iPhone & Google Calendar sync

[topaz]

I love my iPhone.  Oh, I love it so much.  But there is one thing that I never was able to do that drove me nuts, and that was keep the calendar on my phone synched with Google Calendar.  I use Google Calendar to schedule pretty much everything in my life now, and not being able to get it reliably on my phone was maddening.

The last time I looked at this, the only solution seemed to involve Google Sync, a tool which looked at best a little kludgy and at worst threatened to lose all of my data if something went wrong.  I elected not to use it.

But as of the iPhone 3.0 update it is possible to make your phone sync directly with GCal: http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?answer=151674.

After following that, go to https://www.google.com/calendar/iphoneselect to select the calendars you want to see on your phone.  Make sure you hit "Save".

Voila!  Now I can schedule appointments and -- dare I say it? -- lunch dates! with confidence.  It's like a whole new world, baby.

Comments

[catya.livejournal.com]

I got it to work! Very exciting.

(i had been doing one webdav account per calendar, which was a giant PITA)

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the hard part was figuring out how to get other subscribed calendars onto the phone. Most of the sites I read for hints didn't give me a clue about the iphoneselect page.

[ckd]

Hmm. Not sure I'd want to schedule a lunch "date", but we should get together for lunch sometime since our offices are about a block apart....

[penk.livejournal.com]

I also found that this was PAINFULLY slow. I have something like 8 caldav calendars now, and that + my exchange syncing == pain.

I hope this'll let me get rid of the dav calendars, and speed things up.

[catya.livejournal.com]

definitely better on mine!

[blk]

Pre had that with version 1...

:)

[coastergalwdw.livejournal.com]

Cool. Let's do lunch then!

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

It could be a lunch meeting if that sounds better. Hey, that way maybe we could even deduct it!

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Awesome! When you in Cambridge next? :-)

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

So did your mom.

[bitty.livejournal.com]

Well, I now have a day off on Friday, so I could schedule up a lunch spot :)

[ghislaine.livejournal.com]

Thank you THANK YOU for this!

But

[faulkner.myopenid.com (from livejournal.com)]

I preferred Google Sync over CalDav, because it synchronized contacts too. I hate having to plug in to synchronize anything. That's what the network is for.

But sadly Google Sync runs over Active Directory, and the iPhone only supports one Active Directory account at a time. So it's Google Sync or work calendar/email but not both.

Re: But

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

I admit to being mystified that I can't sync all of that stuff over the air. But it doesn't bother me as much. I want frequent calendar updates because I subscribe to calendars maintained by other people -- in particular, my wife -- and I want to get updates on those even if I haven't synched my phone to the desktop in a while. Contacts I care a little less about, since I'm the only person in charge of those anyway.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Friday was already spoken for, I fear. I have openings Tuesday and Wednesday of Thanksgiving week...