Here’s a welcome surprise for you: Google has now created Google Sync for iPhone so that you can sync up your Google Contacts and Google Calendar. They are doing it by making their data look like an Exchange server — meaning that if you’re not already using Exchange on your iPhone for work, you can point it at Google’s servers (see full instructions here) to get your contacts and calendars pushed out to you. Nice? Nice.
Of course, if you’re already using Exchange for work but still want to get your Google data on your iPhone, you’d going to need to get a solution to sync your Google data down to your desktop and then get it from your desktop to your iPhone either via USB tether or via MobileMe. You can learn more about how the two work together in Rene’s excellent article on that very subject.
Now, Google, just get Gmail to look like Exchange and we’ll be happy campers. Actually, you know what, just fix IMAP, that’ll be enough.
Quick Update: As I just noted over at WMExperts, Google licensed Exchange Active Sync (EAS) from Microsoft, which is a shot at RIM but also, maybe, a shot at Apple. Rene just pointed out to me that given all of Google’s recent moves with the CalDAV/iCal system, they might have kept on pushing to make the stuff that Mac uses the industry standard. Instead, Google and Microsoft are suddenly working together on using EAS.
Been looking for a way to sync todo’s with iCal? Well now you can with the recent beta from Appigo. Appigo Sync is their new tool to sync your Todo tasks with iCal via Wi-Fi on your local wireless network. The tool syncs calendars, but not your contexts, tags, etc. So you can’t add them in iCal, but they are still viewable on the iPhone app.
This is really exciting news for anyone looking for this type of syncing. Personally, I have moved beyond Apple’s todo’s and use Toodledo for my task purposes and Appigo’s Todo just happens to do over-the-air syncing for free with that site; even on EDGE. However, if you still use iCal’s todo feature, this just might be your killer app!
If you are a Windows user, Appigo says they are working on a Windows/Outlook syncing tool as well.
Google has dropped the iCal bomb. That’s right. Buh-bye third party intermediaries, hello built-in Google Calendar support for Apple’s open source CalDAV standard:
The Google Calendar team is proud to announce the public release of our support for the CalDAV protocol. You can now use Apple iCal with your Google Calendar, so you can work even when you’re offline, sync almost instantly, respond to invitations from others and see the free/busy data of your friends and coworkers.
You can get both the setup program and the download from Google code source. (Now if we could only get some similar Google love for CardDAV as part of a Google Contacts revamp…)
If anyone has a chance to try it out, let us know how it works for getting your gCal into MobileMe or onto your iPhone (I’m — right now very sadly — transitioning to the HTC FUZE for the Round Robin, so let me live vicariously through you!)
I’m so boring. I don’t use Entourage, Lotus Notes, or Meeting Maker. However, for those of you Mac users who do, and are looking for some help syncing things over to your iPhone, PocketMac may be worth a look. As a bonus, it will also sync your SMS messages and call logs.
It’s that time of the week where we bring some of the discussions from the forums to the main page.
Big reminder to everyone, the voting for the latest TiPb AT WORK Contest ends tomorrow! This weeks contest, to do/task apps! Time is short so go get your vote on now!
Are you one of those people who is all about security? Well we want to know how many of you actually use the passcode lock on your iPhones? Chime in on his thread! I recently switched from MobileMe to a Exchange account and was personally interested in the following thread. Pascalcheck had a good question regarding Exchange with his contacts and calendar events. Rene was super quick to jump in and help out!.
A lot has been said about jailbreaking lately, and a lot of questions are being asked… so if you have questions and need answers please check out the following two forums – Jailbreak Central (for anything related to jailbreaking) and iPhone Jailbreak Apps.
As always you need to register to join our growing community! Register here to get in on the action, only takes a quick minute!
When Gizmodo honcho Brian Lam found out via Twitter that one of his readers was experiencing a brutal 8-hour iPhone sync, he did what any EiC worth his postings would do: secured time-lapse video! To put 8 painful hours fully into perspective:
That’s a full night of sleep. That’s a full day of high school. That’s longer than it takes to fly cross country, or drive from SF to Los Angeles. After seeing this video, I stopped complaining and tried to figure out what caused Brandon’s problem with him.
Heck, it’s a wait in an launch day Apple Store line! They tried syncing via a MacBook Air and an iMac, and even switched out cables, but the 74 App sync just wouldn’t — indeed couldn’t! — be tamed.
Atypical? For certain. Incredible? Pretty much. If it were us? We’d probably nuke the thing, bury it upside down, cover it in concrete, and salt the earth — then politely ask Steve Jobs to start over…
Luckily, my longest sync has probably never topped 5 minutes. What about you? What’s your longest sync been to date?
Mild Mannered Industries, which claims some experience with Sync Services, has an interesting and insightful blog post about how MobileMe syncing probably works, why syncing in general is so hard, and if we can ever look forward to a day where MobileMe actually, really, truly “just works”:
Is this really Apple’s fault? In the case of Mobile Me, and .Mac before it, all of the code is essentially Apple’s, but I think this just goes to show how hard it is to get a sync client and the core sync services code right. When you add in all of the third-party Sync client code, and mail synchronization, it just seems inevitable that many users will hit a problem at some point, and become very very unhappy.
Their glass-not-only-half-empty-but-broken-and-spilled-out-on-the-table outlook?
Personally, if it was me, I would have let .Mac die a quiet death. The problem set for ubiquitous syncing is just very very hard, and the consequences of failure, in terms of user dissatisfaction are too high. I suspect that, in time, MobileMe will go the same way as the Newton …
Our take? Pretty much the opposite. Not to get all Tennyson about it, but Apple is strong of will as they come, and striving, seeking, and finding the most reliable sync solution possible is only going to increase in importance when it comes to the mobile world they’re embracing with the iPhone and related technologies. Perhaps they won’t crack the nut, but they’ll mess it up something fierce in the attempt. And come on, would any of us really rather have no sync at all?
Mac nerdery stalwart John Gruber over at DaringFireball has put together a very interesting essay about how iPhone Calendar syncing has evolved from firmware 1.x (1.0 – 1.4) to firmware 2.0, and how the current iTunes syncing differs in functionality from syncing via Apple’s MobileMe service.
From welcome improvements to frustrating choices, from new methods of use to evolving work-arounds, Gruber ultimately comes to the ultimate question:
Whither the “digital hub”?
While iTunes originally served as the one-stop location for all syncing and sync settings, MobileMe now works outside the iTunes universe, but does not offer the options (e.g. selecting individual rather than all calendars to sync) iTunes does, nor does the MobileMe pref pane.
Is there a way for Apple to cleanly present a unified place to manage all iPhone syncing, with a robust set of options?
My vote remains iTunes. When MobileMe is in use, keep the settings enabled, and pass the preferences along to the “cloud”. That keeps data, media, and commerce all in one place, with one interface, in a familiar context. Just “push” choices of calendars, contact groups, etc. back up to MobileMe.
Vindication! Well, kind of. Our MobileMe is still having problems but at least Apple admits that the transition from .Mac to MobileMe was “rocky” by sending an e-mail/apology letter to all MobileMe users. Billed as Exchange for the rest of us, MobileMe is still having problems with syncing, calendar, duplicate messages, etc. Not quite that Blackberry killer we envisioned.
Also, Apple will stop using the word push to describe MobileMe until syncing is “near-instant” on Mac and PCs like it is for the iPhone and Web Apps. Not that “15 minute” version of push it currently is. Either way, Apple is begging (read: bribing) for your forgiveness with a free 30 day extension to all current subscribers.
It’s good to see Apple admit mistake and take care of their customers, but I’m fairly certain most of us would have rather had a product that ‘just works’. Unreliability, problems, and false promises are for the folks over in Redmond, this is supposed to be Apple right?
Although Apple forces you to get your iPhone activated in-store before you walk out the door, that may not mean that people are going to have a trouble-free syncing experience today. To wit: the error message above is the best I can get when I plug my iPhone 3G into my Mac. Apparently iTunes wants to double-check that my iPhone really is what it’s supposed to be. With the presumably massive number of people getting iPhone 3Gs today, iTunes is not handling the load so well.
The store itself is up, but I find it aggravating in the extreme that I can’t sync over any of my apps or media without this initial call-in to the Apple mothership. Thank god Mobile Me is working for me, otherwise I wouldn’t even have contacts on my iPhone.
Update: Rene just called in to say that all of Rogers in Canada is basically down an unable to activate iPhones, so he’s just sitting pretty in the store until things clear up. Let us know — any delays at AT&T or Apple stores when trying to activate?
…Speaking of downtime: yeah, we know, TiPb is not performing up to spec lately. We’re upgrading servers over the weekend (we hope) to bring it back up to acceptable levels. Pardon our 503s.
