Yesterday my co-blogger Dave Caolo was lamenting the fact that there's no easy way to get his iPhone and Google Calendar to sync (although purchasing Spanning Sync is certainly an option). While it is true that the iPhone's Calendar app only syncs with iCal on a Mac (or, via this trick, Entourage as well), I replied to Dave's woes with: who needs sync, anyway?
I am a happy iCal/iPhone/Google Calendar syncher, thanks to Spanning Sync, but I realize that one man's cup of tea is another man's grubby water. For those that would prefer to simply stick with Google Calendar for all their calendaring, the service actually scales incredibly well for an iPhone. This isn't an iPhone-specific UI or portal like so many other companies are launching. Rather, it seems to be their streamlined UI designed for most mobile phones. Either way, the list of upcoming events looks great, and all you need to do is visit the standard calendar.google.com on your iPhone to get redirected.
There is even a Quick Add box at the bottom of this mobile interface that allows you to use Google Calendar's language-friendly event entry system (i.e. - typing "TUAW Chatcast Thursday 9:30 pm"). While this doesn't exactly bring your Google Calendar events into the iPhone's Calendar app, it might offer a usable compromise for those who want or need to live in both worlds.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-20-2007 @ 10:43PM
Mike said...
IS there an easy way to get this to work with Google hosted apps?
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8-20-2007 @ 10:49PM
Sam said...
But if you sync your Google Calendar with iCal on your home computer, then you can sync your iPhone calendar with iCal as well can't you? I guess that's an "indirect" sync, but given you have to plug your iPhone into your computer to transfer music and data to it anyway then it's not such a big deal. Every time you dock it, it will sync with iCal which in turn syncs back to Google Calendar.
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8-20-2007 @ 10:52PM
Iulius said...
Just like to point out that you can use Plaxo to sync iCal with Google Calendar (as well as Yahoo Address Book, Yahoo Calendar, etc). Not sure about the security of it all, but...well, I don't personally care :)
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8-21-2007 @ 11:06AM
Jonathan Allen said...
Nice find!
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8-21-2007 @ 11:20AM
Debbie Ripps said...
But how do you look at your google calendar when you can't go online? On a plane, for instance or ...no wi-fi or cell access if you're in the boonies?
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8-21-2007 @ 11:38AM
Jon said...
What am I missing here? Google Calendar sync's perfectly with iCal which of course syncs with the iPhone. I have my Google Calendar and several public calendars from Google that automatically update everytime I open iCal.
What is the need for a third party app?
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8-21-2007 @ 11:44AM
Damien said...
a pricy third-party app at that.
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8-21-2007 @ 11:46AM
bytte said...
Hey Jon, how do you synch iCal with Google Calendar?
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8-21-2007 @ 11:54AM
Randy said...
@Jon
Correct. All you have to do is subscribe to your Google calendars in iCal, then sync them to the iPhone. The only limitation is that you must do all of your editing of subscribed calendars in gCal. For events that you want to enter via the iPhone, you just create a calendar in iCal and name it something like "Handheld Events", then add events on the iPhone, then after syncing just change those events to the proper category in gCal. It works pretty well and is free (However, I would gladly pay for .Mac if they would just add an online editable calendar app like gCal!!)
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8-21-2007 @ 12:26PM
ian said...
As others have pointed out, Plaxo lets you sync Google Calendar to iCal (for free), as well as to Yahoo, MSN, and more. It also works for Google Apps for your domain. It also lets you keep two Google cals in sync (say an @gmail one and a hosted one) without having to use the subscribe mechanism - you can just sync them, and have the same data in both calendars without having to worry which one you're posting to.
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8-21-2007 @ 12:34PM
Thayne Miller said...
anyone know of a way to access these google apps in their FULL form from the iPhone? Sometimes I hate feeling like I am tied to the mobile versions of these sites and it seems google is doing some browser detection and forcing iphone users to see the mobile versions without the choice of seeing the full fledged counterparts
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8-21-2007 @ 12:46PM
byron church said...
Am I the only person who misses multi calendars with colors and icons and all the other obvious functions of a good calendar ? Is it in the realm of possibility that some day we'll have an app like DateBk ?
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8-21-2007 @ 1:31PM
David Chartier said...
Plaxo doesn't sync multiple calendars - only your 'default' or 'Personal' calendar. They aren't up front about this and have had a lot of trouble overcoming the hurdle.
You get what you pay for, and 'free' and 'sync' in the same sentence rarely make me think you're getting much.
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8-21-2007 @ 1:58PM
Jon said...
@ # 8 and 9
I see. I guess I've never tried going from iphone, to iCal, and then to gCal. I usually just make all of my appointments on gCal and once I open iCal, it sort of makes that appointment go "everywhere".
I can see what you all mean now though. If I create an appointment on my iPhone it only lives there and in iCal, not gCal.
I haven't tried this but what about just dropping appointments on the gCal subscription from within iCal? Not automatic, but it should work...?
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8-21-2007 @ 1:58PM
Jon said...
I'm not at home to check this for certain, but...
I remember seeing an option with iCal to set a default calendar. If I set my gCal subscription as the default calendar, from that point on when I sync appts created on the iPhone, would they then appear on gCal as well?
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8-21-2007 @ 3:35PM
garethdjevans said...
http://www.macness.com/blog/
g sync - i use it to sync my ical with gcal. and it works better than spanning sync ever did and is cheaper
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8-21-2007 @ 8:20PM
petey said...
I'm pretty happy with Plaxo, as it syncs across multiple platforms. I can import things into my iPhone while I'm out and a about and iCal sucks it in and it shows up on my google calendar.
"Plaxo doesn't sync multiple calendars - only your 'default' or 'Personal' calendar." This really hasn't been a problem. I can distinguish from a "Meeting with architect" @ 3:30 and "Arcade Fire" @ 7:30.
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8-23-2007 @ 3:32PM
Eleventeen said...
I'm surprised no one has mentioned GCaldaemon...a bit techie to set up, but once it's running it stays hidden and quiet in the background and syncs any and all of your iCal calendars with Google. I make changes on my iPhone calendar throughout the day, sync with iCal when I get home, and let GCaldaemon sync those together (usually within 5 minutes.)
You still have to manually change events from one calendar to another (on iCal or gCal) since the iPhone only supports one "calendar", but that's not really a limitation of iCal or gCal.
Plus...wait until Leopard comes out with CalDav...I bet Google already has a beta of gCal rolling around with CalDav support built in. Seamless synching all around.
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9-04-2007 @ 2:38AM
ciaran said...
Goddamn google is directing iphones to crappy mobile version of the site.
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