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!]

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GoogleSync Brings Push Gmail to iPhone – At Last!

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)

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iPhone support is coming to Novell GroupWise!

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!

Finding the right service for you

The first step in setting up a hosted Exchange account is finding the service provider that best suites your needs and that is reliable. A good place to read some reviews for all of the services available to you is www.exchangehostingreviews.com. If those service providers seem like overkill to you and you do not want to spend any money take a look at this article, Want Exchange Activesync for FREE?

Now instead of me going through that whole list, let me just jump to my personal favorite and the service that I recently started using, Sherweb. For $8.95 a month ($107.40 a year — competitive with Apple’s MobileMe pricing!) here is what Sherweb offers you:

A few main reasons I switched from a MobileMe account to Exchange is due to the fact that I could not sync all of my data with a Windows Mobile device along with my iPhone. The second reason being that a lot of my mail was never reliably pushed to my phone with MobileMe. During the past two months of using Sherweb, however, I’ve experienced nothing but top notch service. There was one one night when I had a single hour of downtime that was announced well ahead of time, and that was not a issue at all. More importantly, I get every single email sent to me on time with no issues what so ever.

So whichever provider you choose, choose wisely. You want to make sure you select the provider that can increase efficiency and productivity for your business or pleasure. For me it’s Sherweb (and no, I do not work for them or know anyone that does.)

Setting up Hosted Exchange on the iPhone

Setting up your Exchange account is relatively simple process on the iPhone. Just follow the below steps. Please note that the server information that I have filled in is for Sherweb members only. Check with your host for their specific settings.

WARNING – Before you set up your Exchange account, please know that any contacts and calendar events currently on your iPhone will be erased. They will be replaced with what is in your Exchange account. So please make sure that you transfer all of your data to Exchange before going through the setup process on your iPhone.

First, from the device’s main screen, go to: Settings ->Mail, Contacts, Calendar ->Add Account -> Microsoft Exchange.

Under account info, in the Email address box, enter your hosted Exchange email address.

Leave the Domain field blank (unless your specific hosted Exchange provider tells you otherwise).

In the Username box, type in your email address. This needs to be the main email address for your account (i.e. the one you are using when logging into Outlook Web Access).

In the Password box, type in your account password.

Tap on the Next button at the top of the screen.

NOTE: Your device may fail stating “Unable to Verify certificate.” If this is the case, tap Accept.

A box labelled Server will appear. Enter: webmail.ihostexchange.net (or the server name of your specific hosted Exchange provider)

Tap on the Next button at the top of the screen.

The device will then verify the server saying “Account has been verified.”

A new screen will appear asking you to “Select info to synchronize using Exchange.” It will display Mail, Contacts and Calendars. Turn the features ON if you desire to have them synchronized with your Exchange account. Once satisfied, select the Save button.

You will then be taken back to the default Mail, Contacts and Calendar screen. You can adjust the mail settings preferences here as you wish.

By default the iPhone will only sync the last 3 days of mail. To sync older messages, Please do the following:

Go to : Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendar.

Tap on the Exchange account. Tap on Mail days to sync and select from No Limit (which will sync all messages) to 1 Month.

Congratulations, you have just successfully setup your very own Hosted Exchange account! Enjoy the most reliable email you can have on your iPhone!

(Thanks to Cory for introducing me to Sherweb!)

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How To: Choose and Set Up Hosted Exchange on iPhone ActiveSync

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?

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How To: Use MobileMe and Exchange on the iPhone at the Same Time

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.

Via

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iPhone 2.0: Welcome, from Microsoft + Tips!

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?

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iPhone 2.0: Want Exchange ActiveSync For FREE?

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!

What is Exchange ActiveSync?

This is similar to how Blackberry’s work, though rather than every device being handled by a single central Network Operations Center (NOC), devices can connect to any Windows Server running Exchange (typically your business’ Exchange Server, or a Hosted Exchange solution).

What Kind of Data Does ActiveSync Push?

Email messages, calendar events, and contact listings.

Setting up ActiveSync

Exchange is a magical yet mysterious beast, typically requiring regular IT supervision and administration. If you’re interested in setting up Exchange for the iPhone, Apple provides a PDF overview, as well as utilities to aid in enterprise deployment.

To setup the iPhone for Exchange, start by setting up an email account by tapping Settings, then tapping Mail, Contacts, Calendars, and then Add Account…, and choose Microsoft Exchange.

What you do from there will depend on what version of Exchange you’re running. Theoretically, if you have Exchange 2007, your iPhone will be able to almost configure itself. If you have an earlier version, like the Exchange 2003 Server I was connecting to, you’ll have to enter your Exchange login info (user name, server name, password, etc.)

Using ActiveSync

Due to the problems with Apple’s iTunes activation server on launch day, July 11, I left the store with a still bricked iPhone, and while I was able to unbrick it later at home, I couldn’t connect to iTunes properly and therefore couldn’t sync my data over.

So, while I had a working iPhone 3G, it was a working iPhone 3G with nothing on it, no email, no calendars, no contacts… But a perfect opportunity to try out ActiveSync!

I went through the setup and immediately saw my mail begin to download. I tapped over to calendars and there were my appointments for the day. Contacts? All there.

It’s just that simple… which is really the point.

ActiveSync Email (and Spam!)

Email via ActiveSync works the same, with the same options, as any other mail account on the iPhone 3G, the only difference is the “push”.

Drawback? “Push” spam. If you get a lot of spam (and due to the nature of what I do, my business address has been scraped for over a decade, and I get tons and tons and tons of spam), you’ll immediately discover the annoyance of being buzzed/beeped whenever an “enhancement” or “warez” or “please help get my millions out of Africa” email comes in.

The server-based blacklists, heuristics, etc. filter some, but it’s always a balancing act to nuke the garbage while keeping customer or partner messages from getting accidentally nuked along with them. I’m experimenting with filters via Web Access, but so far this is looking like a major problem for me, given that the iPhone doesn’t seem to have any client side filtering of its own. Little help, Apple?

ActiveSync Contacts

Contacts enjoy both the standard iPhone 3G contact options — and if you use Exchange 2007 this includes picture support — and also Exchange Directory Search. Don’t have someone from the MegaCorp in your local list? Just tap on Groups, Directory, and search away:

ActiveSync Calendars

Like contacts, ActiveSync calendars support all the basic functionality of iPhone 2.0 calendars, with the immediacy of “push” updates (add or delete an event on your iPhone, and it shows up or disappears on your Outlook client or Web access right away), and something else: invitations.

If a co-worker plans a meeting and adds your name to it, you receive an invitation in your Calendar Inbox:

Invitations will display a handy number badge, same as email or SMS, to tell you how many invitations you have. You can choose to accept or decline them. Very sweet.

Bonus: Sharepoint

At its simplest, Microsoft Sharepoint is an online directory for document sharing and collaboration. MobileSafari (the iPhone 3G’s browser) can access corporate Sharepoint sites. Due to its high speed connection and its ability to open Office documents (Word, Excel, and now PowerPoint), and PDF files, the iPhone 3G becomes a good way to access your company’s shared directory from pretty much anywhere.

Again, however, because it’s not Internet Explorer and it’s not using the proprietary ActiveX plugin technology, you won’t get the “richest experience” possible. Hopefully Microsoft will continue their new push (pun intended) towards openess and provide non-IE browsers with a “richer experience” via better AJAX implementation. Maybe even SproutCore…

Using ActiveSync and MobileMe Together

Because I’d originally used ActiveSync with my old, indiscriminate Palm 680, when I hooked up my iPhone 3G, it pulled down a lot of Contact crud that was outdated, and that I’d never bothered to clean out of either Outlook (which I rarely use anymore). This also meant that I had a lot of duplicates from my prior MobileMe update. (But it did show off the awesome new color and translucency effects of the iPhone 3G’s calendar!)

However since ActiveSync is “push”, I just fired up Outlook Web Access in Safari and deleted all non-business, non-current contacts. Almost instantly, my iPhone 3G updated to reflect the changes, and the duplicates were dispatched, the crud cleansed. Likewise, I removed business events from iCal, removing them from MobileMe, which preventing duplicates on the iPhone 3G’s calendar. Now MobileMe exclusively handles personal data, ActiveSync business data, and thus far they work together seamlessly.

Conclusion

ActiveSync, due both to Microsoft’s enterprise domination and the magic of the technology, is an incredible addition to the iPhone 3G, and something that should make business users who value a large, multi-touch screen, not to mention the potential of Unix in your pocket, the polish of Apple’s interfaces, and the promise of the App Store, seriously consider the iPhone in their Enterprise.

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Walkthrough: Exchange ActiveSync On Your iPhone 2.0

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?

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.Mac To Be Revamped Alongside iPhone 2.0?!

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?

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Is ActiveSync an “Open” Apple Trojan Horse? – Wait-a-Thon

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?

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Microsoft on iPhone ActiveSync