Synchronicity

I mentioned on Twitter recently that I have achieved a long-held dream (yes, I’m a nerd): 2-way push syncing between Google Calendar and iPhone. Several people asked me how I did it, and this post is for them. It’s no special trick on my part; I just finally used the tools that I knew were there but hadn’t taken the time to employ. (The few inches of snow horrible, death-dealing white reign of terror on Monday afforded me some unexpected free time at home in the evening.)

So, here’s what happened (apologies to Adrian Monk), and how you too can enjoy this bliss:

First, I did a sync with iTunes to make sure that my iPhone calendar and iCal on the Mac had the latest info.

Then, I went into the Settings app on the iPhone, selected Mail, Contacts, and Calendars, and selected Add Account per the instructions here. The new account you are adding is Microsoft Exchange. In the Email field, I entered “Google Calendar.” Username is your Gmail address connected with the Google Calendar you use, likewise the password.

Once you’ve entered that, tap “Next” and a field for the Server will show up. Type m.google.com and tap “Next” again.

I have no interest in syncing contacts with Google (I get mine pushed between iPhone and my Macs via MobileMe), so I turned OFF the contacts syncing option on the next page. Email will also be OFF; just turn Calendar to ON.

You’ll have to press SYNC twice then to confirm. Next, to get any read-only calendars you’re subscribed to, open up Safari on the iPhone and go to m.google.com/sync – from there you can add up to five subscribed calendars, which will also push to your iPhone. I have my church’s Google Calendar along with Christian Holidays and US Holidays.

Part Two

I had been using MobileMe to keep a calendar I called “Mac/iPhone” in sync between my iMac, Macbook, and iPhone. I would add appointments from my computer or iPhone there, which my wife (also our church administrative assistant) could view, but not edit. Likewise, appointments she made for me in Google Calendar I could view but not edit from the iPhone. Sometimes, one of us would make an appointment, but the other wouldn’t know about it until I’d synced my iPhone (usually once a day at home), which caused confusion. Hence, the need to ditch the separate calendar and just use Google.

However, I still want to be able to view and make changes on my Macs in the native iCal program, because of it’s interaction with Mail.app and other desktop programs I use. So first, I had to make sure I had a record of all future appointments that I had made in the “Mac/iPhone” calendar. Fortunately, there weren’t too many, so I just jotted them down on a piece of paper and entered them into Google Calendar manually. If you have a lot, there might be an easier way to port them over. 

After that, I found this nifty program via Google Code called Calaboration (I’m a sucker for puns). I ran this program twice: once for my Google Calendar, and once for our church’s calendar which is on Google Apps for Your Domain. This was supposed to give me read/write access in iCal for these Google Calendars (previously I had them subscribed in iCal, which meant they were read-only). However, I discovered that I wasn’t able to add or edit any appointments in any calendar except the original “Mac/iPhone” calendar. After reading this post on Google Tutor, I decided to delete that calendar (since I had already copied the appointments anyway). After doing that, I could create and edit appointments from the Mac that showed up almost instantly online or on the iPhone. 

I <3 Google and I <3 Apple, and now at last I have a perfect calendaring solution thanks to them playing nice with each other.

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