Yesterday, Google rolled out their beta of
Google Sync, their over-the-air sync services that ties your desktop and mobile devices to your Google Mail, Contacts and Calendars. Being a Google freak, I of course had to take the plunge immediately on my iPhone, as I've been wanting for
ages to have my iPhones native apps sync to my Google account, rather than my $99/year MobileMe account. Don't get me wrong, I like Apple's MobileMe, and I'll probably still have it for a while, but let's be honest... it's about $70/year too expensive, and it's a little
too tied to the Mac side. And, while I think Apple's online apps look great, I actually prefer the minimalist looks of Google's online applications. Plus you throw in Google Docs, its integration to gmail and calendar, and the universal accessibility of it all, I think it's a winning combination.
Anyways, moving to Google Sync was pretty darn easy. Basically, here's what ya do:
- On your iPhone, disable/delete your MobileMe account. I have not tried not doing this, but I'm guessing it'll either go all haywire, or most likely the iPhone will complain when you try to attach it to your Google account.
- Next, you create an account on your iPhone for your Google account. This is where ActiveSync comes in. Because Apple hasn't provided outside developers a means of doing this in any other way, Google has licensed ActiveSync from Microsoft, which allows you to essentially set up an Exchange account on your iPhone. Follow the quick steps from Google, and you're nearly immediately presented with the options of what to sync with your Google account.
- That's it. Your contacts and calendars are immediately pushed down to the iPhone, and you're back in business!
I gave it a shot with mail, contacts and calendar, and sure as poop, it works like a champ, with nearly-instant results! I'll post back with how long it takes to go in each direction.
4 comments:
So it sounds like you're using Google for the bulk of your personal organization infrastructure - calendar, contacts, email, blogs, docs, the works - does that mean you've abandoned Apple apps like Mail, iCal and AddressBook? If so what are the benefits? If not how do you balance between what you manage with Apple apps and what you manager with Google apps. Do you have a POP email? Do you manage that with Google? Are your contacts in two places or one? Your calendar? Do tell.
I don't have an iPhone presently but I will someday I'm sure. In preparation for that day I'm curious about the different systems for managing my personal projects, scheduling, contacts, etc. Is an iPhone crippled without something like MobileMe or GoogleSync? So many questions.
Yeah, I've pretty much switched over to Google for all of my organization/email/etc., but the thing I like about it is the flexibility and a openness... so, for example, iCal and Address Book are currently synced with my Google account (and, thus, my iPhone): Address Book syncs via Apple's own Google Contacts sync plugin, which is built into Address Book (open your prefs... you might need an iPhone or iPod touch for it to appear, though); iCal supports CalDAV, which you can use to add your Google calendar right into iCal; and Gmail supports IMAP/POP, so you can set up your Gmail account right on your iPhone (don't use the preset, as it uses POP for some dumb reason!) as a normal IMAP server, as well as through Apple Mail. And the funny thing is that Google gives you all of the instructions for doing this... they're more than happy to give you step by step instruction on how to "circumvent" their own web app interface to their services, so you can stick with your familiar desktop apps. And another cool thing about Google Sync: it supports any Blackberry, Symbian, iPhone/iPod touch, or Windows Mobile phone. So your current cell might already be supported. How cool is that?!
As for the device being crippled without MobileMe or GoogSync, I would say yes. But now that we have a nice, free solution, no worries! I'm not saying that MobileMe is the wrong solution for people. It's fantastic. I just think it's way too expensive, and I actually find Google's a bit more fullfilling for my workflow. The new task management is really handy, too!
Problem i see with this solution is that it's not usable if you have an existing Exhcange account set up in your phone. Am i right?
True, you can only have one Exchange account configured on an iPhone at a time. You can, however, set up your other Exchange accounts as IMAP/SMTP servers, but you'd be missing out on calendar and contact syncing, of course.
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