly or separately as you choose. It’s an approach that preserves the data integrity of each service while delivering the convenience of mobile access to both of them.
I use both MobileMe (for personal) and Exchange (for work) on my iPhone, and the above holds true for my experience so far. In fact, it lets me compartmentalize things nicely.
Anyone else two-timing on the push? How’s it working for you?
Following up our Exchange Activesync for the iPhone 2.0 walkthrough, and some FREE/cheap Hosted Exchange solutions for users without Megacorps, here’s an official “welcome!” from biggest Megacorp of them all, Microsoft. More specifically, from the Microsoft Exchange Team Blog:
If you’ve not heard; Apple released iPhone 2.0 today which includes a software update to the existing iPhones in the market (yes, we mentioned it when it was announced as well). We’re thrilled to add them to the family of Exchange ActiveSync licensees that enable all sorts of devices to connect to Exchange Server. For those of you that manage Exchange Servers this means you may see some new devices connecting and we wanted to give you a few notes about what to expect.
Following their welcome are some nifty pointers (with screenshots) of what the iPhone looks like to an Exchange Admin, and a couple of related FAQs. If you’re just that kind of ITer,
give them a look-see…
Via
You’ve got your uber-cool new iPhone 3G or you’re rocking the new 2.0 update on your iPhone 2G or iPod Touch, and you want to try out this Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync all the kids suits are yabbering about. One problem — you don’t have an Exchange server. You’re not part of some big megacorp with a massive IT department, you’re not a developer with MSDC licenses for the “testing”, and you’re not even small-business’y enough to pick up a cheap (for Microsoft!) ActionPack with a couple of licenses (or even if you did, you don’t have the geek in you to set ‘em up and administer the high-maintenance little beasties).
What to do, what to do?
Hosted Exchange.
Yup, just like ISP’s offer regular old email, and we services offer Yahoo!, Hotmail, Gmail, etc. for POP and IMAP mail, some companies will provide you with similar email accounts hosted on Exchange, ready for to get your ActiveSync iPhone nirvana on. Ranging in price, some even do it cheaply and some… for FREE!
The inimitable Lifehacker points us towards Mail2Web, which offers a FREE Microsoft Exchange based email solution, and provides handy-dandy setup and usage tips (though it looks like you might need the $4.45 a month version if you want to use it directly with Outlook on the PC).
TiPb’s own cross-platformer-in-chief also points us towards some for-pay, but potentially better fitting solutions from some users, with Sherweb at the top of his list, 1and1 hitting okay, and 4smartphone serving up equal parts popularity and unreliability (lately).
Of course, Microsoft itself is also entering the subscription space, for anyone who might want an ActiveSync addy straight out of Redmond…
Any options we’re missing?
If MobileMe is Apple’s “Exchange for the rest of us”, then ActiveSync is Microsoft’s “Exchange for the most of them”. After Windows and Office, it’s arguably the 3rd pillar of Microsoft’s business domination. Blackberry’s can (and almost de facto do) connect to them, Windows Mobiles certainly connect to them. Even the aging Palm OS Treo’s have ActiveSync support. And with the 2.0 software, the iPhone does as well.
Caveat: Microsoft loves them some monopoly power and proprietary solutions (in this case, for example, using their own MAPI rather than the IMAP IDLE standard for “push” email). They may be becoming increasingly open in the face of Web-based competition, but their crown jewels are still closely guarded. So, while Outlook connects directly to Exchange for — according to them — the “richest experience”, and Windows Mobile probably follows a close second, iPhone like other ActiveSync licensees connects via something called Outlook Web Access, the same way a web browser might.
How does this experience stack up in richness? Read on to find out!
Read the rest of this entry »
Updating yesterday’s story about .Mac getting the push-email treatment in iPhone 2.0, TUAW’s tipsters are back with this little gem:
According to our anonymous tipster, .Mac will undergo a complete revamp that will coincide with the iPhone 2.0 launch (which everyone expects to occur at WWDC 08).
Again with the asking and receiving, eh?
Rumored highlights for the updated .Mac include full wireless (cell + wifi?) calendar, contacts, and email (an Apple Exchange anyone?) and .Mac support for — you guessed it! — Windows.
First El Jobso gives PC users a cool glass of iTunes and iPhone, and now a possible consumer-centric push service.
Did I mention how June can’t come fast enough yet?
Roughly Drafted, the passionate little partisan site that could, is back with a look at why Apple would choose to license ActiveSync from Microsoft while at the same time championing more open standards like IMAP and CalDAV with Leopard Server.
Having suffered under the anti-trust encrusted fist of Microsoft previously with both Excel (originally launched on Mac) and Internet Explorer (which at one time shipped with OS X) to name but two examples of Redmond’s penchant for partnercide, Roughly Drafted explains how licensing a technology is different than licensing an an application. Namely, if you rely on a partner to deliver an application as your solution, your customers grow accustomed to and invested in that solution, and you become dependent on and, ultimately subject to, that partner (and the brutish manipulations thereof). However, if you license a technology and build your own application, your customers see only your front end and if ever a partner attempts to surreptitiously bury twelve inches of pointy steel between your shoulder blades, you can always license a competing technology — or switch the back-end to your own, already existing, technology.
In fact, as Apple develops its own Mac OS X Server integration with the iPhone, and develops tight integration with its own .Mac services on a subscription basis, it can wean iPhone users from Exchange Server toward its own products using the powerful incentive of much lower infrastructure and per user costs. However, there won’t be any customers to entice if the iPhone doesn’t first ship support for Exchange.
Having lived and worked through the rise of Internet Explorer 6 and the amazing power, convenience, security nightmare, and proprietary market-grab it created, and the even more compelling, insidious sameness of Exchange Server, I both appreciate the concepts Microsoft brought to the business table and detest the method in which they brought them. Why?
Communication needs to be free (as in freedom from single-vendor lockdowns) and small and medium sized businesses need the ability to be able to move to and from whichever service provides the best capability at the best price to suit their needs. IMAP IDLE and CalDAV may not be the solution, but they’re part of getting away from the problems of Exchange, and if the iPhone can sneak them into more IT shops, and into the mindsets of more be-fud’ed IT departments, then sneak away!
What do you think?
Resistance is futile. Balmer himself has said so. Yet today’s shiny, happy Microsoft is all about openness and cooperation (you paying attention, EU Anti-Trust Commission?) Merging these twin paradoxes, at the very moment Steve Jobs took the stage at the SDK Roadmap event, Microsoft dropped their own announcement with all the charisma of a Gates CES-note, and followed it up with a Q&A showing the degree of partner-love that’s made them famous in the industry.
Gems include their high level Schiller-time:
We started talking with Apple about licensing Exchange ActiveSync before the launch of the iPhone last year. In fact, I met with Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing Phil Schiller almost daily for a period of two weeks ironing out the details of the agreement. The result is a true collaboration between Microsoft and Apple.
And a Sun Tzu-esque attempt to position Apple against RIM but beneath Windows Mobile:
We continue to compete with Apple in the computer arena and media player business. When it comes to mobile phones, Windows Mobile still delivers the premier mobile e-mail experience for Microsoft Exchange Server, by delivering the Outlook experience on a mobile phone and with the most complete support for Exchange’s many enterprise device management policies. But, we also partner with many mobile device makers – including Apple – and believe that by making Exchange an open platform, our customers and partners, ultimately, will be the beneficiaries.
And speaking of Microsoft’s CEO, according to CNET, in between dodging Guy Kawasaki and reprising his infamous “Monkey Boy” dance, Steve Balmer offered that Silverlight on iPhone was interesting, Apple’s 30% slice may be a little high, and ActiveSync was a no-brainer.
So, WinMob users, is this enough MS goodness to tempt you in Thurrott’ing an iPhone of your own? Or are you sticking it out until Version 7 comes your way?
