Finally.. A Sync between Google and iPhone
Now this is something I have been patiently waiting for ages now! The option to Synchronize my Calendar data between my Google Account and my iPhone! Woop! Well here it is, be it only in beta mode at present, Google Sync.
There is also an option to Sync your contacts, but I am not going to bother with this part right now, mainly because its late and I am, for now, only interested in getting the Calendar section sorted. I have had a bad experience with getting my Mac’s Address Books contacts to match that of my Google Accounts. Anyways…
First thing you need to do is backup your iPhone, just incase any problems occur. The last thing you want to do is lose that important data, so make sure you don’t skip this bit. The second essential part is updating your iPhone so that version 2.2 is installed. Both of these two mentioned can be acheived by connecting your iPhone to your computer and hitting Sync. The final thing you need to make sure is that any existing Exchange Accounts on the iPhone must be removed, this is because the device supports one Exchange at a time and Google Sync is going to need it. Once you have got to this part the rest is easy, and won’t take longer then 5 minutes I reckon :)
- Grab your iPhone
- Select Settings
- Then Mail, Contacts, Calendars
- Next, chose Add Account
You should now have a screen in front of you that is the same as Picture 1 below. Select Microsoft Exchange, at which point you will see a form ready for your details (See Picture 2 below). You now need to enter you Google Account information in here using the following details:
- Email – Enter the name you want for the account, this can be anything you like
- Domain – Leave this blank
- Username – Enter you Google Account username in Email format
- Password – Enter you Google Account password
- Now tap Next at the top of your screen
- A new Server field will appear. Enter m.google.com
- Press Next at the top of your screen again
After pressing the second Next, you will see the iPhone check the settings and fingers crossed it should verify the account. You must now decide what information you want to Sync, at present ONLY the Calendar and Contacts are available even tho the Mail option is there. I will select Calendar here (See Picture 3 below) as previously mentioned I only want to Sync this information. Finally I hit Done. You will be asked to confirm you want to proceed with the Sync and that all the information will be removed first, hit Sync both times.
This is the process finished and you will now see your Google Calendar Synchronized to your iPhone! If you have any problems with this let me know but fingers crossed its a fairly straight forward process. Good luck Synching!
About the author...
Stu Greenham is a Web Designer / Developer who lives in Hull (North East England) and works for the web agency Strawberry. Follow him on Twitter (@stugreenham) to find out what he's up to.
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Great posts. I’ve been looking for something like this for some time.
I’m assuming I can’t use this to get the events from my iPhone calendar onto my Google account though? I didn’t actually try it, but it warned me it would delete all my calendar events if I turned it on.
@Erik – Thanks for your post, you can Sync both ways if that is what you mean? I put a test Sync event on my iPhone and it also displays on my Google Cal instantly
Yeah, but the events I already had on my iPhone before setting up the sync got deleted. Oh well, it still works great. And the events that got deleted can be synced back from iCal. :)
Great write up. I had a few hoops to jump through to get my Google Apps account syncing up, so I blogged it here: http://geeklike.me/2009/02/google-sync-with-google-apps-accounts/
@Erik – Yeah I did mention the data needs to be backed up but at least iCal is there as you said to put em back on woop! I love been able to use just one calendar anywhere knowing it will be Sync wirelessly.
@Dan – Thanks mate and thanks for the link I will check out your post reet now