Tutorial: iPhone Outlook/Google Calendar 2 way Sync Over the Air

R

raul

Adept
I have been investigating whether Google Calendar/Outlook can be synced to iPhone 2 way over the air (OTA) and have discovered something approaching a solution.

I specifically started looking out for Google Calender OTA sync because that's what I use for my personal stuff. My work stuff is on exchange server and gets synced to blackberry and my outlook at home is also synced to my Office exchange server so I was looking for something that doesn't involve Outlook.

Firmware 2 will apparently support Exchange server but that is only relevant to me if my office folks replace blackberry with iPhone and since IPhone is not yet available here that's a big if. For my personal Google Calender sync it still remains a challenge. In the process I discovered both Outlook and Google ota sync so hopefully this will be useful for others not with my specific requirements.

The current sync scenario by Apple is like this and needs you phone to be connected by cable to iTunes:

iPhone----iTunes---Outlook Calendar/Contacts and back (2 way means updates on your Outlook Calendar/Contacts show up on iPhone and updates on iPhone show up on Outlook calendar/Contacts)

This is clearly not a serious solution for busybodies like us. Google has a program called GoogleCalenderSync for windows that syncs Google calendar to Outlook 2 way directly.

So if you want to sync Google calendar to iPhone it would go like this:

iPhone----iTunes---Outlook Calendar/Contacts--GoogleCalendarSync-Google Calender and back

This still requires iTunes and cable so its not very useful.

For OTA sync you need a SyncML server online and client on your phone but thats not enough. The SyncML server needs to be able to sync with Outlook/Google either directly or indirectly to make a real time collaboration environment or else it will merely be backup for your contacts/Calendar oranother layer for you to log in online to the SyncML server site to make changes to your calendar/contacts. We don't want that. We want to continue to use Google/Outlook/iPhone and have all changes reflected OTA in near real time.

The SyncML scene for iPhone is dismal. There are no native iPhone SyncML clients by Apple, a pity since most smart phones nowadays have inbuilt SyncML clients. However there are exactly 3 third party clients of which only one can sync 2 way.

iPhone SyncML Clients

SyncJE - Syncs contacts, calendar and notes 2 way. The most capable at the moment, 15 days trial, $39.

Syncml2iPhone - Syncs calender one way ONLY. So you can get events from Google calendar for example and that's it. Free but limited functionality, nearly useless for my needs. I need 2 way sync for this to make sense.

Funambol/SyncEvolution - Syncs contacts only, is 2 way. Free but again limited. More functionality promised. Has potential if calendar sync is included and apparently its being worked on.

SyncML Servers

Again the scenario here is dismal. goosync.com, scheduleworld.com, my.funambol.com, mementoo, zyb, mobical.

Goosync.com - The free version is very limited and only offers 30 days timeframe calendar syncing 2 way and no tasks or contacts syncing, the paid version at $20 is more featured with 2 way sync of tasks, contacts and calendar. The good thing with goosync is it syncs with your google calender directly so once your iPhone client syncs with goosync it automatically gets your google calendar data in real time. But first you have to pay $39 for the client and then $20 for goosysnc. So for around $60 you get a reasonably good solution for over the air synching.

Scheduleworld.com - This is free and offers 2 way sync of calendar, contacts, tasks and is really fully featured in every way. It even syncs automatically with google calendar and contacts and has capabilities for outlook/other calendars that I have not explored fully. Unfortunately its quite involved to set up and doesn't work at all with the only iPhone client that syncs 2 way, SyncJE. If scheduleworld could work with SyncJE iphone it would be a fantastic solution but alas it doesn't currently. At all.

Memotoo.com - Again the free version is very limited to 40 contacts and 40 calendar events, the paid version offers everything. Haven't explored this in detail. Too limited.

Mobical.net - This is a free syncml server but has no connectivity to Outlook or Google so its more like a over the air backup service for your contacts. You can sync calendar to it but then what, access the calendar online at mobical? Why do I need another calendar service and another site to manage my calendar. Doesn't make sense to me.

zyb.com - similar to mobical.net. The server can back up your contacts and calendar for you to view or work on on their site but your data is stuck there, no sync with outlook/google so nearly useless for me. Its free though.

my.funambol.com - These guys are on the right track, they even have a native iPhone client albeit limited to contacts syncing. They have a free server online too, Woo! They are the creators of an opensource syncml server called funambol which appears to be popular and well known. What a strange name. Their iPhone client as I mentioned is not very useful at the moment till the expected calendar functionality turns up, however with SyncJE you can sync contacts/calendar/notes 2 way with their server. The best part is they have an outlook plug in which syncs Outlook 2 way to the same server. So you can sync iPhone with Outlook contacts/calendar 2 way over the air with this. Cool. Better Google have a program called googlecalendarsync for windows which can sync Google calendar and Outlook. See the possibilities.

iPhone-SyncJE-my.funambol.com-outlook-google and back.

So this is a full 2 way sync over the air for iPhone calendar/contacts with Google/Outlook that can be done currently with the very limited tools. I tried it and it works perfectly. Not bad. Of course a direct solution with the funambol server syncing with google would be nice, but this is doable now.

What you need:

1. Edge/Wifi connection - Doh

2. iPhone SyncML client - SyncJE. Add this to your installer sources and install SyncJE - iPhone Sync | BlackBerry Sync | Mobile Sync | Contacts Sync | Outlook Sync | Calendar Sync software at Nexthaus

3. Account at my.funambol.com. It will ask for your device, select iPhone (doesn't matter), it will also ask for Phone number (give any, doesn't matter)

4. Funambol outlook client. Once you get a login you can download the outlook plugin through the download link.

5. GoogleCalendersync.exe available from your Google Calendar account account linked like this Sync with Microsoft Outlookâ„¢ calendarNew!

So how will it work:

Start SyncJE on your iPhone. Touch the little 'i' in the bottom right corner for the settings window. Here enter your my.funambol account details.

a. URL - http://my.funambol.com/sync

b. Username/Password - Enter your details from your my.funambol.com account.

c. Switch on 'Contacts' and 'Calendar'. 'Folder Name' for contacts enter './card'. For 'Folder Name' for calendar enter './cal'

Once that is set up you can sync SyncJE client with the SyncML server at my.funambol.com. You contacts and calendar events on iPhone will turn up in the contacts and calendar at my.funambol.com instantly OTA.

Now if you run the Funabmol Outlook applet on your desktop it will sync your my.funambol.com data to your Outlook. If you want to sync further with Google run the GoogleCalendarSync applet on your desktop and it will sync your outlook to Google Calendar.

The end result is like this OTA:

iPhone------SyncJE-----my.funambol.com----Funambol Outlook Plug app---Outlook--GoogleCalendarSync app-Google Calendar and back.

If you don't need Google Calendar sync you can stop at Outlook for a shorter chain. Any change you make will be reflected in Google calendar and any change you make in Google calendar will be reflected in iPhone wirelessly in near real time.

The bottom line, unnecessarily complicated but doable. Plus the SyncJE client is a demo for 15 days and costs $39. The Funambol native client for iPhone currently only does contacts but hopefully within the next few weeks/months will do calendar too. So we won't need SyncJE.
 
SyncML is supposed to be a powerful standard with even push mail capabilities but seeing how many hoops one has to go through I am skeptical of its value.

The ideal scenario would be a built in SyncML client and a SyncML server (preferably free) that is directly connected to Google Calendar/Outlook. That way you just insert the SyncML server id in the inbuilt client and your are done syncing with Google and Outlook.

Those who are thinking of attempting this, I don't think many will - this is a one off case and too much trouble honestly - it will be good idea to back up your contacts in Windows address book or something. That way you can experiment in peace to set up the sync properly.
 
Very nice work dude!! Looks like you've put a lot of time and work into it. If I've understood this correctly, it can also be used to keep an online backup of all the contacts on my phone in the unlikely event that my phone and my PC decide to crash on the same day, right?!
 
Yup, its or seamless integration of contacts and calender from iPhone to Outlook/Google though Google contact is not supported yet. It's not so complicated once you understand SyncML. I could have made the tutorial simpler but I wanted you guys to understand the background.

However there are 2 manual steps where you use the funambol outlook plugin to syn the funambol server and the googlecalendarsync applet to sync google and outlook. That's why scheduleworld is good, it automatically syncs to Google and Outlook I think but for some reason the SyncJE client Is not working with it.
 
Just to clarify for those who just want to backup contacts and don't need to sync calendar with Outlook or Google mobical.net, zyb.com and even Plaxo.com are decent options.
 
Thanks, Raul, for this awesome solution.

Could you please post step-by-step directions for setting up synchronization with goosync? I'd like to be able to sync with my google calender directly without always having to go through outlook, and I don't mind paying $20 extra dollars.

Also, if you (or anyone else) could post an update to this thread when a simpler solution is created (by, for example, goosync, funambol, or scheduleworld), I'd appreciate it.
 
PS Just to clarify my last message: I realize that the solution you already provided, Raul, doesn't require that Outlook be open all of the time for the sync with Google Calendar to work. However, I'd like to be able to modify my Google Calendar on computers away from home that don't have Outlook, and I gather that to do this I need to use goosync.
 
dman, both goosync and scheduleworld sync directly with google so that's convenient for those who need to sync iPhone with google calendar and have no use for Outlook.

However since scheduleworld is not working with the only 2 way calendar/contacts sync client for iPhone SyncJE that leaves only goosync which is paid, the free version being limited. However scheduleworld works perfectly well with other syncml clients on Windows/Linux/OSX, just the iPhone client is not working.

In your case if you are willing to subscribe to goosync it will directly sync with google calendar/contacts. So your iphone syncml client/any syncml client with sync with goosync and the site will sync with google.

You just have to put in the goosync url and other info in your syncml client and you are ready to go. The syncml settings for the server are available on the site.
 
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thank you raul for the great overview! :)

I tried now funambol with the Outlook plug-in. So far I get a fully synchronisation of all my calendar data to myFunambol. But from my 981 outlook-contacts only 105 are submitted. If I check the process in the sync-Box, the numbers count up nicely till 981, but still in myFunambol are the 105. Additionaly it looks to me, as theses 105 are a very old state of my outlook-contacts. I tried to add a new one in outlook and to sync and... the new one is submitted to myFunambol.

Any idea, where the problem is?

Thanx for feedback
morse
 
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