Google does end around on iPhone using Exchange ActiveSync

Cleve Nettles
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February 09, 2009
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Google, you got to love 'em.  Apple decided to support Microsoft Exchange Server rather than Google or Lotus (or Apple's own LDAP/iCalendar format!) on the iPhone.  Lotus builds a Web Client so that iPhone users can access Notes servers.  Google already has that in spades but that ain't enough.  They want to sync natively like Exchange.  To Google, this is child's play.  They just do an "end around" by using Microsoft's ActiveSync to sync Google Apps to the iPhone.  This is some serious L33T work. Color us impressed.

Google Sync uses the Microsoft© Exchange ActiveSync© protocol. When setting up a new Exchange ActiveSync account on your iPhone, all existing Contacts and Calendar events will be removed from your phone. Please make sure to back up any important data before you set up Google Sync.

Oh, and Google Apps now sync with Windows Mobile devices. joy?

Comments (15)

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | February 09, 2009 - 2:52pm

Some people piss and moan that apple doesn't support for all of their needs, but Google proactively makes it happen. Go Google!

P.S. I am impressed as well.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | February 09, 2009 - 3:08pm

Apple has got to offer mobile me for free now. As someone from Microsoft said these types of services will not be perceived by customers as something you have got to pay for, they will become standard fast.

heyalex (not verified) | February 09, 2009 - 3:40pm

Thank you so much Google! I am so happy I don't have to pay 100$ a year for mobileme and I don't have to use the clumsy Microsoft Outlook Web Access! What a perfect solution!!!

Thanks Google,
A happy user

Daniel (not verified) | February 09, 2009 - 3:56pm

unfortunately... iPhone let you setup only ONE exchange account at a time... so if you sync your iphone with your company's exchange, you won't be able to setup push gmail :(

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | February 09, 2009 - 4:28pm

The other little caveat is that if you want to sync with iCal, you still need something like Spanning Sync (http://spanningsync.com/) on each Mac you want to keep synced. I'm keeping an iMac, MBA, and iPhone in sync via MobileMe (not just contacts and calendars either; Safari bookmarks, keychains, and mail account settings), but I'm giving Spanning Sync and Google Sync a try. So far, so good...

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | February 09, 2009 - 5:55pm

Why do you waste your money using spanning sync when iCal 3.x supports CalDAV and you can use Calaboration (http://code.google.com/p/calaboration/) for free?

Dan Birchall (not verified) | February 09, 2009 - 6:48pm

iCal 3.x is great if you have whats-it-called... oh yeah, 10.5. Those of us on 10.4 might only have iCal 2.x. :(

If I can use Google calendar and have it sync to my iPhone, that might be good enough to make me feel I don't need iCal.

the_0ne (not verified) | February 09, 2009 - 9:32pm

Can anybody confirm that they've gotten personal calendars to sync? I've used NuevaSync since I've had an iPhone for several months. It syncs not only my main google calendar, but I have several personal calendars so that I can split up different sets of calendar events. Nuevasync syncs these as separate calendars, exactly as they should.

I just tried the Google activesync and it will only sync my main calendar. I waited 5 minutes, this should be instantaneous. Still no personal calendars. Pretty useless.

I deleted the google activesync and went back to Nuevasync and there my personal calendars are again.

Anybody get personal calendars to also sync?

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | February 10, 2009 - 7:31am

Thanks for testing. I had the same question regarding nuevasync. Guess they'll continue to get my business (although it is free) until Google adds this feature.

stencil (not verified) | February 10, 2009 - 11:07am

I was able to get multiple personal calendars to sync after a little confusion. Turns out even after enabling syncing from within Google Apps, you still need to go to Google's mobile page from your iPhone and input your domain before choosing which calendars to sync.

The big limitation right now is that you can only sync 5 calendars. Any more than that will cause them all to go the same color which makes them basically worthless. Google is aware of this issue and I anticipate they'll fix it soon, but until then I would say that Nuevasync is still the way to go.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | February 10, 2009 - 1:18pm

It seems to be somewhat problematic though. Several users, me included, did not manage to get more than their default calendars to the phone. Obviously, Google does not really have a solution for this :(

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | February 10, 2009 - 6:01am

Alas, this doesn't work... Seems OK on the desktop, and the iCAL/CalDav stuff works fine (read/write at last, which is an improvement since I last used it). Phone says the details are OK but contacts and calendar remain blank.

Mr Mobius (not verified) | February 10, 2009 - 6:18am

If you are using Google Apps you must go into the Domain management and enable Sync. Then it will work. Additionally, if you have multiple Calendars you want to see on your phone you have to go to m.google.com on your iphone browser, go to the bottom and select Google Apps. Then put in your domain and you will be able to set which calendars you can see on your phone. Works like a charm. CalDav is instant and the push to the phone works. Now I only wish for Read/Write on all Calendar in my domain as I am the admin of the domain.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | February 10, 2009 - 8:27am

And the winner is... Microsoft. Looks like Microsoft gets paid for the Active Sync license no matter what. :)

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | February 11, 2009 - 3:03pm

why doesn't google push/sync email to the phone in the same way?!