iPhone/iPod Touch tip: google calendar, gmail addressbook 2-way link

[da]

I ran across a site with some non-intuitive iDevice tips.

http://www.todaysiphone.com/2010/01/vid-iphone-101-%E2%80%94-how-to-set-up-multiple-emails/

If you use gmail, gmail address book, and google calendar, they will all link two-way with your Touch/Phone. I never set up the address book and calendar, so I gave it a go. It works, quite well! Now my non-phone is good for two more things, offline! (I had set up gmail, previously. But I really rely on google calendar.)

All it requires is setting up a new email account with "Microsoft Exchange" (instead of the "gmail" choice) and supplying 'm.google.com' as the server. The link above has a video demo/instructions.

--
I remain a neutral observer on the iPad release. It certainly isn't billed as a do-everything device. Which is ok; maybe that will happen with v.2 or v.3. v1's success will depend on how people react to actually having it in their hands. I was fairly "meh" about the Air until I saw one in person. (And then melted_snowball notes that it isn't really a full laptop replacement either).

I'm unconvinced that it will be a credible business device, unfortunately. Could it be a traveling laptop display extender? It's exactly the same height as my 15" macbook. I've seen displays that work over ethernet; if it's fast enough for full-screen video, it's probably fast enough to handle display extending over wifi. ...so then you have a little monitor you can carry around the room and connect to different machines at once. Hey?

It might be an OK device for creating things. melted_snowball suggests that it's apparently been constructed as a device to buy and consume things created by others. I am not so certain that's a hard limitation; if text input isn't too clunky, and their iWork applications aren't so clunky, and the developer kit makes it possible to DESIGN good creative apps... I'll just say if I had a lot of free time, I would enjoy trying to develop for the platform (casts jealous eyes at the iPhone devs around).

Comments

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

Text input is entirely via an on-screen keyboard and the back of the device *isn't flat*, so you can never rest it on something, take your hands off of it and type, two-handed. At the same time, people have reported that it's too wide to Blackberry thumb-type on comfortably. It seems that the combinations of these factors is what led to them issuing the keyboard dock so that when you're at your desk you can type on it reasonably well, but all in all it seems that typing on it will continue to be clunky, at least for the near future. Third-party cases that flip over to transform into laptop "stands" might help.

[http://users.livejournal.com/merle_/]

it's probably fast enough to handle display extending over wifi

Maybe. I find remote desktop solutions over wifi to be annoying and hard to tune, as you have to disable anything vaguely animated and have all your windows where you want them. But I doubt they are marketing the iPad as a business device of any sort.

[bats22.livejournal.com]

Woot! Thanks for posting this--Sarah was not able to access my Google Calendar until I copied/pasted your post and sent it to her; she can now interface iPhone and Google Calendar (including my calendar) just fine! Consider this a service-to-intwarweb-friends thumbs up. Yay!

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

haha. totally worth it, to see your new icon. (or, at least, new to me).

Yay!

[bats22.livejournal.com]

It's actually a steal from the New York Times... but it was so good when I first saw it that I had to grab it.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=138740 for the google official version of the instructions. Which includes a link to here on how to sync multiple calendars. Yay!