The new Calendar switch for a GMail account is actually a CalDAV sync and provides the same basic functionality as setting up CalDAV manually in iOS 3.x would have done (see http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?answer=151674 for more information). iOS 4 merely provides a switch with your GMail account settings to turn this on automatically without having to configure a separate entry for Google Calendar. This method does not sync contacts -- only your mail (via IMAP) and your calendar (via CalDAV). This won't have any impact on Spanning Sync at all -- even if you're also syncing with iCal via MobileMe or iTunes, the Google Calendars appear as compeltely separate calendars in your Calendar app on the iPhone. You may end up with a duplicate set of calendars on the iPhone if you're also syncing with iCal, but as far as iOS is concerned they're completely separate calendars so there's no risk of data being mixed up on the iPhone side of things.
The other option is Google Sync, which is what I think Charlie is referring to since he mentions that he's also syncing contact info. Google Sync involves setting up your GMail account as a Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync account, rather than using the "GMail" setting. This gives you "Push" for your e-mail and can also sync contacts and calendars using the ActiveSync protocol -- Google is effectively pretending to be an Exchange server in this case. There are a few downsides to this approach: You'll get push e-mail but you won't be able to actually *delete* messages -- when you use the delete option on the iPhone, Google Sync translates this to an archive and there is no way to change this. Your calendar colours don't get preserved as the ActiveSync protocol doesn't provide any way to set this information on the iPhone so the iOS simply assigns the colours randomly, and as Charlie already pointed out not all of the contact information syncs. Personally, I'm using a hybrid of both approaches: I use MobileMe to sync my Contact information since it matches up the iPhone Contacts and my OS X Address Book perfectly and then I sync my Google Calendar via CalDAV so that I get proper colours for my myriad calendars and use a generic IMAP account to sync my mail, primarily so I can use alternate "From" addresses (the default "GMail" account type on iOS doesn't allow for this). The downside is that none of the Google stuff is "push" -- the Calendar and Mail updates every 15 minutes, but that's more than sufficient for my purposes. On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 2:04 PM, cwood <[email protected]> wrote: > Timothy- > > First, thanks. :-) As for Google's over-the-air iPhone sync, I use it > myself. It coexists perfectly with Spanning Sync, and while it's a > little more limited in the data it syncs (especially some of the more > exotic contact fields) the over-the-air convenience is nice. But of > course, always back up your data before you change your sync > configuration. <cough, spanningbackup.com, cough>. > > -c > > > On Aug 16, 9:51 am, Timothy Eustis <[email protected]> wrote: > > First, I second Damian's comment. The replies we get from the spanning > sync team are good, timely, etc. So ease up on rants. > > > > Second, poking around slowly with > > OS4 on iPhone, I found that I can turn on Calendars in the Google account > settings on my iPhone. I haven't done it, as I'm deeply afraid of the > ramifications. But, I'm curious and it would be convenient. Nice to not have > to wait for Mac to make the sync. Plus, am on holiday so Mac has been off > for a week. > > > > Can the Calendars feature on Google Account setting coexist peacefully > with spanning sync or will turning it on wreak havoc on the data? > > > > Thank you > > > > Timothy > > > > Sent from my iPhone. Speling errors don't count. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Spanning Sync" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]<spanningsync%[email protected]> > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/spanningsync?hl=en. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Spanning Sync" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/spanningsync?hl=en.
