Filed under: Internet Tools, iPhone, iPod touch
Google beta of Sync for mobile contacts & calendar is live
That thudding sound you're hearing is the head-to-keyboard collision of everyone who, for the purposes of wireless PIM sync to an iPhone, renewed a MobileMe subscription last week. Google announced today that the beta Google Sync for Mobile capability, long a feature on the Blackberry, has now been extended to iPhones (via Microsoft's ActiveSync), and also to other devices that support the SyncML standard. You can sync your Google-side calendar and contacts to your device of choice, free, bidirectionally, starting today.There are a few caveats with this beta, as one might expect: the main one is that you cannot use the sync capability if you already synchronize with an Exchange account, as there can be only one ActiveSync config on the iPhone or iPod touch at any time. Setting up sync with Google will also nuke your local contacts and calendar on the device, so back up before you proceed. Still, this represents a big step forward in the delicate dance of Google services in cooperation with Apple's mobile gear.
If you configure sync for your device, let us know how it goes! Early comments note that the lack of multiple calendar support is a showstopper -- if that applies to you, check out the NuevaSync option. Update: You can apparently sync up to five calendars to the phone, see here for details.
[via Engadget]
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
powermacg4 said 2:33PM on 2-09-2009
All my calendar events are off by an hour. weird, I know my timezone settings are right? Bug? anyone else?
Reply
Pyrofallout said 2:32PM on 2-09-2009
damn. I already have a mobileme account and a exchange account syncing with my iphone but i wish i could use this for my gmail hosted email/calendar/contacts. oh well, here's to hoping we can see that change soon.
Reply
Johnny said 2:33PM on 2-09-2009
Wow, if this works as well as MobileMe calendar and contact syncing, I might have to switch since those are the main features I use. I'll wait for it to come out of beta before I jump on it, though. Also to make sure they don't end up putting a price on it themselves.
Reply
J said 6:34AM on 2-10-2009
"I'll wait for it to come out of beta before I jump on it, though"
Given the Google's track record when it comes to betas, you might be waiting a while then...
cchiari said 2:33PM on 2-09-2009
Ops, I renewed MobileMe today! But I'm almost happy with this service, with two macs its useful.
I hope everyday to see new MobileMe features bumps
Reply
disturbedmaggot said 2:36PM on 2-09-2009
Apple is going to LOVE this.
Reply
ocmarisa said 2:46PM on 2-09-2009
I have a couple months left on my MobileMe, so I'm trying this out. Except when I go into "Info" in iTunes, the Google calendar doesn't show. Also, when I set it up on iPhone, it didn't ask me or even give me the option to sync, like the directions said it would. Haven't used Google contacts or calendar too much so not sure yet if it's really working. Looking forward to reading other responses.
Reply
Schell said 3:00PM on 2-09-2009
You have to change the sync settings on your iphone first, then you can add the google information to itunes.
Go into mail, calendars, contacts on the iphone, click the .mac tab, and then switch off the contacts and calendars. Then plug the iphone back into your computer and go into itunes. You should be able to make the changes.
swissfreek said 2:41PM on 2-09-2009
Really? Push calendars and contacts, but no push Gmail? WTF?
Reply
Preston said 2:46PM on 2-09-2009
they are probably still implementing that. remember, this is still in beta. I'm guessing this will probably do everything mobile me can do once it's finished.
Navin Johnson said 4:58PM on 2-09-2009
imap
LoganT said 7:08PM on 2-09-2009
IMAP is not the same thing as Push.
+. said 2:40PM on 2-09-2009
from Google's Q&A: Can I Still Sync with iTunes? You can sync your Contacts and Calendars EITHER with Google Sync OR with iTunes. Once you've enabled Google Sync for Contacts or Calendar, you won't be able to synchronize this content with iTunes anymore.
... which basically kills it for me. for as much as i love/use Google, i don't really want the ONLY backup of all my information entrusted to their servers. now, if i could have all this *AND* still get the data duplicated on my Mac every time that i sync, it would be a different story.
probably not Google's fault, really, but still sucks.
Reply
jmetts said 2:45PM on 2-09-2009
You can sync your address book with Google Contacts without a problem within either iTunes or Address Book (or maybe both??) unless this causes that sync to stop, which wouldn't make sense.
As for the calendar. Although you can subscribe to your google calendar in iCal, not sure if there is a bidirectional sync capability.
tgp said 4:11PM on 2-09-2009
You can sync your iCal to Google directly as well.
http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=99358
Steven said 11:44PM on 2-09-2009
You can choose contacts and/OR calendars, according to this Goog support article: google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?answer=139780&ctx=sibling
I agree that I don't want Google to touch my contacts/address book, but if it's optional, then Sync sounds like a winner for bidirectional iCal-gCal. Not tried it yet, but i'll do it after work.
jmetts said 2:41PM on 2-09-2009
Just set mine up, and after seeing all of the last 6 months worth of numbers, etc; I realized that I had turned off Google Sync on my Mac. Oops. Fix that when I get home.
All went well with the syncing. Will play around with it and see how it goes. One downfall is that I deleted my companies exchange account to try this out. Need a solution for this now!
Reply
steven.macmurray said 2:46PM on 2-09-2009
This is fine if you have only your account, but if you need to sync with a company, you're going to need a true groupware set-up. I use a Kerio Mailserver that is hosted. If you want to see a good groupware set-up, goto www.inftekhosting.com
Reply
bleaus said 2:48PM on 2-09-2009
I would love to use this feature, but I already have an Exchange Account set up on my phone for work. It'd be nice to see this added to the default Gmail functions.
Reply
jamie wallingford said 2:50PM on 2-09-2009
Sync worked great for me, but it is only syncing my main calendar. So i switched back to nuevasync. Once they get the multi-calendar sync'ing implemented, I'll be back.
Reply